On Sun, May 19, 2019 at 1:30 AM Stephen Paul Weber <singpol...@singpolyma.net> wrote: > > > Saying "OSI's list isn't very useful in contracts or scanners" does carry > an implicit question that I've probably also said explicitly on occasion: if > people don't, by and large, refer exactly to the OSI list in their documents > and scanners, then what is it for? > > I frequently see thing very *like* what you describe, but less legally formal > than a contract (such as submission policies to contests or app-store-like > aggregators, etc) say "submissions must be under an OSI-approved license" and > similar words. Occasionally in an effort to seem inclusive policies will say > "OSI or FSF approved" or some such, but I've never been under the impression > that this was because either list if deficient, but rather that the policy > didn't want to "choose sides".
The latter, at least, may be a special case of what I'd consider a more politically sophisticated use of the OSI list (and FSF list). Both lists are valuable in many situations because they are maintained by authorities that are (largely) respected and seen as neutral, in a certain sense that is perhaps not true of, say, the Blue Oak Council, or the Fedora project for that matter. The desire not to choose sides is also seen in the use (declining, I think) of the "FOSS" and "FLOSS" acronyms. By the way, one of the reasons why Fedora historically did not rely on the OSI list was that in Fedora's earlier years (mid-2000s) the OSI was beginning to develop a reputation of being inappropriately influenced by commercial stakeholders. I can't say whether this was fair or not, but I vividly remember the viewpoint existing in that time period. This is worth keeping in mind when considering some of the recent criticism leveled at OSI for "rejecting" licenses put forward by commercial entities or license stewards that primarily have a business model motivation for the proposed license. Richard _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@lists.opensource.org http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
