Quoting Pamela Chestek (pamela.ches...@opensource.org): > Larry, > > Thanks for the kudos, I appreciate it.
(Kibbitzing, because not-Larry:) Much thanks to _you_ for caring and doing the heavy lifting. As mentioned, I join those in applauding the Board's current goals about consistenly civil and more-productive discussion, even though I might likewise quibble about jumping on mere use of the word 'absurd'. Finding the right balance is not only a tricky proposition, but also requires kaizen-ing, in my experience. But good point, well taken, that civility, respect, and advancing discussion is important. And yes, we may _not_ express opinions any way we want. Please pardon a wee bit more pontificating: I take Board good faith Board as given, but IMO it's well to be wary of Internet gamesmanship, that a cynic might imagine being behind _some_ claims of oppression from some never-identified silent majority[1] or whatever. I couldn't help noticing that these nebulous complaints emerged immediately after one or two proposals advanced on l-r with the obvious attention of -- IMO -- gaming OSI into approving very dubious alleged open source licences, failed approval with expressions of great unhappiness and singing from the time-honoured 'OSI has become irrelevant' hymnbook by agents of business interests wanting to use them in creative ways that many of us felt violated OSD#6, i.e., to prevent competitors being on a level play field, as to the use of covered works and related code in commerce. (Some will not agree with my characterisation, which is fine. I say merely that it's the way I see things, and doubt I'm alone in this.) Looking from a jaundiced perspective, sudden 'some l-r regulars were guilty of bullying during their analyses' complaints look uncomfortably close to 'some l-r regulars were too inconveniently effective in pointing out reasons for OSI to not approve our licence'. Passive-aggressive attempts to 'get' inconvenient critics have been a thing, in online media, all of the many decades I've spent online. All I ask is for the Board to be careful about getting played, that way I've seen said playbook so many times before, such that I think I'm now entitled to a 20% frequent-customer discount. So, when I hear claims that 'those who hold different viewpoints were afraid to state their difference of opinion', and about 'losing voices'I cannot help concern about that being (at least from some, and I don't mean you) a tactical dodge. Because there are revenues at stake in haranguing and special-pleading one's way past licence critics, and gaming OSI can be a non-trivial business coup. On another note, my thanks to John Cowan for his citation of FidoNet's motto, the one enshrined by my friend Tom Jennings (FidoNet's founder) in FidoNet's governing POLICY4 document. (I refer to Tom's evergreen guideline: '1) Thou shalt not excessively annoy others. 2) Thou shalt not be too easily annoyed.') Truer words, and all that. -- Rick Moen emeritus sysop/owner/builder, 1:125/27@FidoNet, The Skeptic's Board BBS (1988-1994) (which ran a 100% free/open source software stack, except for DOS, Qemm, and DesqView). [1] https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nixon-calls-on-the-silent-majority _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@lists.opensource.org http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
