Quoting Henrik Ingo (henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi): > I can of course only speak for myself, but I don't think the above is > the right conclusion at all. Recent mailing list discussion seems to > have made the point that adhering to precedent is hard, when in most > cases the process does not produce a formal decision nor any explicit > justifications for that non-existent decision.
Henrik, I can only say that I've been involved in this process since nearly the beginning, and that this notion of 'precedent' has simply never been accepted for the certification program -- and in fact has been explicitly repeatedly rejected -- partly (my surmise) because that's a problematic concept when applied to software licences, and partly (not just my surmise) because OSI approved as OSI Certified some thankfully obscure, peculiar software licences long ago that it probably shouldn't have. I'm sure you're right that some recent folks have stated here that 'adhering to precedent' is difficult: This is an open public mailing list; this past month would not be the first time someone has posted a well-intended statement resting on a mistaken assumption. > But that shouldn't be taken to say that the OSI isn't bound to > principles such as consistency, fairness and (some fuzzy version of) > predictability. I'm sure that everyone here aspires to those. > If OSI would explicitly state that there is no attempt to adhere to > precedent set by previous debates, IMO it would quickly lose > legitimacy. You're of course entitled to your opinion, but it is at odds with OSI established practice and history. Also FWIW I do not concur in any way -- completely aside from the fact that it's not even clear what specifically 'adhering to precedent' means concerning software licences, since each one really is a distinct case, and subitters saying 'But I frankensteined this one from two OSI Certified licences!' is a sadly common gambit that IMO ought not to be lent credibility. And, FWIW, I am officially tired of ex-cathedra pronouncements that 'OSI will lose legitimacy if it doesn't do $THING.' That polemical trope needs to be retired. > More generally, OSI only has legitimacy as long as its process > represents the opinion of the wider open source community. Saying that > decisions can be more or less arbitrary doesn't make sense. I note in passing a huge and obvious gap between 'certification decisions are ungoverned by precedent, but rather decided each time on the merits of the licence in relation to OSD' and 'certification decisions are arbitrary'. _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@lists.opensource.org http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
