On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 4:14 AM Henrik Ingo <henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi> wrote:
But if we want to claim that software can only be > called "open source" if it is under an OSI approved license, We don't, haven't, and can't claim this. "OSI Certified" is a cert mark which OSI owns and has to police. "Open source" is just a public-domain phrase we can try to discourage people from using for their badgeware or do-no-evil licenses. > When I evaluate whether software is open source, I would consider at > least the OSI and FSF lists, but possibly even other sources on > commentary for the license. > Good. You could always ask me while you are at it. :-) > most people out there are rather on the > level of "Microsoft will close source Github". I thought Github's software was closed-source already. > I remember when Microsoft submitted the MS-PL. Some people who were > also vocal in this thread, were strongly against approving it, because > although the license was OSD compliant, Microsoft was an evil company. > Luckily it was approved, and look at Microsoft's progress since. > Perhaps you also remember when I submitted MS-PL and another MS license a few years before. They were rejected on the perfectly correct process grounds that I could propose them but I couldn't change them if the OSI requested changes (they were too new to fit under the "legacy" category). I accepted that and withdrew them, but I continued to maintain (in the face of attacks on Groklaw) that the licenses were nevertheless open source, and eventually OSI agreed with me. I was not intruding on OSI's monopoly on "open source", because it has none. > There could also be an "open > source but not recommended" category for licenses that were approved > but only used by 1 or 2 projects/vendors. Some of the existing categories, which were absolute murder to get agreement on, were intended to serve that purpose. A *lot* of mailing-list participants did *not* want OSI to be in the position of saying "License A is better than license B." I don't think that's changed. Of course, anyone else can set up a license wizard that does make such recommendations.
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