"Berlin" license flawed?
Hi!
No, Berlin currently has *no* open-source license.
>From <http://www.berlin-consortium.org/license.html>:
"You, the Licensee, agree to uphold and recognize The Berlin Consortium as
the sole co-ordinating body with the authority to set standards for the
use of this software, the Berlin system and its derivatives."
This contradicts, for example, 9. of "The Debian Free Software Guidelines":
"9. License Must Not Contaminate Other Software
The license must not place restrictions on other software that is
distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must
not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be
free software."
The Berlin license wouldn't allow me to create a Berlin spin-off.
The Berlin license allows the Berlin Consortium to set the "standards
for the use of this software" (what the heck does this mean?) later.
This seems to me like a license back-door.
This license advocates, of course, a "Cathedral" approach.
This may have worked for the X11 Consortium.
This does not work for a project that claims to be "open-source".
In an open-source project, standardization is secondary, because source code
is available free. Or, like the IETF puts it, for the creation of standards,
"we believe in working code".
I'd suggest you delete that passage of the license entirely.
Yours,
Markus.
--
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Markus Fleck - CS Student - UNIX Support - Uni Bonn - fleck(@)isoc.de
"What's taking so long? It's only typing!" -- a marketing manager
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
--
TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to
debian-devel-request@lists.debian.org .
Trouble? e-mail to templin@bucknell.edu .
Reply to: