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Re: Draft new DFSG



Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:

> As I've said before, most recently in a posting to -private, and
> before that in various fora, I think the DFSG has some serious
> problems due to loose wording.  I also strongly dislike the patch
> clause.

Oh no!  Now we are going to have two "standards" for free licenses.

We'll have the old "DFSG", which will live on as Bruce and ESR's Open
Source Definition (probably with amendments).  Isn't Red Hat using
those guidelines?

Then we'll have our new "DFSG", which is almost the same, but will be
divergent in several areas.  Yuck.

This is going to launch a hundred different Qt-like flamewars for
borderline licenses.  Remember, Qt was free enough for a lot of
people, but not for us.

What happens when the "AOL Public License" (theoretical case) is free
enough for Bruce and ESR, but not for us?  I'll tell you what will
happen - there will be wars!

This is very bad timing.  A few days after we get all the whole Linux
community to agree to a common set of free software guidelines, we
decide to change them.  People are going to hate us!

Cheers,

 - Jim




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