On Thu, 6 Sep 2007 20:13:56 -0700 Rick Moen wrote: > Quoting Francesco Poli (frx@firenze.linux.it): > > [Comparison of DFSG and OSD:] > > > OSI based its OSD on the DFSG.... > > More specifically, Bruce Perens wrote [...] Yes, that's the whole story in more detail, thanks for expanding my summary. > > (Incidentally, Debian should consider updating DFSG to incorporate > wording similar to that of OSD#10.) Yes, I agree. [...] > > However OSI has begun to interpret the OSD in such a relaxed way, > > that it seems almost any license even vaguely resembling something > > acceptable gets approved, sooner or later... > > I strongly dispute your assertion, having been active on OSI's > license-discuss mailing list for years and participated in pretty much > every evaluation there (while having been mostly a lurker here). > Would you mind please citing a few examples? Well, my opinion is that MPL, CDDL, QPL, APSL, and PHP Licenses (to name a few) should *not* have been certified. Please note that this is *my* own opinion, shared by other debian-legal regulars in some cases, but not necessarily in all of them. Moreover, I should re-stress the usual disclaimers: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP. > > > IMHO, the term "Open Source" has gradually become totally > > meaningless, because of this we-certify-everything attitude of OSI > > I know of not even one example of same. To the contrary, I was one of > several license-discuss participants who helped OSI reach consensus > to reject MPL 1.1 + Exhibit B badgeware licences, for example. I'm glad to hear about a rejection of a license that fails to satisfy the OSD. However, as I said above, I disagree with many other cases where licenses have been approved instead... > > > > (and, ironically, because of the success that the very term gained: > > everyone now uses and abuses the term "Open Source" to mean > > anything, just since it's a trendy term...). > > The abuse of the term by, e.g., Centric CRM is surely not OSI's fault. > They vocally oppose it, for one thing. And, actually, attempting to > do so is starting to emerge as a losing ploy, because it brings bad > publicity. I'm glad that something is being done to fight against misuse of the term "Open Source", but I see little evidence that misusing it brings bad publicity (even assuming that there *exists* any form of publicity which qualifies as bad...). I see and hear many many people who are ignorant about the meanings of the terms "Open Source" software and "Free Software". Well, the majority of them (that is: of ignorant people) seem to only have heard about something called "Open Source" and, since they do not understand what it means, they misuse it and abuse it in all contexts... I hope this explains. -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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