[LUAU] the OSI is a danger to Software Freedom

Clifton Royston cliftonr at iandicomputing.com
Sat Aug 25 14:48:35 PDT 2007


On Sat, Aug 25, 2007 at 01:22:56AM -1000, Jim Thompson wrote:
> From the blog of the General Counsel, (pro bono), of the Open Source  
> Initiative:
> http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.blogspot.com/2007/08/new-open-source- 
> legal-decision-jacobsen.html
> 
> Watch now as OSI licenses start to fall like dominoes before the  
> assault of Microsoft and others.

  I don't see how you get from "bad court decision" to "it's OSI's
fault" as your subject implies.  (Though I don't disagree that the
proliferation of faux-open licenses is a serious problem.)

  In particular, doesn't Perl's "Artistic License" significantly
predate the OSI?  ('Programming Perl' was published in '91 and I think
Perl used some variation of the Artistic License from the earliest,
while OSI only formed in '98.) And doesn't the court's reasoning in
this case pose just as much threat to the GPL?

  On the positive side, this is only a district court case, and I would
hope this might be differently decided on appeal, particularly if the 
appeal cites appropriate cases which have been decided differently.

  -- Clifton

-- 
    Clifton Royston  --  cliftonr at iandicomputing.com / cliftonr at lava.net
       President  - I and I Computing * http://www.iandicomputing.com/
 Custom programming, network design, systems and network consulting services



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