On 12/04/2012 08:24 AM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
I don't think that copyleft-next should release until we actually think it's appropriate for software developers to license software under it.
I *sort of* agree with this, but we may have different notions of 'appropriate'. I now have the view that 'releasing for the sake of there being a release' makes no particular sense.
And, since this came up in the GitHub thread: I don't think a release isn't
(ITYM 'is')
going to cause network effects, if that's what you're aiming for.
Initially I think it was more like 'symbolic sign of progress', although that was before I realized copyleft-next is already quite suitable for use as a license (at least by comparison to existing popular or widely used FLOSS licenses).
For that, I suggest instead we do a discussion draft model. Granted, in git, every revision is a discussion draft, but we could mark a specific git revision for which we're willing to "take comments on" for a longer period -- even as the master branch moves forward. Basically, we'd be making a commitment to the community that comments for an older version would be considered for longer, and we'd always answer questions on that revision, even if the answer is: "We changed that text to this in the current draft which we think addresses your issue".
What do you think of that idea?
This is a nice idea, and is also similar to what I was thinking for a while. I forget whether I said this on the mailing list or to you in person (if the latter, this is HBR cure) - I said a numbered release could be similar to the GPLv3 discussion drafts. However, in reality there isn't currently much of a wider 'community' to make such a commitment to - beyond this mailing list of course. (I think there is a much larger group of people who have heard of copyleft-next, who are 'watching' the github repository, etc., but I'm not sure how significant their level of interest is.) I'm not saying that's a horrible thing, but it may make 'discussion drafts' seem a bit silly.
- RF