Posting GitHub comment to list.
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [copyleft-next] Revise Proprietary Relicensing poison pill. (021eb72) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 06:35:05 -0800 From: Engelnyst notifications@github.com Reply-To: richardfontana/copyleft-next reply+c-2367179-ec89f72124a412582d6abdd7fb73f292aacf92ca-1179636@reply.github.com To: richardfontana/copyleft-next copyleft-next@noreply.github.com CC: Richard Fontana fontana@sharpeleven.org
I'm very, very glad to see this reference of the OSI approval. It is the best usable criterium I can think of, to distinguish a license from 'proprietary licensing'.
* Simplicity argument is fair and reasonable IMHO: indeed it is straightforward to know what falls under the OSI list, and tbh that is very useful to developers. Not everyone will or can take the time to figure out on their own what may fall under a definition like OSD, FSD or Debian (except to use those definitions for understanding, context, argumentation in particular cases).
* If there are doubtful licenses on the OSI list, personally I don't see that as a downside of any significance. One can very well take the path to publicly discourage or not encourage or express doubt on them, rather than make the whole definition in this license legally too restricted or confusing. That risks to be unusable.
* I should say, I do think that a relying on a definition has its strenghts however, besides the risks.
not to mention the offense the FSF is likely to take
This is a purely political argument, one that smells very bad. I've been occasionally following development of copyleft-next, with the hope that it will perhaps define copyleft without compromises which, lets say, have no good reasons to be made. Not trying to open an argument on that side, lets just say that IMHO a reasonable enough criterium (even if perhaps no criterium is perfect) is preferable to compromises with others 'offenses'.
It occurs to me that this Proprietary Relicensing provision is the one
part of copyleft-next that is in danger of taking on certain GPLv3-ish stylistic qualities that are undesirable generally for copyleft-next. I am not sure how to solve that without making the provision significantly longer or removing it from copyleft-next. I don't like either of those options.
What do you mean by "certain GPLv3-ish stylistic qualities that are undesirable generally for copyleft-next"? A quick pointer to where I can find details will be enough. Thank you.
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