Re: [Fsfe-uk] Wikipedia to merge Free Software and Open Source

[MJ Ray]

address@hidden (Philip Hands) wrote: [...]
> That's where the differences come from, the interpretation by individuals,
> but it's all the same thing really, and the corner cases are really not
> worth spending too much time on.  Personally, if the FSF, Debian, and
> OSI[1] don't like it, I avoid using it, and would certainly
> not pass it on to my customers.
>
> Cheers, Phil.
>
> [1] Actually, I mostly ignore the OSI, but if you can point to something
> that they don't like that FSF and Debian do like, then I'll consider
> not using it.

Am I wrong in thinking that the OSI corporation uniquely works by
having a lawyer advocate a licence to their board and the rest of the
world can go feel[*] itself as far as OSI approval is concerned?


The failed Open Source Initative has approved many many many more
licences than FSF.  They have been really slow to spot just how much
of a pain in the bum licence proliferation is for hackers and act on
it, but at least they have now.

Automatic comparison of
http://www.asheesh.org/note/software/osi-vs-fsf.html with
http://www.uk.debian.org/legal/licenses/ and
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html and a little human
filtering yielded the following three OSI-approved oddities:-

Artistic License 1.0 (FSF list it as non-free because "it is too vague")

NASA Open Source Agreement, version 1.3 (FSF: "it includes a provision
requiring changes to be your "original creation"")

Reciprocal Public License (FSF: "limits on prices ... notification ...
publication")


I just checked http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical and all
three are still listed there.  So anti-commericalism and forced
publication of private versions are fine by them, I guess.

The Debian project actually seems more conservative than both OSI and
FSF, probably because its listed licences are for stuff it actually
distributes, where as the others comment on any old licences.


[*] - The answer to the obvious question about this word is yes.

Regards,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237