[ILUG] [UKUUG] BCS OS Licence - London 24/07/07

[Brian Foster]

  | Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 19:14:07 -0700
  | From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
  | 
  | Quoting Brian Foster (blf at utvinternet.ie):
  | >  I've no idea what this is about (i.e., why they
  | >   are proposing/discussing any such thing).
  | >    whatever, this may be interest to some ....
  | 
  | The fact that they omit all mention of _why_ is a bad sign.

 perhaps.  it could also just be a poorly-written
 announcement, along the lines of those neglecting
 to include the date or other key details.

  |[ ... ]
  |  Apparently, the proposal originated here:
  | 
  |    http://ossg.bcs.org/oldarchives/licensing/msg00011.html
  | 
  | Of the three "advantages" cited, none would be advanced by
  | writing a new licence.  But the real reason is cited right
  ! above that:
  | 
  |    If it good enough for the The Regents of the University
  |    of California, then why not for the BCS itself?
  | 
  | In other words, pure me-too-ism.

 whilst I concur it seems the idea is me-too-ism,
 following the other posts in that thread suggests
 another angle.  it's _still_ a case of me-too-ism,
 but there may be a twist to it?:

 1.  http://ossg.bcs.org/oldarchives/licensing/msg00018.html

   “There is a summary of various open source licences,
    albeit with a Sun bias, at the following address:

       http://java.net/choose_license.csp

    The table summary is quite useful for this debate.
    Both GPL and LPGL force the consumer of the open source to
    publish modifications.  Many companies wish to add value
    while protecting their investment and so are put off using
    any of the Free Software Foundation licences.

    Those that don't have the publication need e.g. BSD, Mozilla,
    are more likely to appeal to business but have the disadvantage
    of being drawn up under the American legal system.

    What would be useful is a UK domiciled open source licence
    that is business friendly, sound legally and protects from
    copyright reassignment[.]
.
    That is not a slight against the FSF, who deserve great credit
    for helping to get Open Source to where it is today, more a
    means to improve the acceptability of businesses both using
    Open Source and publishing Open Source products.”

 ( there's a number of dubious claims made in the above,
  but I'm going to assume — without evidence — those
  dubious claims are not too germane to the puzzle of
  what is motivating/driving this idea .... )

 so the me-too-ism _may_ be a BSD-ish license that is
 not (allegedly) so dependent on USAian/Californian
 law (but on UK or EU legalities).  this is, perhaps,
 further confirmed by (with additional, and possibly
 weird, claims of its own):

 2.  http://ossg.bcs.org/oldarchives/licensing/msg00022.html

   “Things seem to be moving towards regional licences.
    The OSI has indicated that both Brazil (lots of OS related
    publicity lately) and the European commision [sic] are about
    to apply for OSI licence approval.

    Here's is a rather formal analysis of why the EU needs it
    own OS licence:

       http://europa.eu.int/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=3D19296

    Most of the analysis also applies to the need for a BCS
    domiciled licence.”

 I have not read the above document (which is PDF), nor
 the previously-referenced (Sun?) comparison, but the
 claims above of “moving towards regional licences”, and
 “the European [commission is] about to apply for OSI
 licence approval” are news to me.  WTF??!?

 so yea, it does look like me-too-ism, but there might
 be something other than vanity driving the idea?
 ( and that something might be tied to the EU (which
  ought to be just fine for the UK?)?!  whether or
  not the EU/EC/whatever is somehow mixed up in this,
  Ireland is as well, simply because software licensed
  with some hypothecial EU or UK domiciled license would,
  eventually, be used in Ireland. )


  | On the bright side, constructing a pointless vanity licence and then
  | seeing everyone else totally ignore it can serve as a valuable lesson
  | in why one should not create them.

 how does one measure how many people/projects use any
 particular license?

 the BCS does have money, so the following is perhaps
 not as relevant:  I'd hope that for any group which
 decides to actually write a vanity license, the cost
 (of the legal begals et al.) would quickly and sharply
 dampen the enthusiasm.

cheers!
	-blf-
-- 
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