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

[Brian Foster]

  | From: Ciaran O'Riordan <ciaran at fsfe.org>
  | Date: 13 Jul 2007 15:06:14 +0100
  | 
  | Brian Foster <blf at utvinternet.ie> writes:
  |  >  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 ....
  | 
  | A discussion on the fsfe-uk list may have uncovered the reasons:
  | 
  |  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/fsfe-uk/2007-07/msg00002.html
  |
  |[ ... ]  And the suggested benefits of this new licence are:
  |
  |   "The BCS stands to benefit from the BSL in a number of ways.  [ ... ]
  |    * The BSL license process will generate a revenue [sic] to help pay
  |      for the maintenance of databases.  [ ... ]
  |
  | After eighteen months of working on GPLv3, I can tell them that
  | licence drafting processes do not generate revenue.

 I don't read those meeting minutes as talking about
 revenue from “license DRAFTING processes” (emphasis
 added), but from an “license [ASSURANCE] process”.

 this hypothetical assurance process is summarised in
 that document as (in part):

    “Licence Management
      BCS will maintain a database of BSL licenses with public access.

      There is a need for software assurance of Open Source software.
      As the Open Source ecosystem becomes more mature and the code
      base expands more and more government and commercial projects
      face a choice of whether or not to adopt Open Source code and
      products into their systems.  The BCS has the rightful duty to
      provide a software assurance service to assist in this adoption.

      The service will comprise of a number of elements; including
      but not limited to  1) provenance checks,  2) patents checks,
      3) BSL licence checks.  It is envisaged that use of the BCS
      software assurance service can be mandated on government
      procurement tenders, and encouraged on commercial tenders.”

 in other words, the idea is to get the governments in
 the UK to require (mandate) that FLOSS they (at least)
 use be BSL-licensed.  this hypothecial _mandatory_ BSL
 license can be obtained only be paying the BCS a fee;
 in return, the BCS assures (e.g.) there is no patent
 infringements.


 (N.b., following quote moved out-of-position.)
  |[ ... ]  I know guys in the BCS OSSG that are fairly clued in
  | about free software, so I guess this just hasn't been discussed
  | seriously or widely enough internally yet.

 I've only met small number of (known) BCS OSSG people,
 and came away with a very mixed impression.  but then,
 we weren't talking about licensing ....   I'd like to
 believe yer right, this is just a wild idea that will
 be stomped on fairly quickly (for multiple reasons,
 and at multiple levels, I suspect).

 incidently, the EC PDF document referred to yesterday
 specifically talks about an OSL-like license using
 EU (not (or in addition to?) USAian) legal terms, with
 both English and Français translations (at least) having
 equal validity.
 ( AFAICR, there is no mention of any issue with running
  FLOSS software in that document, albeit some of the
  other concerns in the above meeting minutes are
  discussed.  AFAICR, most(?) are small differences
  in the (legal) meaning of key(?) terms. )

 anyways, one of the (multiple) rationales for _that_
 idea (an EU license) — and I've no idea if it's gone
 anywhere — is to preclude (more-)localised licenses;
 i.e., to try and preclude things like this hypothetical
 UK license.

cheers!
	-blf-
-- 
▶ ▶  I AM CURRENTLY LOOKING FOR A JOB!  ◀ ◀ | Brian Foster
Experienced (>25 yrs) software engineer:    |        Montpellier, FRANCE
 • Unix, Linux, embedded, design-for-test;  | Stop E$$o (ExxonMobile)!
 • Software/hardware co-design, debugging;  |     http:/www.stopesso.com
 • Kernels, drivers, filesystems, &tc;    Résumé (CV) & contact details:
 • IDL, automated testing, process, &tc.   http://www.blf.utvinternet.ie