License Committee Report for July 2007

I'm the chair of the license approval committee.  This is my report
for the current set of licenses under discussion.

Title: Open Source Hardware License 
Submission: 
  http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:12911:200707:jm...
Revised here:
  http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:12941:200707:jm...
License: In the submission
Comments: No consensus on license-discuss that OSI should be in the
  business of Open Source Hardware.
Recommend: more discussion, with some direction from the board.  Is
  this a direction that OSI should go in?  And, even if we do, is a
  license particular to hardware needed?


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Title: Common Public Attribution License (CPAL)
Submission: 
  http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:12849:200706:pd...
License: in the submission
Comments: Andrew Oliver: Tomorrows software will include Socialtext at
  the bottom of the stack of a much larger aggregation of software.
  Rick Moen: Let's be tolerant of licence-created problem scenarios that
  seem, at best, on the far end of "unlikely to actually occur".
Recommend: I think the board is on its own on this one.  My personal
  recommendation (as a board member, not the chair) is to approve the
  license and see if it achieves the Open Source effect.  The APL was
  not a widely used license, I suspect because of its complexity.
  Let's give attribution requirements another chance in a simpler
  license.  If such a licensed software does not achieve the Open
  Source effect, it will put the issue to rest.

-- 
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