Answering a comment about the attribution debate I wrote I believed that OSI had a good chance to show the world why we need them, finding a way to close the debate, as soon as possible.
Today I learn that Michael Tiemann, Red Hat Chief Technology Officer and OSI President, posted a message on the license-discuss@opensource.org mailing-list saying:
[..]In the case of the SocialText license, I feel there’s significant risk that if we take on the responsibility of making the arguments, we may create a bias that is not faithful to the real arguments you want to make. Therefore, we’d like to invite those who think we should not approve the SocialText license to work out a common position on *why* we should not approve it, which could inform how SocialText could remedy your concerns. And we’d like to invite those who think we should approve it (or should approve it with some minor change) to work out a common position on why we *should* approve it. If one or both sides an biore willing to do this, I think that the Board’s decision process will appear much more transparent.
The OSI Board it’s likely to make the decision within February, but besides appearing more transparent they risk to delegitimate themselves..
Hey Roberto, I don’t think that it’s such a bad thing for the OSI to ask for community input.
Just think about how a true open source community works. Multiple viewpoints and multiple motivations but everyone’s pulling in the same direction.
I think more input and more transparency is a good thing; whether it’s for developing software, or for deciding on what constitutes an open source license.
I agree Savio, is not such a bad thing itself ask for comments, though they’re asking it now because they couldn’t manage to sort it out by themselves.
Democracy through participation it’s supposed to be a philosophy, not the ultimate resource when you’re in trouble, as Pontius Pilate.
lol - the Pontius Pilate reference made my day!