OSI Approval: Open Source Initiatives approves GPLv3!
Today the GPL v3 and LGPL v3 were unanimously approved by the OSI board, as reported by Michael Tiemann, President of the Open Source Initiative.
Tiemann blessed the GPLv3 few months ago, and the OSI board this time was really fast to close the GPLv3 approval process, showing a very different attitude compared with an other recent approval.
I really wish to congratulate with you all!
Michael Tiemann by pdcawley
Tiemann commenting on the OSI blog said he liked to personally acknowledge few people, among them all of us:
The broader communities of both the free software camp and the open source camps, who both challenged and supported the license drafting process. These communities made the drafts stronger as a result.
Now it is great time to take into consideration more difficult tasks, and I hope you are definitely not going to follow Eric Raymond line of thinking.
Despite my previous determination, I find I’m almost ready to recommend that OSI tell Microsoft to ram its licenses up one of its own orifices, even if they are technically OSD compliant. Because what good is it to conform to the letter of OSD if you’re raping its spirit?
A license is a license, it is definitely not matter of spirit!
Roberto Galoppini, and 
Martin Peacock are discussing.
Martin Peacock 11:58 am on September 8, 2007 Permalink
You’re right, Roberto, a license is a license. But the objective behind the license is not only to prevent abuse of the spirit, but to defend itself from abuse. If the community at large feels that the OSD is being abused, then it can only be the OSD that is at fault.
Roberto Galoppini 5:34 pm on September 8, 2007 Permalink
Martin,
I’ll tell you why Eric Raymond opinion is dangerous to the open source ecosystem at large: there are thousands Microsoft’s partners out there, if OSI will allow them to produce (also) open source software is an opportunity, may be even a huge one. If not?
Besides that, judging licenses’ spirit is a stallmanian attitude, stated by the FSF website, and I really hope to not see things like that happening by the OSI headquarter as well.. Again, licenses are really just licenses, therefore an opportunity not a thread, a medium toward a goal: distributing open source software. If the idea is to keep Microsoft out of the “open source thing”, that is likely what Eric wants, I don’t see the deal.
Do you?
][ stefano maffulli » There is much more than a license 8:42 am on September 10, 2007 Permalink
[…] Nobody can disagree with Roberto here: if you look at licenses only then there is no spirit to take care of, only check its language against the requirements of the OS definition (of the four freedoms, fwiw). Regarding the Microsoft licenses, FSFE has already blessed them when they were announced. […]
Roberto Galoppini 4:53 pm on September 10, 2007 Permalink
Stefano,
a license “technically free” is a free license, and as a matter of fact Microsoft’s channel is the biggest in the IT world. What if only a tiny fraction of them is going to deliver software distributed under a microsoft-approved-free-license?
About the patent issue, as far as I understand, either if OSI will eventually approve their licenses or not, we have to cope with it anyway.
Show me the deal we’ll get, if any, if those licenses won’t be approved _because_ submitted by Microsoft.
][ stefano maffulli » More about licenses, Microsoft and OSI 3:28 pm on September 11, 2007 Permalink
[…] I’m having problems submitting comments to Roberto’s blog, so I continue the discussion with him here, after his comment […]