Re: BCS OS Licence

[mikendall]

		  Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your contribution. 
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.
Both of the these aims are what the BCS, in general,
and OSSG in particular are remitted to do.


Addressing your particular questions/points in order:
1)About the need; it is for a UK domiciled, business friendly licence.
2)Reducing licences. This is very interesting subject. If you have ever read 
Wonderful Life by S.J.Gould, or witnessed the weired and diverse array of
microprocessor machines back in the late 70's (e.g. a Texas 9900 based 
personal computer), then look now at open source licenses, you could conclude
that open source is going through a period of licence numbers expansion, not licence numbers contraction. IMHO the dominant licence types have not yet emerged as the conditions for doing so are not extant. So FSF attempts to reduce the number
of licences are doomed to failure in the short term, and in the long term there
is no guarantee that even the GPL and LPGL will survive. That is just the nature
cruel world that we live in. :^)
3) Which parts not liked. Well publication for one, and the complexity for another.
4) FSF agenda. Well it is ironic that an organisation that has "Free" in the title
has a more restrictive licence than those that don't. This has a whiff of 
dictatorship of the proletariat about it, and the complexity in their licenses arises
partly from an attempt to legislate this contradiction.
5) Great deal of effort. Yes, although having clear aims for the licence will help
enormously. Also strong backing from this group's members would help. 

I hope that although you might not use a BCS OS licence yourself you would support
a process for the BCS to create one. At the very least it would show that
BCS is supporting the open source movement in a direct way.