Clash of the Open Standards

Rollie Hawk writes "Open Source Initiative (OSI) and Computer Associates (CA) may agree that some housework is needed with open source licensing, but they may not be able to reconcile their views on the best solution. CA has a couple of possible solutions in mind for its proposed Template License. This license will likely be based on either Sun's Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) its own Trusted Open Source License. OSI, which does not favor corporate-centered licensing, opposes such moves on a number of grounds. Specifically, they point out that CDDL is not GPL-compatible. While acknowledging the problems with license proliferation, OSI prefers a solution involving stricter criteria (including that approved licenses must me non-duplicative, clear and understandable, and reusable) and is proposing a "three-tier system in which licenses are classified as preferred, approved or deprecated." While there is no legal requirement for any open-source license to be approved by OSI, it is currently common practice for developers to get their license blessing from it."

Comments

Kudos for some simplicity

[syntap]

proposing a "three-tier system in which licenses are classified as preferred, approved or deprecated.

With all the nuanced licenses appearing, this is good to see. Then again for my needs all I want to know is GPL-compatible or not.

Who cares what CA thinks?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Why is CA involved in this in the first place?

Their #1 revenue model is to buy a software product from someone else, cut development and rake in maintenance checks. Are they branching out?

Re:Actual impact

[CDarklock]

I think there's one major faction which isn't covered by GPL and BSD, where people don't want their software redistributed in modified form. OSI recognises this and provides for it by allowing licenses which require redistribution to be in P3 format (Pristine Plus Patches), but there's no real consensus on one license that covers this need.

There are a lot of companies who agree completely with the idea of releasing source code, but really dislike the "unrestricted redistribution" thing. A solid industry-standard P3 license would alleviate some of their fears, and could get more projects out there in the open source world.

Re:Actual impact

[Ithika]

Given requirement (1), why bother use an open licence at all? If you can't fork, why bother opening in the first place? If I can't improve it without your say-so, it's not really open.