Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

IBM Improving Open Source License

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the legalese-please dept.

True_Seeker writes "IBM appears to be modifying its open source license (examples with OpenDX and Jikes) to make it more acceptable to the open source community, according to an article at PCWeek. They are even seeking OSI's blessing on it. "

2 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. It's Open Source, as far as I can tell by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4
    This new license is conformant with the Open Source Definition as far as I can tell. I'll defer to the public discussion that will soon be carried out on the license-discuss mailing list, but I don't see any show-stoppers. Early discussion on the Debian-legal list has concentrated on GPL compatibility (it isn't) rather than problems in OSD conformance.

    I'm really glad to see that IBM is working with the free software community. I had the opportunity to review and comment on a few pre-public-announcement drafts of this license, and the IBM staff was very cooperative in changing the license to meet the community's needs.

    This and the Apple license are important because we are working out how the deep-pockets corporation can participate in Open Source without running rough-shod over the free software community. In both cases, problems with the licenses were aired in public forums and the corporations responded positively.

    Thanks

    Bruce Perens

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  2. The big question: Will it be compatible? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3

    I really hope this license will be compatible with the other major free software licenses out there.. It is a same that all the new Open Source software out there seems to be incompatible with each other.

    I still believe that one of the pure Free Software licenses without to much restrictions or special cases should be recommended to new participants of our community. Such as the GPL - you are free to use it however you want, but please distribute it in a free manner - or Xfree (BSD without advertisement) - please don't hold us responsible if anything goes wrong but otherwise do what you like. Programmers don't like reading all these different licenses and asking laywers if the code can really be used together

    Why doesn't OSI recommend only two or three really free licenses and discourages people from invention YAPL - Yet Another Public License?