Open Source Initiative

I'm starting to think that the dynamics of Open Source production are such that user licenses are crap. Yes, I'm saying that everything that we've put into licenses, all the thought, all the drama, all the durm-und-strang, is wasted. You might wonder why.

We've gotten a number of licenses submissions over the years, which attempt to be "succinter than thou". I guess that people feel that even a license as simple as the BSD license is too complicated.

After a lengthy consideration, the Simple Public License (SimPL) has been added to the list of approved licenses. The concern was that because the SimPL is a reciprocal license, it could create its own ghetto of code unusable by any other project. However, because it contains language that allows relicensing under the GPL v2.0 or v3.0, this will not happen. That should give developers the confidence to adopt the SimPL without fear of marginalization.

Thanks to Robert W. Gomulkiewicz for writing it, and his student, Jim Sfekas, for submitting this license.

EWeek's Jason Brooks has one (print) page to dispel 10 myths about Open Source. He does an excellent job!

I submitted this to slashdot, and put it on my open source blog.

During this morning's Weekend Edition Saturday, NPR's Scott Simon
reflected on the progress of the One Laptop Per Child XO project

QNX is claiming that effective today, they will "open" the "source" code to its QNX embedded product.

RMS is leading people off on his own path again. He's saying that if people want to keep their freedom they better not follow Torvalds. While it's great that RMS doesn't compromise his principles, the principle that he isn't compromising isn't necessary. RMS constantly tells us that it is the word "Free" which is important. This says to me that he feels that the experience of freedom -- that actual freedom -- is not important. Only the name is important, not the thing.

I never quite have understood why the mainstream press concentrates so much on what companies are doing. For example, see Jon Brodkin's NetWorld article, wherein he talks about nine open source companies to watch. Maybe they write more about companies with funding because they're the people more likely to buy advertising than nonprofit projects. Yes, I'm aware of the so-called wall between editorial and advertising, but that just says that editors can write whatever they want, even about advertisers.

Dilbert mentions Open Source today. Or, rather, his boss mentions it "because it's free." Which it is, but it's the freedom to run, modify, and share software that's important.