I've written a bit on my experiences with OSI review in particular, and also the list of licenses it has approved. See, e.g., https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/05/05/Rely-on-OSI.html. In a nutshell: people think there's a team of lawyers back there, counting angels on the heads of fine legal pins. But it's actually a highly politicized mailman list where activist-types do most of the talking.
I put energy into cofounding Blue Oak Council to publish rigorous resources, like our permissive license list, https://blueoakcouncil.org/list, in large part out of disappointment and dread, pulling back the curtain on the institutional processes for license review. As lawyers, we need functional resources like that license list, to incorporate by reference into contracts and policies. Fundamentally political artifacts, like OSI or FSF or Debian whitelists, are type errors in those contexts.
> everybody knows what MIT, BSD, Apache, and the various GPL licenses imply
I'm afraid that's not true. I would say there is broad agreement on many of the core aspects. And in many situations, practically, the specific license terms don't matter nearly as much as widely help expectations. But key concepts affecting fairly common situations remain unclear, and those details come out when there's money or strategic leverage on the line. See, e.g. the list Heather Meeker keeps at https://heathermeeker.com/open-source-faq/what-are-the-most-... See also the whole debate on permissive licenses and standards-essential patents: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/10/03/Open-Standards.htm....
Thanks for chipping in on this thread, you’re expressing things nice and clearly, now I have a few more links for describing this unhappy situation in open-source licensing.
Any chance you could change the slug on that first link from Rely-on-OSI to Dont-Rely-on-OSI-Approval or similar? The current URL suggests the opposite of the article’s content. Hopefully adding a redirect isn’t too onerous.
I put energy into cofounding Blue Oak Council to publish rigorous resources, like our permissive license list, https://blueoakcouncil.org/list, in large part out of disappointment and dread, pulling back the curtain on the institutional processes for license review. As lawyers, we need functional resources like that license list, to incorporate by reference into contracts and policies. Fundamentally political artifacts, like OSI or FSF or Debian whitelists, are type errors in those contexts.
> everybody knows what MIT, BSD, Apache, and the various GPL licenses imply
I'm afraid that's not true. I would say there is broad agreement on many of the core aspects. And in many situations, practically, the specific license terms don't matter nearly as much as widely help expectations. But key concepts affecting fairly common situations remain unclear, and those details come out when there's money or strategic leverage on the line. See, e.g. the list Heather Meeker keeps at https://heathermeeker.com/open-source-faq/what-are-the-most-... See also the whole debate on permissive licenses and standards-essential patents: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/10/03/Open-Standards.htm....