[PROPOSAL] Open Source certification

[Anthony Towns]

On Sat, Apr 03, 1999 at 07:02:04AM -0000, bruce at perens.com wrote:
> I guess the main problem I have is the back-room dealing that seems to be
> going on. 

FWIW, I have the same problem with the way Eric and OSI are dealing with
the open source mark.

For instance, I wanted to Cc this to the osi-board. So I went to the OSI
web site. And went to the board roster. And found I had to search through
the respective home pages for an email address. I couldn't find one for
Peter Deutsch. But there ought to be an osi-board at osi.org or some such. At
the very least, email addresses for the board ought to be easy to get at.

My major problem, though, is that Eric is acting with the support of the
OSI board (although if you believe Bruce, even that's questionable), and
that's about it. There's no community involvement at all.

I find this especially strange coming from the author of _tCatB_,
but anyway.

What I would like to see is:

	* OSI publically admit it's mistakes, and act, publically, to
	  rectify them. The APSL is not open source, yet what's the answer
	  to the very first FAQ at 
		http://www.publicsource.apple.com/ps-faq.html
	  ? It's ``the Open Source Initiative has determined that the Apple
	  Public Source License is conformant to the "Open Source
	  Definition"'' This should read ``The Open Source Initiative is
	  currently working with Apple to fix the few remaining flaws in
	  the license'', or something similar.

	* OSI publically consult before granting any license OS status.
	  I don't *care* how cool the OSI board is at reading licenses, or
	  how much experience they have coding free software, they're *not*
	  getting it right.

Or are we too busy destroying each others characters to do anything like
this?

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj at humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.

``Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking
  for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.''
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