Re: "Scope" of licenses to be covered by SPDX
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Jilayne Lovejoy <jilayne.lovejoy@...>
In so far as Phil and Michael's previous comment regarding the SPDX License List – it is correct to say that we have endeavored to include the most common open source licenses (not freeware, shareware,
various abominations of the above, proprietary, or what have you) as stated in the license list description at the top of the page found here: http://spdx.org/wiki/spdx-license-list The goal is not to try
to capture every license you might find, as that would be impossible, but the most commonly found. There are currently 168 licenses on the SPDX License List. We have been discussing coordinating with a few of the community groups to add licenses they may
have, that SPDX doesn't (e.g. Gentoo, Fedora, Debian), but haven't had enough people-power to get this task completed (yet).
When I responded earlier, I did not mention this as I could not remember accurately if we discussed the idea of adding other "free" (but not necessary source-code-is-provided licenses). In any
case, it's certainly something we could discuss, but I think there are some good reasons not to expand too far (which I will raise if and when we have that discussion, instead of rattling on unnecessarily here) That being said, there are probably other licenses
that are not "open source" per se, but commonly found and lumped into that broader category (the Sun/Oracle license come to mind) that perhaps should be added.
In any case, anyone can suggest adding a license via this process: http://spdx.org/wiki/spdx-license-list-process-requesting-new-licenses-be-added
We are largely "under-staffed" and "under-paid," so I would encourage anyone who wants to see the list expanded to get involved.
In regards to Michel's definition of "FOSS" for the purposes of contract negotiations and standardizing clauses – I don't have so much a problem with this name, per se. I
understand the reaction; "FOSS" has ideological underpinnings and is not thought of to include the second and third categories, so this is a bit uncomfortable. But, I guess when looking at it through
my attorney glasses, which is the lens for which these clauses are intended, I can compartmentalize and apply the definition as however it is presented for that particular contract. That is, after all, how contract definitions work. I have certainly
seen contract terms and definitions come across my desk, where I've thought, "well, that's not what I would have called that," but so long as I understand what that word
means in the context of that agreement, it really doesn't matter if it's called "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."
Just my two cents.
Jilayne
Jilayne Lovejoy | Corporate Counsel
OpenLogic, Inc. jlovejoy@... | 720
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From: <RUFFIN>, "MICHEL (MICHEL)" <michel.ruffin@...>
Date: Friday, June 22, 2012 12:57 PM To: "mike.milinkovich@..." <mike.milinkovich@...>, Soeren Rabenstein <Soeren_Rabenstein@...>, "mjherzog@..." <mjherzog@...>, SPDX-general <spdx@...> Subject: RE: "Scope" of licenses to be covered by SPDX
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