[jdev] Re: JOSL 1.1?

[GuruJ]

Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
<snip>
> It seems there are two issues here:
> 
> 1. Code ownership / stewardship
> 
> 2. Code licensing / terms of use
> 
> I really meant to raise issue #1. Is there a legitimate role for the JSF
> as a trusted third party for open-source code developed in the Jabber
> community? It seems to me that the JSF could do this no matter what the
> code license (terms of use) is.

My experience with open-source projects is that they are strongest where 
people are encouraged to entrust copyrights to a central body.  Of 
course, this means that people must trust that the body will not abuse 
their possession of the copyrights.

I think it is a really positive thing that people now *want* to assign 
their rights to the JSF.  This means it has become an organisation which 
is well-regarded and trusted by the Jabber community.

> A subsidiary issue is whether we might want to develop JOSL 1.1 as one
> license that would enable the JSF to function as what Larry Lessig calls
> an "intellectual property conservancy".

Personally, I'm a strong advocate of "dual-licensing" arrangements, such 
as that followed by mozilla.org (eg. Mozilla is provided under the 
MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license).  I think these provide a good balance between 
encouraging commercial innovation, and ensuring code is returned to the 
OSS community.

A JOSL/GPL dual-license for JSF-managed code would give people the 
maximum flexibility to decide how they want their development work 
treated by the community.  From this point of view, I think JOSL 1.1 
would be a welcome advance.

-- GuruJ.