[okfn-discuss] Open Software Service Definition

Mon Sep 1 18:01:53 UTC 2008

On 30/08/08 23:01, Dave Crossland wrote:
> Hi,

First up: thanks for these excellent comments Dave.

> Over on the fsb at crynwr.com list, I just posted the following:
> 
> 2008/8/30 Evan Prodromou <evan at prodromou.name>:
>> ...and on the Open Software Service Definition:

[snip]

>>> 2. Whose source code is:
>>> A. Free/Open Source Software (that is available under a
>>>     license in the OSI or FSF approved list
> 
> This should be boolean AND instead of OR because the FSF and OSI lists
> diverge slightly; there are some OSI licenses - Artistic License 1.0,
> NASA Open Source Agreement 1.3, Reciprocal Public License - that the
> FSF state are non-free.
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#NonFreeSoftwareLicense
> http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical

Sounds reasonable -- plus those don't seem to be major licenses so them 
getting excluded isn't really going to make anyone unhappy I would 
imagine ...

>>> B. Made publicly available."
> 
> This should be "Made available to its users."
> 
> Requiring publication is highly contentious.

Having read your links and comments I agree.

[snip]

> More recently, debian-legal have the desert island/dissident tests [1]
> that, while not as important as the FSF FSD and OSI OSD, are still
> worth thinking about and should not be disregarded lightly.

Interesting use cases. As you say the change to 'made available to its 
users' would address all of these I think.

> And most recently, the Affero GPLv3 says that the _users_ of network
> software must be able to access it via the network - which I think is
> striking the correct balance, although some d-l folks like MJ Ray
> don't like it.
> 
> [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines#debian-legal_tests_for_DFSG_compliance
> 
> My suggestion:
> 
> An open software service is one:
> 
> 1. Whose data is open as defined by the open knowledge definition
> (http://opendefinition.org/1.0/) with the exception that where the
> data is personal in nature the data need only be made available to the
> user (i.e. the owner of that account).
> 2. Whose source code is Free/Open Source as defined by both the FSF
> and OSI (that is available under a license in the OSI and the FSF
> approved lists) and is available to the users of the service.

I'm happy with this suggested mod. For the moment it can get wrapped 
into the 'development version' and if there is no subsequent objection 
:) it will go into v1.1.

~rufus