IDABC unveils draft software licence

[David GLAUDE]

MJ Ray wrote:
> David GLAUDE <dglaude at ael.be> wrote:
> 
>>http://europa.eu.int/idabc/
>>Where is this topic beeing openly discussed?
> I don't think it is.

I mean where does the FSF openly discuss this?

I was answered that the FSF (or FSFE) does discuss this with the
commission but since the commission does not want those to be in the
public it is not done as openly as it could.

Since the writer of the analyse are Belgian and French speaking, it
happend that some of us in AEL have had contact with them. In particular
Nicolas Pettiaux (in Cc:) know one or two of those law expert.

> There is a forum linked to the announcement
> of the licence, but it doesn't follow the Web Content Accessibilty
> Guidelines, so isn't easy to use.

I think they use CIRCA the tool that the commission developped initially
by some greek team in perl then in java by some other.
The commission want to share that developpement paid with public money
and they look for a copyleft licence. But since the commission want to
avoid at all cost liability they believe they don't like the GPL.

So CIRCA need to be free so that developper outside the commission can
make them more accessible. ;-)

I hope we have some ready to reuse GPL code to do that to show the
commission that choosing something incompatible with the GPL is wrong. LoL.

>>Does the FSFE or FSF work on this topic and will they correct some of
>>the horible mistake in the folowing document?:
>>http://europa.eu.int/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=21197
> 
> Wow, where to start? I like FUNDP since way back, but what's their
> agenda here? In particular:
> 
> 1. Why is there repeated pushing of the GPL=viral FUD?

Especially strange since EUPL they produce is equaly viral.

> 2. The EU already funds work released under a BSD-like licence
> (datagrid?) so doesn't that need an urgent fix if the claimed
> problems with BSD-style in the EU have any basis in fact?
> 
> 3. The OSL is not regarded as a free/open licence by all
> (in part because of the "licensor's home turf" clauses, I
> think), so how can that be the "best" existing licence?
> 
> Some parts of it look basically wrong, from memory: the FSF
> doesn't offer a GPL compatibility certification scheme for
> licences, does it?

No certificatio but a list of believed to be compatible.

> Other parts are surprising: the Commission has business
> objectives...
> 
>>This is far from complete and accurate:
>>http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/OpenSourceLicensingOfSoftwareDevelopedByTheEuropeanCommission
> 
> I think you should be careful around the licence/contract
> thing. It distracts from your other points. I'm not going
> to contribute to that wiki, because it's under FDL.

That's the default AEL WIKI licence.
My part can be under another licence.
Check with the other author if you want to reuse the whole part and not
the initial version.

> Please let discussion at fsfeurope know if this moves on or
> what can be done to help.

I hope the FSF[E] does actively work on it. Since it was not visible,
and discussion went live in FFII mailing-list I decided to make the wiki
page and some noise in more appropriate mailing-list.

If more diplomatic contact with the author, contact our well known AEL
activist.

David GLAUDE