Fwd: On the Eiffel Forum License, v2

[This didn't turn up in the archive yet, so forwarding it.]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Roger Browne <roger@eiffel.demon.co.uk>
Date: Jan 1, 2008 6:33 PM
Subject: Re: On the Eiffel Forum License, v2
To: "Sean B. Palmer" <sean@miscoranda.com>
Cc: www-archive <www-archive@w3.org>

Hi Sean (cc to list),

> It seems that after the OSI proliferation report, there was some talk
> of Eiffel deprecating the EFLv2 and using the MIT license instead

Yep. This idea gained some traction, and a number of Eiffel software
packages have been relicensed or dual-licensed under the MIT license.

> I think that, on the contrary, the OSI's
> proliferation report was wrong on this account and that the EFLv2 has
> some very desirable features that the MIT license does not.

The first version of the Eiffel Forum license was designed well before
the term "open source" came into use, so the Eiffel community was
amongst the pioneers, not the proliferators :-)

But the intervening years have taught us that the exact wording of the
license does not matter that much. It you want people to use your
software, you should make it easy for them to use. And a big part of
that is to use a well-known and well-understood license.

Licensing is a solved problem for the Eiffel community.

> What is the status of this license: is it still evolving?

I don't think you'll find anyone with enthusiasm for modifying this
license. You are of course free to create a new license yourself, but
I wouldn't support it. The existing licenses are not perfect, but they
are well and truly good enough.

And I say that as the major co-drafter of the first version, and a
participant in the drafting of the second version of the EFL. I'm not
reluctant to "see my baby die".

Regards,
Roger Browne

--------End of Forward--------

-- 
Sean B. Palmer, http://inamidst.com/sbp/

Received on Monday, 7 January 2008 13:10:46 UTC