Affero: Google answers Milking the GNU
Chris DiBona, open source manager at Google and former OSI board member (don't mind the date it's no April's fool :) answered the post Google to users: you're not the boss of me now and we ended up having a few back and forth (in the comment section). Here is the dialog, verbatim (should Chris continue answering, I'll post it here as well)
Also a few notes so that to better understand the context:
- Open Source Initiative (OSI) board members reactions to Microsoft license approval
- Milking The GNU (mtg) post about Microsoft and Google discriminating on licenses in their respective code repositories
- Archiving open source history seems like a pretty mundane task but it has a potentially important impact in terms of patenting (e.g. recording prior art for instance)
- SoC: Google Summer of Code
Milking The GNU (mtg) :
Same here, I don't know Chris nor do I know the other protagonists. Just happened to read various posts/threads and found it funny at times so I thought I would share my findings.
Chris, if you read this, the beer (or better the vine*) is on me. :)
update(*): I guess I meant 'wine' but hey, must have had the 'grapevine' in mind ...
Chris DiBona (Chris) :
I enjoy Beer and Wine, so you're covered :-) Find me at Oscon?
I am sometimes a little autocratic, and while it is easy to look like a nutjob when you bring in these various quotes, they're consistent with our various open source related missions.
For instance: We're fighting license proliferation and at the same time we want to preserve the history of open source software. Those two missions sometimes look inconsistent. Add in our support of other licenses via our funding activities and our projects like the summer of code, and it looks even more inconsistent.
Should we ban groups from the SoC that use licenses we feel are redundant? We don't think so. We think that would be bad for our other mission of creating new open source developers.
mtg:
I'm glad to learn SoC is open to all projects, including those with licenses not allowed on Google code.
But then, why make Google code less ... open then? I mean, why the difference?
Also I don't want to sound picky but Google doesn't 'create new open source developers' only project opportunities for FOSS developers to emerge ... and also to get noticed by Google recruiters? ;)
This being said SoC is a great initiative indeed.
Chris:
Actually, we think that creating individual pools of software that cannot be shared amongst other licenses is less open, which is why we are against license proliferation.
SoC isn't much about recruiting, but more about creating more open source code and developers.
mtg:
So the argument is that of compatibility? (e.g. creating less 'pools') but then by the same token you could have only the X/MIT license ...
It raises another issue though: does it mean Google doesn't really trust the OSI?
What if OSI starts delivering say an "Open Choice Repository" label to those repositories offering all OSI-approved licenses; does Google code want to end-up next to Microsoft CodePlex which denies hosting to GPLv3 projects?