[Toybox] [License-review] Please rename "Free Public License-1.0.0" to 0BSD... again.

Rob Landley rob at landley.net
Sun Apr 4 14:28:12 PDT 2021


I sent this to OSI's linux-discuss list 10 hours ago and it didn't show up in
the web archive at
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/ . I
sent it again 10 minutes ago with the same result. (Yes, I am subscribed to the
list, and got the "welcome" message from that before sending both messages.)

Does anyone else have a suggestion?

Rob

On 4/4/21 6:18 AM, Rob Landley wrote:
> In 2018 OSI held a vote to rename 0BSD (not dual-name it):
> 
> http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2018-November/003830.html
> 
> The license both shipped in Android M and was approved as Zero Clause BSD by
> SPDX before it was ever submitted to OSI under a different name. The person who
> submitted it to OSI under another name is on record as not minding calling it
> 0BSD, he just wants to see it used. Kirk McKusick has approved calling it Zero
> Clause BSD:
> 
>   https://landley.net/toybox/0bsd-mckusick.txt
> 
> A single OSI board member came to the SPDX mailing list in 2015 to defend OSI's
> conflicting position, and was denied by SPDX. That same OSI board member was the
> main voice objecting to the discussion here in 2018 when I raised the issue of
> acknowledging the license's original name and conforming to SPDX.
> 
> After his position was voted down, he continued to publicly disagree with the
> results after the vote:
> 
> http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2018-November/003831.html
> 
> At the time I assumed this board member was the one who memorialized the dispute
> with a single "yeah but" note in OSI's 0BSD page:
> 
> https://web.archive.org/web/20181219001235/https://opensource.org/licenses/0BSD
> 
> I noted at the time that this struck me as problematic, but chose not to raise
> the issue here because letting this person "have the last word" seemed prudent:
> 
>   https://landley.net/notes-2018.html#14-11-2018
> 
> Unfortunately, since then someone has changed OSI's page to put the deadname as
> a prominent dual name, in boldface next to the official name and also in the
> page title:
> 
>   https://opensource.org/licenses/0BSD
> 
> Which was then propagated back to wikipedia:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=BSD_licenses&type=revision&diff=1007661505&oldid=1007656464
> 
> Could someone please point me to where in the archives this issue was raised
> again and voted on again to change the name back without notifying me the issue
> was once again in dispute?
> 
> If there wasn't a second vote changing the name again, and "0BSD" is still the
> acknowledged name for it, could OSI please remove all mention of the no longer
> relevant name from the 0BSD page? It does not need a "historical" mention
> because it was not what the license was called when it was created and is not
> what the license is called now. It does nothing but cause market confusion (Free
> as in Free Software Foundation, on the GPL side of GPL-vs-BSD axis, it must be
> REALLY viral), and apparently if we don't remove all of this tumor it metastasizes.
> 
> Thank you for your time,
> 
> Rob
> 
> P.S. My apologies if I come off a tad frustrated.
> 


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