Re: Government purchases should require open source, not just POSIX.

[Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>]

At 03:27 PM 5/3/98 -0400, Hans Reiser wrote:
 
>Open Source:  
>
>My assessment would be that requiring open source is more important than
>the above, and should deserve initial focus.
>
>I propose that we design a specification of the license provisions
>necessary for a license to be considered an "Open License", and then
>seek to require government purchases to favor software conforming to the
>terms of the Open License.  
>
>The essence of the Open License spec would be that the source code must
>be available in a form as accessible (comments can't be removed) to
>outsiders as to the vendor, and that those outsiders must be allowed to
>add to it and vary it, making appropriate provisions for labeling and
>branding the code.
>
>We could probably write it in such a way that it had some application to
>hardware (especially buses, etc.) as well, by using terms that apply to
>interfaces in general.  That might be worth thinking about....
>
>Let me know if this is generally of interest.  If so, we can draft the
>Open License Spec, and then ask the Gnu, Linux, and Netscape people to
>comment on it.

Make sure to ask the BSD people as well. That license would be even
more valuable in this case, because code commissioned by the government
could be re-used in commercial products.

--Brett Glass