September 7, 2007 9:56 AM PDT
GPLv3 gets OSI's approval
It's official. GPLv3 is "open source." The Open Source Iniative (OSI) formally announced it today.
Now, most of you (like I, frankly) didn't think this was ever seriously in doubt. But the license took some heat at times on license-discuss, and needed to undergo the same process that every other truly open-source license must go through.
The community is better for this scrutiny. There are things about the process that undoubtedly need improvement. But at least a process exists, which is much more than one can say for the proprietary world. Try finding any sort of public review of licenses in the closed-source world.
Transparency, thy name is open source.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
