October 13, 2015
Today the Open Source Initiative (OSI) made a statement in support of the Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement, which were recently co-published by the Free Software Foundation and Conservancy.
Publishing these guiding principles clearly explicates community-oriented enforcement, removes uncertainty for companies who face compliance actions, and also provides criteria for evaluating whether license compliance is in the community's interest. The principles enumerated in the document include prioritizing software freedom over all other ancillary goals, using legal action only as a last resort, and offering flexibility on rights restoration under GPLv2's termination clause (GPLv2§4). Allison Randal, president of OSI co-authored these Principles collaboratively with the FSF's and Conservancy's leadership.
OSI's statement, entitled “The importance of community-oriented GPL
enforcement” discusses the important role of Conservancy's and FSF's
principles document in community best practices. OSI comments: While the
OSI's work doesn't include legal enforcement actions for the GPL or any of
the family of licenses that conform to the Open Source Definition, we applaud
these principle as set forth by the FSF and Conservancy, clearly defining
community best practices around GPL enforcement.