[cyphar]

I went and re-read Section 17 (the only section that is different from the OSLv3) and yeah it looks like tl;dr legal misrepresents what the license requires. Effectively, it requires that if you redistribute it and want to do so under the NP-OSLv3 you must make a declaration that you're a non-profit and so on -- otherwise you must distribute it under the OSLv3 and clearly state this is the case. (I don't really see the benefit of such a license, but each to their own.)

Looks like I was wrong. Regarding the DFSG, I think it was necessary (according to Bruce Parens it was the DFSG which convinced Stallman to distribute his four freedoms definition more widely). I think the DFSG is a decent set of guidelines that help avoid legal trouble for Debian by having clear requirements, but I don't think it's a good definition for a movement's primary purpose. In many ways the DFSG and OSD can be seen as re-statements of the four freedoms but without any strong justification for why these particular conditions are necessary for a license to be good -- the four freedoms can be explained by explaining how each freedom is necessary to ensure that users have control over their computers.

For an example of why having strong fundamentals is important, the OSD doesn't really have a stance on DRM -- while the free software definition clearly does (even though it predates any modern concepts of DRM).

[candeira]

Thanks for changing your mind on receiving new information.

DFSG and the OSD are essentially the same thing, having been written both of them by Bruce Perens. Main difference is that Debian doesn't certify licenses: they ship software, so they look at the whole packages, so to speak. OSI only certify licenses, they don't ship software.

As to what the DFSG and OSD do that the FSF four principles don't, I think they are more detailed set of rules one can apply when trying to figure out whether some software is free or not. IMHO, the FSF principles are less operationally useful, despite describing categorically the same set of software.

[cyphar]

> DFSG and the OSD are essentially the same thing, having been written both of them by Bruce Perens.

Right, and I knew this is what you were getting at. I guess my main point is that having a working guideline for acceptable licenses for a distribution makes complete sense (after all of the moral viewpoints have been debated to death you have to ship some code eventually), but using those guidelines as the basis of a movement doesn't really (at least not as much as basing a movement on an a set of ethical axioms). So I would say I favour the DFSG over the OSD purely because of what it is used for and represents, rather than because of the (almost non-existent) differences between the two texts.

But of course, I'm biased since I'm far more in the "free software" camp than I am in the "open source" camp -- purely because I think bringing it back to discussions of ethics is quite important (perhaps more than ever).