On 12/04/2012 08:24 AM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
I don't think that copyleft-next should release until we actually
think
it's appropriate for software developers to license software under it.
I *sort of* agree with this, but we may have different notions of
'appropriate'. I now have the view that 'releasing for the sake of
there being a release' makes no particular sense.
And, since this came up in the GitHub thread: I don't think a
release
isn't
(ITYM 'is')
going to cause network effects, if that's what you're aiming
for.
Initially I think it was more like 'symbolic sign of progress',
although that was before I realized copyleft-next is already quite
suitable for use as a license (at least by comparison to existing
popular or widely used FLOSS licenses).
For that, I suggest instead we do a discussion draft model. Granted,
in
git, every revision is a discussion draft, but we could mark a specific
git revision for which we're willing to "take comments on" for a longer
period -- even as the master branch moves forward. Basically, we'd be
making a commitment to the community that comments for an older version
would be considered for longer, and we'd always answer questions on that
revision, even if the answer is: "We changed that text to this in the
current draft which we think addresses your issue".
What do you think of that idea?
This is a nice idea, and is also similar to what I was thinking for a
while. I forget whether I said this on the mailing list or to you in
person (if the latter, this is HBR cure) - I said a numbered release
could be similar to the GPLv3 discussion drafts. However, in reality
there isn't currently much of a wider 'community' to make such a
commitment to - beyond this mailing list of course. (I think there is
a much larger group of people who have heard of copyleft-next, who are
'watching' the github repository, etc., but I'm not sure how
significant their level of interest is.) I'm not saying that's a
horrible thing, but it may make 'discussion drafts' seem a bit silly.
- RF