I’ve already posted something about this here.
Now, I’ll go straight to the point!
Proliferation of Open Source licenses is a complete mess, despite initial good intentions (anyway, not all open source licenses are used to foster openness of code and collaboration).
Why so many licenses? Many reasons! (the list of open source licenses here just takes into consideration the OSI approved ones!). Now, are authoritative organizations (including OSI) ready (or willing) to foster a convergence of the existing licenses to one single (or to very few) simplified licenses?
A backlog exists, I know. Let’s start from now adopting a new approach and let’s put pressure to communities and existing project teams to update their current licences.
This will probably give rise to some issue with communities (sometimes their licensing model is core to the community)! I’ll post something more about it soon: Radical Open Source – Communities.
Any more issue?
Legal compliance with national jurisdiction? Fine, let’s regulate just what we want/can regulate (just separate what prevails in the national jurisdiction and what prevails in the software license, regulating just the latter).
Anything else?
Too simple? Do you prefer to continue to accept the current situation? I prefer to move to a broader openness!