Re: Licenses - are there any OSI-approved that are not DFSG?

On 4/13/25 13:20, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> Leaving aside any political topics of disagreement between Debian and OSI
> (and leaving aside the OSI position on AI for the moment):
> 
> Are there any software licenses that the OSI recognise that Debian doesn't?
> 
> This is in a work/commercial context: I have argued (for many years) that
> "If it's in Debian main, it's FLOSS and free to use and you won't have to
> pay licensing fees / run special software update servers" a.k.a. "Just use
> Debian already, at least somebody will have looked at software licenses"
> 
> The software licensing mavens are now pointing people at the OSI site
> which has a search engine to search for OSI-approved licenses at
> https://opensource.org/licenses
> 
> The licensing mavens are taking this as authoritative and are suggesting
> that software found there is FLOSS and can be used by developers for work
> (but still at their own risk to some extent).
> 
> Given that the Open Source Definition is the DFSG with the identification
> labels changed - am I still reasonable in my "If it's DFSG, it will
> definitely be OK with the OSI / our developers"?
> (It's often just as quick to check in a Debian mirror / an apt-cache search
> for the software that's already packaged in Debian).
> 
> Thanks for any thoughts,

Hi,

the OSI has license not compatible with DFSG. For example "Reciprocal 
Public License" fails with Debian "Desert Island" and "Dissident" tests.

Cheers,
Xavier