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PLoP 2006 Shepherded Papers

Notes on Paper 12:

Here are my comments regarding paper #12, "Open Source Software
Licensing Patterns". by Kaminski and Perry.

I have a weak recommendation to approve this paper for PLoP.

The authors have made considerable progress lately, but as of today
I don't know if they understand the changes that they are
making. The paper is still rough. It definatly needs more work
before the final pre-conference drafts are due. I think that they
authors could get valuable feedback during PLoP on this paper, but
its still rough.

If we had a track to sit down and help authors complete their paper,
this would be an ideal candidate.

Criteria: The quality and wholeness of the pattern(s) or pattern
language. The authors have chosen a representative group of four open
source licenses to write about. In many ways this is really good
because of the proliferation of different licenses out there today.
This four provide a pretty holistic view of the playing field
(wholeness). The paper's quality is not as high as I had hoped at this
point. The last two or 3 iterations have seen marked improvement, and
I think that the same techniques can finish the quality improvements
before the deadline for conference versions.

Criteria: Degree of improvement during the shepherding process, and The
paper has improved greatly during shepherding. Initially the problems
and solutions weren't well matched, the problems were not pattern-ish
and the forces not really present. Now the paper has pretty good
problems, and the authors have added many forces that will help the
reader understand the trade-offs of the problem and

Criteria: openness of the authors to revisions; and
The authors have been very responsive. I think we had 4 or 5
iterations.

Criteria: Relevance of the pattern or pattern language
These patterns are very relevant. Open source software is
everywhere and is being used in more and more commercial
applications, in all of internal/hosted and deployed
applications. These patterns help an author decide which of the 4
main flavors of open source license to use.

Bob

Reject. Quite frankly, in its current form this is an abuse of the patterns format. I only see licensing categories, no solutions.
Agree with Bob that a track for helping authors could be good for this paper, like the EuroPLoP writing group.

Lise

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