CeCILL Waiting for OSI Approval

CeCILL, the open source license cooked by CEA/INRIA/CNRS has been submitted to OSI for approval. CeCILL, originally written in French, now has an English translation that has the same legal value. According to recent posts on the license-discuss mailing list, CeCILL "is in the pile of licenses awaiting the next OSI board meeting for official disposition."

It'd be great that a license from European background get OSI blessing!

Funny enough, the big topic these days on the OSI mailing lists is... license proliferation! Choice is good, but too much choice may be difficult to deal with, especially from the user perspective. In the case of CeCILL, the idea was not to create yet-another-license, but simply to create an open source license that would comply for some national regulatory requirements. As open source gets increasing recognition around the world, as governments promote the use of open source in public administrations, and as all players get more cautious about IP issues, my personnal bet is that we're not gonna see the end of license proliferation soon -- simply because laws and regulations differ from country to country.