I had written Bruce Perens about the concerns that Colonel Zen had raised regarding the dangers of even browsing the GrokLine Patent Project as well as asking Bruce about the change in copyright to 2004.

I should point out that I've posted Len Newman's e-mail response to my earlier questions in another story.  None of my e-mail discussions with Len had mentioned the concerns regarding the required log-in to browse and what the weblogs could show regarding that.

Bruce responded rather quickly.  Regarding the licensing issue, he said that his understanding was that OSRM would not make commercial use of the work product.  He also said, "Both John and Len expressed that they were willing to convenant not to make use of the work in a way that an outside party would not be allowed to under the license. I think it's important that we message this clearly. We might have to ask our attorneys how to say this."

So, I do think it is clear that they are sincere.  Bruce also indicated that in his opinion the non-commercial clause would only apply to trying to sell the work product directly not to preventing anyone from using the material to produce a report that could be used to further a commercial agenda.  IMHO, this is correct.

He called my concern about the commercial usage asymmetrical usage.

He also mentioned that OSRM had to operate in a sincere manner, and talked about the non-commercial restriction being on a project they were building on.

Finally, in responding to the concerns about use of Grokline logs in patent suits, he responded that it was not something they had considered but that it was important to operate in a safe manner.

Overall, his e-mail was quite sincere and reassured me that he was working to address our concerns.

He closed by asking, "So, we have symmetrical, sincere, and safe as policy goals. Do you have any others to suggest?"

I responded that openness was also important and that I didn't currently see any public way to have a discussion like this on GrokLine itself.

Based on the e-mails from both Len and Bruce, I feel that each one of them is sincere and understands that GrokLine will work the way it has been publically presented.  However, I think that those involved in the project have not considered all of the issues involved.