Campaign for Clear Licensing Launched

The ‘Barium Manifesto’ back in December stated the need to ‘Shake things up’ in the software licensing industry and create an industry regulator.

We’ve been busy building since then. I’m pleased to share with you that since January we have:

• Created a legal entity (not-for-profit limited by guarantee)
• Written a manifesto (Thanks to Kylie Fowler, Rory Canavan and Martin Chalkley for their support with this)
• Built a website www.clearlicensing.org
• And perhaps most importantly – received the support of some significant software buyers to support us

This new regulator aims to add much-needed transparency to an overly complex and unfair market, levelling the playing field between giant software vendors and the end-user.

Our mandate is to promote adherence to a new code of conduct and highlight foul play publicly.

Mission:

The Campaign for Clear Licensing will work with software publishers, end users and the reseller community to reduce the indirect costs of using commercial software by improving the clarity and usability of software license terms and conditions and developing a code of conduct for use by the industry when resolving disputes, including during audits.

The ‘Campaign for Clear Licensing’ website is here:

https://www.clearlicensing.org

We would really appreciate your feedback. This is an industry effort and requires your support to succeed. Please download the manifesto and provide your critique (Publicly, privately or anonymously).

Thanks, Martin