Firstly, and most importantly, I'd really like to thank those who've done the organization and brainstorming to get this list and idea off the ground. I know there are a lot of people behind the scenes at the Linux Foundation and other places who've done a lot of important work. Thank you.

Secondly, I have some concern around cadence. Telephone meetings once every week require momentum, otherwise its just a bit of conversation and while that is always good, it doesn't show much progress. I'd recommend once every other week unless its demonstrated that more is needed. If we stick to once a week, the project will likely have to have some project management -- milestones, deliverables, deadlines. There are already a lot of resources for people to discuss compliance, FSF compliance lists, FSFE legal, Debian-legal, etc. We don't need another list, we need codified methodology that's widely accepted both de facto and de jure.

Lastly, I'd strongly urge all of us to kill our darlings. We need to not try and chose technology winners.  For example, while SPDX looks great, its not widely adopted. Debian has its own format and Yocto is using SPDX version 1.1. Its hard to use, has numerous supported versions (1.1, 1.2 and 2.0 in development) and feels a bit like a solution looking for a problem. Being Java based (there is Go code and python code now) its better suited for those working in a Windows environment and while I'm certain that is a highly lucrative market, for Free Software developers it tends to be anathema. If SPDX is the right and only ISO certifiable solution, we ought to be able to demonstrate that in detail and with strong technical and legal support. 

To be successful, you'll have to be widely adopted. This is the exact same measure of success FOSS software projects have to meet. The recent migration of systemd into Debian forcing Ubuntu to migrate away from Upstart ought to be a cautionary tale: forks often fail. 

Please don't fork the compliance process. Please make it better, standardized, and transparent.

Warm regards,

Jeremiah
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