Ed Leafe wrote: > On May 4, 2007, at 7:30 AM, Uwe Grauer wrote: > >> I don't get the point. >> Did Paul say that he doesn't like the GPL? >> Did i say something like this? > > Paul said "Best to keep it clean and just use 100% free as in > freedom code if you can help it.". (That's why I quoted that exact > text above my words). I know that English is not your main language, > so let me explain. This directly implies that GPL software is not > 100% free as in freedom, which is simply not true.
I guess it depends on what your definition of "freedom" is. There are some subtleties, such as in the difference between having individual liberty to do whatever you want (including polluting the air we all have to breathe) and the freedom to pursue happiness. If I have a BSD-license in my code (which is a completely free license with only one restriction - to give credit to the author(s), and require a GPL-licensed piece of code, all of a sudden my code is subject to a completely different license than I had given it. My freedom wasn't tainted, because I can choose to not require that GPL code; but then again it was, because I wasn't free to choose to use that GPL code once I understand the implications. >> As Dabo itself has a non restrictive License, you seemed to have >> reasons >> to not use a GPL License for Dabo. >> So what was your motivation? >> Why do you think using a full non GPL software stack is that >> different? > > Because we are creating a tool whose goal is to enable people to > build desktop apps, and we felt it was important that people not be > worried about these sorts of licensing issues. We support Microsoft > SQL Server, which is hardly what one would call a free product, > because there is a demand for it. We only use psycopg2 because that > was the product chosen by John Fabiani when he wrote the adapter. If > someone wants to write an adapter that doesn't use it, that would be > great. > > BTW, psycopg2 gives you the option of paying for a non-free license > if you need to release non-free software. That's exactly the approach > we originally took with Dabo: GPL in general, but with an optional > paid license. We got a lot of complaints from people who wouldn't > even *look* at the code, due to Microsoft's successful propaganda > campaign to associate such lovely terms as "viral" and "infected" > with the GPL. That's why we subsequently switched to the MIT license, > as it allows you to use the freedom we give you, and then turn around > and deny it to someone else. Sucks, but that's reality. We give downstream software developers the freedom to choose the license appropriate for their software. Nothing takes away from the freedom of downstream developers or users to download and use Dabo for their own needs. -- pkm ~ http://paulmcnett.com _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/dabo-dev Searchable Archives: http://leafe.com/archives/search/dabo-dev This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/%(messageid)s
