Brand new to this mailing list, but I wanted to respond to a conversation about Open source licences, and apologies to the authors, I lost track of who said what in the following: >>> (Speaking personally, I'd love to see *FreeDOS* re-licensed under
>>> something other than the GPL.) >> I don't honestly know if that's even legally possible now that Pat >> has died. (Gotta love legalese, ugh. No, I'm not a lawyer.) > I don't believe it is possible. >> I also don't think GPL hinders many potential contributors (versus, >> what, BSD two-clause??). I'll admit that GPL can cause some practical >> problems, in rare cases, but it also avoids or solves some other >> practical problems (again, in some rare cases). Firstly, *GPL still presently has no American legal force behind it!* dmccunney (I believe) mentioned Stallman's lack of touch with reality, and, I think this is reflected most importantly in the fact that he hasn't rallied behind any court case against any GPL violators. American law, based on the *common law* system, builds upon legal court precedent. When no one sues (admittedly an expensive process, that someone like Stallman might have to get funding for), it remains in legal limbo. Maybe I'm just unaware, and some company like Red Hat has already embarked on legal proceedings. But until then, violating GPL will *only *bring anger from the "open source community". The situation for an American violator parallels that of Chinese company that's unafraid of violating American copyright: No legal enforcement; minimal repercussions. Complaining about FreeDOS being GPL'd is a little silly. If your commercial company doesn't want or need the goodwill of the "FOSS movement", and can get a reasonable profit while violating any GPL, they might as well do so. Some companies might be afraid of this changing in the future, licencing is written so they might have a good case when it does, thus compliance is higher than it might otherwise be. PS I understand "legalese" because I earned an Associates degree in Paralegal Studies, not because I'm a lawyer. In fact I steered away from that career precisely because so many lawyers and law firms are jerks, and squeeze paralegals for all they can. Courts are also among the last to adopt new tech, which is why some paralegals might be interested in adopting software like FreeDOS. Compatibility with old apps and formats (WP 5.1 for DOS) is in demand with paralegals (more importantly with their deep-pocketed bosses).
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