David Kastrup wrote: [...] > The funny thing is that his proposed license is not a license (since it
----- The GPL is not a tool for freedom, it is a tool of control, and I argue that its overall effect on the art of software development as a whole has been more destructive than it has been beneficial. Does this new license that I've proposed make me happy? No, I'd prefer that everything be MIT, BSD, or Apache licensed, which certainly hasn't hurt the penetration of the Apache web server, nor has it diminished the freedoms of the Apache developers. Hell, even donating software to the public domain hasn't resulted in the abuse of SQLite. Let's face it, the vast majority of use cases for GPLed software come in the form of libraries or incorporation that almost never results in the original GPLed source code being modified, but requires the one incorporating the software to also GPL their product. Who is that protecting? Is it protecting the library author from his software being bastardized and redistributed in a way that somehow diminishes his freedom or harms his creation? Or is it harming the user who has found a possibly excellent piece of software that they can't use because its license will virally infect their own efforts? Yes, and you'll argue that library developers release their software under the LGPL, but these cases are actually few and far between. In fact, negotiating a commercial license with the author of a GPL product is damn near impossible because of the high likelihood that the author's product includes other GPLed source code, over which they maintain no control. As such, if an author wants to release a product that they plan to sell in a dual licensed fashion, they often have to license their product under the GPL, but resort to using permissively licensed libraries as dependencies. So what purpose then does the GPL serve other than being a restriction on the ability of a company or other body that values their own privacy? What I'm proposing is a permissive license that protects *both* the author of the software and its users. It's simple: maintain the copyright, release your source, and if you don't want to release your source, ask for permission not to. Once you get permission, if it's ever rescinded, you have ample time to implement and alternative. Does the GPL afford this? ----- :-) http://www.tbradford.org/2008/09/kinder-gentler-free-software-license.html#c4695327973256188382 regards, alexander. -- http://gng.z505.com/index.htm (GNG is a derecursive recursive derecursion which pwns GNU since it can be infinitely looped as GNGNGNGNG...NGNGNG... and can be said backwards too, whereas GNU cannot.) _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss