... I think their main gripe is that the GPL is virus-like, ...
Interesting choice of language! I think of a legal tool that protects
me, and prevents others from taking my work and using in ways that do
not want and will not permit as a *vaccination*.
That is to say, most people think of viruses as bad. But I think of
being protected as good, the way a vaccination protects me.
When someone says `the GPL is virus-like', I hear that person
complaining because I created a work that he can use only if he
reciprocates: if he further redistributes the work, he must give back
fixes and improvements to me and the rest of the community.
When I hear `virus', I hear the complainer asking, "why don't you let
me rip you off?"
The first version of the Netscape Public License, for example, said
that a future owner of Netscape could take my code, make changes to
it, make bug fixes, and not only not prevent me from using their
changes, but sue me if I made changes of my own, to my own work, that
looked somewhat like their changes.
Their argument (IIRC) is something like "The GPL is actually LESS
free because I limit what future people can do with the sources".
Right. They think only of their freedom to hurt me; not my right to
be free from their hurting me.
--
Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com
