On Thu, Feb 04, 1999 at 02:56:48PM +0000, Mark P Jones wrote:
> if Hugs itself was GPLed, then people who wanted to develop and
> distribute tools of their own that used Hugs would also have to put
> their software under the GPL.
This is true. It is a design feature of the GNU GPL.
> This seems to be a step in the wrong direction: we want to make it
> easier for people to use Hugs, not to give them extra restrictions.
Then you should offer an alternative license, in addition to the GPL.
Anyone could then choose which she uses, based on whether they want
readline (or something else GPL'd) or non-GPL.
Note that I might want to write GPL'd software which uses Hugs; for
this I would also need a Hugs that can be distributed under the GPL.
> Does a choice between licenses offer the best or the worst of both
> worlds?
It depends on your goals. Of course, since your goal is maximum
freeness in the BSD sense (maximum freeness to developers, including
the freedom to unfree software), it would be best of both worlds. If
your goal were maximum freeness in the GNU sense (maximum freeness for
users, no freedom to non-freeify software), it would effectively
nullify your goal.
There is another option: use a BSDish license (without the advertising
clause). It effectively says: do whatever you want with this program
as long as you don't claim you wrote it all. Of course, the language
is a little bit longer due to legal demands. A program with a BSDish
license can be incorporated into a GPL'd product *and* to a
proprietary product. This would allow anyone to use the program with
no restrictions; one can link the program with readline (of course,
the resulting binary would be GPL'd), and one can use it in a
proprietary software product.
> It seems that Open Source is not enough. If Henry Ford we alive today,
> he might well say `you can have any license you like, as long as it's GPL.'
You must understand that there are different flavours of free
software:
1) There is the traditional freeness, dating back from the times when
I wasn't even born yet, where anybody is free to do anything. TeX is
free in this sense; so are the current BSD flavours of Unix and the X
Windowing System.
2) Then there is the copyleft freeness, debuted by Richard Stallman in
his GNU project in the early 1980's. The point of the copyleft is to
make sure that work that is free now stays free; a copylefted piece of
software cannot be made nonfree (hoarded, to use the Stallmanian
term). Stallman had bad experiences with the freeness sense 1) so he
created freeness sense 2).
Readline is GPL'd, because the GNU project does not want it to become
part of non-free software. Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to
use it in non-GPL free software.
The Debian Free Software Guidelines (which is the basis for the Open
Source Definition) is a statement of what Debian regards as free. It
includes both categories, because both give one the fundamental
freedoms Debian wants to give its users.
You are right that Open Source is not enough; it was not meant to be
enough. The free software movement is not a monolithic black box; it
is a culture of its own with several subcultures. You must choose
your place in the free software world.
I am a Debian developer. I have arranged to take over the Debian
packaging of Hugs from Gergely Madarasz starting from the first stable
release of the free Hugs. I would consider it good if Hugs were
licensed so that a binary of it could be legally distributed under the
GNU GPL - to allow linking with Readline. As I've written above, you
have at least three ways of making that possible:
1. Plain GPL Hugs
2. Hugs distributed under the GPL or the Artistic at the distributor's
discretion
3. Hugs with a BSDish license (without the advertising clause)
I will of course accept whatever you decide, even if it is not any of
the above or does not mix well with the GPL. It's your decision and I
will honour it.
Antti-Juhani
--
%%% Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho % [EMAIL PROTECTED] % http://www.iki.fi/gaia/ %%%
EMACS, n.: Emacs May Allow Customised Screwups
(unknown origin)
