Ashley Pond V wrote:
> If there are any law/license experts in the crowd, I'd love to see a
> formal/named/solid version of this sort of license. It's just about
> exactly what I've always wanted to put on all my own code.
Yikes.
I used to think like this -- ``my software is so awesome that people
will change their ways just to remain in compliance with the LICENSE
file''. The fact of the matter is, the real world doesn't work this
way. Your users will either ignore your license and make $MILLIONS
off your code, or they'll just rewrite your code themselves. (Look at
OpenBSD vs. GNU... every GNU utility has been rewritten just because
of bickering over licensing concerns. What. A. Waste.) Unless
you're some massive can't-get-it-elsewhere project (which really
doesn't exist these days), there's always an alternative. If your
license is too restrictive, it's just going to sit on CPAN with no
users. Who does that help?
Plus, even if you do attract users and they're non-compliant, what are
you going to do about it? Sue a megacorp in your free time? If you
do win, who's going to collect the settlement/award? You? The money
that that takes would be better spent elsewhere.
For these reasons, I mostly license things under the BSD* license.
That way people that want to contribute to Free software can easily do
so, and I don't have to worry about someone potentially ``stealing''
my ``intellectual property''. It's out there; take it.
In the end, people that want to help your software project will do it
anyway, and people that don't want to help you won't. A clever
LICENSE file isn't going to change human nature. Sorry :)
* Artistic/GPL seems more appropriate for CPAN projects, because
That's What Everyone Else Does (tm). Good enough for me.
Regards,
Jonathan Rockway
--
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