On Friday 16 February 2007, Jonathan Rockway wrote:
> 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.
>
Just for the record I'm using the MIT X11 licence (a BSD-style licence) also
for my Perl projects. That's because it is more permissive than either the
GPL or Artistic or both, and doesn't have the legal problems that the
original Artistic license has, or the restrictions of the GPL.
An MIT X11 licensed software can later be re-licensed under any other licence
by anyone, while a GPL+Artistic one cannot. If of course, I inherited someone
else's GPL+Artistic code (as was the case for Error.pm, XML::RSS,
Test::Harness->Test::Run, and File::Find::Object) I keep them under the same
licence, but usually discalim any ownership of my original code. That way if
the originator wishes to relicense the code, he can without asking for my
approval.
And I have strong sentiments against doing "What Everyone Else Does (tm)" and
conformism.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Homepage: http://www.shlomifish.org/
Chuck Norris wrote a complete Perl 6 implementation in a day but then
destroyed all evidence with his bare hands, so no one will know his secrets.
