On Feb 16, 2007, at 1:01 PM, 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.
-Ashley
On Friday, Feb 16, 2007, at 10:39 US/Pacific, Dave Rolsky wrote:
http://search.cpan.org/dist/PerlBuildSystem/licence.txt
I don't know the exact rules of CPAN regarding non-free licenses,
so I'm not sure if this should be pulled. Unlike the Bantown
license, it probably doesn't prevent CPAN from distributing it.
OTOH, if there were a mirror at a .mil address, this could get
tricky.
Just a heads up.
Ashley,
If you use this license, you effectively bar pretty much *anyone*
from using your contributions, because of the third clause:
* You, are part or, work for an entity that directely produces
work or goods for any of the above.
Since people in "armed group[s] (inclusive any nation's army),
armement designer[s], constructor[s], producer[s], or saler[s]" are
quite well-known to use perl itself for some purposes, that means
anyone who's contributed to perl can't use this software. Probably
neither can anyone who creates open-source software that armies/
contractors/etc. are free to use, even if they don't actually use it,
though that's probably a subjective matter.
That said, the PBS license is so poorly written I doubt it would hold
up to much scrutiny in any court. You'd think if he felt so strongly
about the issue he'd at least proofread his license.
Generically speaking, licenses like this won't have the intended
effect - which is probably why more people don't use them. There are
lots of more direct methods to increase the peace in the world.
-Ken
