On 11/27/2013 2:24 PM, Artur Wroblewski wrote: > We might have some evidence that this or that license worked well for > a given project, but purpose of a license is to give various groups of people > certain rights. Simple as that.
Well, no. Did you read the piece by John Hunter that I posted? http://nipy.sourceforge.net/nipy/stable/faq/johns_bsd_pitch.html He explains his reason for switching a very important piece of software, the widely used Matplotlib library for plotting in Python, from GPL to BSD. As this piece makes clear, from the point of view of those who create the code, it is certainly not as "simple as that". Furthermore, as Dirk's comments make clear, many people adopt the GPL for reasons that appear quite different than those you emphasize. Dirk suggested the GPL will force those who use his software to "give back" their improvements. This is half true at best, but in any case, it illustrates that "more contribution" is one of the consideration that enter into license choice. To reiterate, I have not claimed that a BSD license is the best choice for RPy. That is entirely for those who create the code to determine. I simply raised the possibility that it might be in the interest of the project to consider a license more in line with the target audience: those who use Python for scientific programming. My experience is that this is a group that prefers BSD licenses. For those who create the code, a key concern is that their project flourish, and I suspect this would help the project flourish. Dirk argues that such arguments do not matter; that the project is *forced* to adopt the GPL because R is under the GPL. But I have not yet been able yet to understand his arguments, so I currently believe that claim is incorrect. Alan Isaac ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your Java,.NET, & PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics Pro! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349351&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ rpy-list mailing list rpy-list@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rpy-list
