Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 14:35:15 -0700 From: "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com> To: "G. Adam Stanislav" <adam@whizkidtech.net>, "Eivind Eklund" <eivind@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: GPL alternatives Message-ID: <000501bea308$a5fd9d80$021d85d1@whenever.youwant.to> In-Reply-To: <19990520155519.B235@whizkidtech.net>
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> On Thu, May 20, 1999 at 05:56:24PM +0200, Eivind Eklund wrote: > > > I think if we wanted to send letters to authors of gpled software, > > > the artistic license would be a much better alternative. It is also > > > the only free software license which allows to "make other > > > distribution arrangements with the Copyright Holder." > > > > That's because other licenses do not make a point of repeating > > copyright law ;-) > > The copyright law does give the author the right to give up all > his rights. > Many an author has to ask his publisher for the permission to have his own > work published somewhere else. Yes, but he would have to give them to someone else, by contract. > The wording of the GPL does allow for the possible interpretation that the > author has given up all his rights to his work. Indeed, it could be argued > that the author has transfered all his rights to FSF. It could > also be argued > that he did not. But who wants to spend time in court arguing when you can > use clear wording, such as offered by the artistic license. I see no indiciation that the FSF is a party to the GPL, assuming one simply places ones work under it. I could definitely see the other interpretation if one assignes ones code to the FSF. > When I write free software, I want it to be free for anyone to > *use*, not for > anyone to *sell*. I might allow them to sell it, but in that case > I want to > see some of that money. When I write free software, I want it to be free for anybody to use or sell. I want it to increase the quality and decrease the cost of software. If I wanted to see some money, I wouldn't write free software. > > Without the BSD license (which is what made us willing to risk working > > on kernel mods at all; the knowledge that we *could* keep it to > > ourselves if we needed to) the product would not have happened, and > > the customers would most likely have bought NT instead. This would > > not have resulted in *any* benefit, beyond a warm fuzzy feeling in > > somebody that 'nobody is making a profit off my hard work'. > > Why yes, the BSD license is the best. I certainly do not have any > objections > against it. Heck, I use it all the time. It is the GPL that this whole > thread is about. We were talking about what kind of letter could be sent > to authors using GPL. Netscape license was suggested as an alternative, to > which I opined that the artistic license might be a better choice. It is > philosophically similar to the GPL, but without the Borg stuff. I have serious problems with the BSD license. My biggest one is that it requires you to foist a disclaimer on your customer. This makes it intolerable for companies like mine who take responsibility for their software. I wish the BSD license allowed you two options: 1) You indemnify the author and make no representations about the original author, or 2) You make your customers indemnify the author, and you accurately credit/blame the code on the original author. However, the BSD license only permits the second option. > And it does allow you to make money supporting the product. You > cannot just > sell it as if you owned it. That has nothing to do with warm > fuzzy feelings. Nor can you make, distribute, and sell derived works without having to force your customers to indemnify the original author(s). You are prohibited from taking responsibility for your own software. > My point is that the artistic license is a good alternative to GPL, not to > BSD license. Anything is a good alternative to the GPL. Unfortunately, even the artistic license prevents you from taking responsibility for your own compiled/linked code. DS To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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