Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 23:31:07 -0500 From: "G. Adam Stanislav" <adam@whizkidtech.net> To: David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: GPL alternatives Message-ID: <19990520233107.F255@whizkidtech.net> In-Reply-To: <000501bea308$a5fd9d80$021d85d1@whenever.youwant.to>; from David Schwartz on Thu, May 20, 1999 at 02:35:15PM -0700 References: <19990520155519.B235@whizkidtech.net> <000501bea308$a5fd9d80$021d85d1@whenever.youwant.to>
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On Thu, May 20, 1999 at 02:35:15PM -0700, David Schwartz wrote: >> 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. Or release them by a formal statement. If you state in your code: "This code is in public domain" and do not understand the exact legal meaning of "public domain" you may be up for some surprises. If you state in your license that it is meant to prevent "anyone" from doing certain things (as it does in GPL), you too may be up for a surprise. Anyone includes yourself. That statement is not as legally obvious as the public domain one, but I bet that is deliberate. If it were too obvious, people would think twice about using GPL. >> 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. Yes, GPL is very carefully worded to leave out gray area where it is to FSF advantage, while using clear language where that is to their advantage. Remember, this whole discussion started when Jordan said he respected Stallman for his intelligence and I replied he should not. Now you see what I was talking about. :-) >> 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. And that's fine. We do not need to have the same goals. In either case, GPL is not for us. :-) > If I wanted to see some money, I wouldn't write free software. Yes, I know what you mean. I do not do it for money either. The only difference between us is you do not mind if someone sells your software while I do. > I have serious problems with the BSD license. My biggest one is that it > requires you to foist a disclaimer on your customer. Does it? All it asks is that you give credit to the original author for his part of the work, and that you indemnify him for his work. > This makes it intolerable for companies like mine who take responsibility for > their software. You can still take full responsibility for your own work. You are just asked not to sue the original author (although nothing can actually stop you from suing him :). > 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. Hmmm... The way I read it, you can do either. >> 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. No, you are prohibited from blaming the original author. You can allow others to blame you, if that's what you want. >> 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. I disagree. Again, it prevents you from putting blame on the original author. But you can take responsibility. And if you happen to be the original author, and want the responsibility, just delete that clause. No one is saying you must use the artistic license exactly as it is written or not use it at all. Or the BSD license for that matter. For what it's worth, FreeBSD deleted two clauses from the BSD license (the ones that force you to mention the author in all advertising). Of course, that only happened with original FreeBSD code, not with the code taken from the old BSD. Adam To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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