On Sat, Sep 17, 2005 at 10:31:30AM +0300, Harri Järvi wrote: > It has come to my attention that released Linuxsampler versions up to > the latest release 0.3.3 are licensed purely under the GPL. The > "NON COMMERCIAL"-exception has been added to the cvs version and is > reflected on the homepage also. [SNIP] I agree with your assessment. I would direct the upstream authors to David Wheeler's essay on this very subject: http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html I will also note that by using the GPL, they will very likely get the community's support in identifying any infringements that occur by commercial distributors. I suspect this is less likely with a home-grown license, which many sympathetic users may not take the time to understand. Moreover, both the FSF and Harald Welte have successfully pursued infringment claims against people who violate the GPL. According to Eben Moglen, General Counsel of the FSF, they prefer to settle things simply by asking for, and getting compliance with the license's terms[1][2]; Mr. Welte has successfully gotten a court injunction on at least one occasion I can think of[3]. [1] http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-12.html [2] http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-13.html [3] http://gpl-violations.org/news/20050414-fortinet-injunction.html -- G. Branden Robinson | Build a fire for a man, and he'll Debian GNU/Linux | be warm for a day. Set a man on branden@debian.org | fire, and he'll be warm for the http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | rest of his life. - Terry Pratchett
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