On Thu, Apr 23, 1998 at 12:06:33AM -0400, James A.Treacy wrote: > > If you ask RMS, MANY licenses are not "free enough", including BSD, > > Artistic, and others. DFSG is not free enough for him, yet you can do > > more with one of the other licenses. Interesting how that works out. > > > > RMS is pushing an ideal more than anything. > > > Please don't get into an argument about what license is more free. > It all depends on what you are trying to achieve. When I release code, > I find that the GPL preserves the rights that are important to me. Someone > who wants to use it in commercial software will complain that the GPL isn't > free enough because he can't use it. Many would say that the GPL is > more free than, for example, the BSD license because it guarantees that > modified versions remain free. It does that, but sometimes that is not always a good thing. Take for example the libreadline library. It is GPL, not LGPL. In order to link this library which is somewhat standard (IMO at least) your software must be GPL. An example of this is ncftp which was using it--that's a nono, even though it is a simple shared library. In this instance, the GPL actually hurt ncftp. The program ncftp is freeware with source (think beer) so really anyone can use it, even if they can't hack it to pieces. But it is not compatible with the GPL under which libreadline is released and therefore cannot have libreadline dynamically linked. This is a limitation on the GPL I think, and the reason I think so is that while ncftp is not OpenSource/DFSG-free, Artistic for example would be. However if ncftp were Artistic, it would still be incompatible with the GPL license on libreadline. As would BSD and a number of other licenses which are OpenSource/DFSG-free. In fact, the GPL is incompatible with every other free license I know of, possibly in some places even its cousin, the LGPL. So really, one must ask: who is incompatible with whom here? I do personally consider this a limitation in the GPL--whether caused by oversight or by idealism I can't say for certain (reading the writings of RMS, I would say the latter) > If you are going to argue, please explain where you are coming from so > you can get past the word 'free' and actually discuss something instead > of having everyone talk past each other. I'm certain RMS is not going to like my suggestion, but perhaps if the GPL were to instead of saying that other parts must be GPL, etc that other parts must fit under the DFSG? I think most do not find this too limiting, but I would like to hear others' opinions.. > Different people prefer different licenses. Why don't we all agree to > that and go drink some beers and work on 'free' software. sounds like a plan
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