On Tue, Jul 21, 1998 at 11:40:12AM -0500, Rob Browning wrote:
> Raul Miller <rdm@test.legislate.com> writes:
>
> > So far, Red Hat as been pretty consistent about licensing everything
> > with GNU's GPL. Considering some of the recent discussions here,
> > they might even be more solidly in support of GNU's GPL than we are.
>
> Don't believe that for a second. I would assert that the vast
> majority of developers here are in favor of the GPL, no matter how a
> few of the more tenacious voices may make it appear.
I should (and with this message DO) point out that the GPL is not the only
free license there is. Some of us think that there are cases in which the
GPL is too strong. In all of those cases, however, the DFSG is not.
> Don't presume that just because some of us aren't jumping up and down,
> that we don't disagree. I've just generally quit responding to the people
> who keep on posting to the effect:
>
> "GPL is bad, and we'd all be better off if we'd just lighten up and
> put anything in main"
Main is free software. If it's not DFSG free, it's not in main. Nor does
it belong there. (I'm one of those who sometimes disagrees with the GPL on
certain issues..)
> Note that lintian, emacsen-common, menu, apt, and, of course, dpkg are
> all GPLed. Now I'm fine with the other licenses we support, but for
> now, I use the GPL.
I personally would use a Three-clause BSD for anything that I was doing For
The Good Of Humanity. For something that I wanted some control over what an
"official version" is, I'd use Artistic. For the little that remains that I
want to make sure is and always will be Free Software, I will use the GPL.
Here's my stand on a number of license issues. Judge for yourself my
commitment to free software.
Linux being GPL == Great example of where GPL belongs!
Debian/Redhat tools being GPL == Good use for GPL
libreadline being GPL == acceptable since DFSG free can link it, rather LGPL
Qt license == good enough for KDE people, I don't like it
Netscape {N,M}PL == great for commerial products, more complex than I like
"non-commercial use" == acceptable to me, but not acceptable for main. If a
free alternative exists, I'll use that because this is non-free.
qmail license == I consider qmail to be free software, but because of the
restrictions on binaries and limitation of source mods to patch
files which may not be distributed as binary, I don't think it
belongs in main at all because frankly while it's free, it's not
free enough. There have been no concessions to binaries to be
distributed even using sane locations for files with symlinks for
compatibility. I'll probably continue using it until vmailer is
released and stable. At that point I'll leave qmail for not only a
superior solution, but one that IS free enough.
I use non-free software. Some of it is patent restricted (GIF) Some of it
is encryption (pgp, ssh) the rest multimedia (amp, mikmod, mpg123, xanim,
xv--looking at imagemagick, I REALLY dislike the xv license) which I'd
happily use free alternatives when good ones appear.
That's essentially it. I'll use non-free software if there's no suitable
free alternative available. If I find and can use one, I will and quickly.
Some who pay attention to old and small details may remember me dropping
pine which did work fine in favor of mutt for that reason.
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