Re: Recently released QPL
Jonathan P Tomer <phouchg@cif.rochester.edu> wrote:
> it's not gpl compatible in that you can't take a work that's partially
> qpl and partially gpl and license it under either one. such is the
> nature of the infective copyleft.
It's as much the nature of the QPL as it is the nature of the GPL.
> (see below for a short rant on this subject). however it -does-
> seem dfsg-free to me (because you only have to give troll a copy of
> derivative works if they are otherwise non-free).
Actually, it's not whether they're non-free or not, it's whether
they're available to the general public. [Also, it's not clear whether
or not it's troll you have to give the copy to -- is the library author
the initial developer, or would that be someone else.] All in all that
aspect of the license is rather ambiguous.
But, other than the ambiguity it's DFSG free.
> ok, that was the (at least arguably) useful content of this message;
> below is an unrelated rant about copyleftage, so if you're pressed for
> time you can hit 'd' now.
Likewise.
> it irritates me that licenses for free software force all the work
> derived from the software to be under the same license.
Er..
First: this contradicts your statement about BSD software being relicensable.
Second: even the GPL doesn't force you to put the derived work under the
GPL -- except for the part which is already GPL, the rest of it could
be placed under the BSD license.
> partly this is because i think it's wrong to force people to make
> software free; if freedom really is superior we should let it show
> itself in a fair competition.
What's unfair about a free software license that's not also unfair about a
non-free software license? Or are you suggesting that we work to repeal
copyright law?
> put more simply, it is wrong to think that software should be more
> free than people; if someone wants to make his work proprietary,
> that is his option even if i find it a morally reprehensible option.
Free software licenses don't prevent someone from making his work
proprietary.
> however there are lots of people who disagree with me there, and i'm
> not going to try to convince anybody here that copylefts are wrong, or
> attempt to keep anyone from using them.
I guess I'm an example of someone who disagrees with you. See above.
> more practically, copylefts like the gnu gpl have a very big problem,
> which is that you can't put derivatives under another license, even
> a copyleft. this means you can't combine two different copylefted
> works into one big work, which causes unnecessary competition
> between differently licensed sets of free software that shouuld be
> co-operating.
Yes you can. See above.
> richard stallman proposes to solve this problem by having all other
> free licenses contain a paragraph allowing the licensee to relicense
> derived works under the gpl. this is quite frankly stupid; if everyone
> thought the gpl was an acceptable way to license the software it
> would all be gpl'ed in the first place. similarly we can't just hope
> that all licenses will contain a list of all the other licenses you
> can substitute.
That's not what Richard was suggesting. He was reminding people that
the author of a GPLed work can resolve the conflict between the GPL and
a non-GPL free license simply by granting additional permissions beyond
those granted in the GPL.
> so i think (and i may propose to the gnu project one of these days)
> that a proper copyleft should allow the licensee to sublicense
> the product under any license that preserves the rights and
> restrictions that are important to the license (including of
> course the sublicensing clause).
Er.. the GPL already has this.
> that way, if you have to take two differently copylefted programs
> and combine them you can just take all the required restrictions and
> rights from both of them and put them in one license. of course if the
> two licenses had conflicting clauses you still couldn't combine them,
> but that's much rarer.
Great idea.
--
Raul
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