Re: Recently released QPL
Hello,
John has answered to your reply a lot better than I probably cxan do (thanks
John), but here are some remarks from me, too.
On Thu, Mar 25, 1999 at 10:13:32AM -0800, Joseph Carter wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 25, 1999 at 04:03:27PM +0100, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> >
> > If you want to prevent license fragmentation, use the GPL. if you want to
> > suck in all dfsg free software, use X license.
>
> Ahh, you mean use a license that grants me NO PROTECTION AT ALL or use a
> license that grants me lots of protection, but prevents other people from
> using it unless they agree with RMS' ideals?
No. This is your interpretation, but that's not what the word above mean.
In particular, my point was that you have a choice in the license you use.
Your choice will restrict the compatibility with other peoples software in
general, this is natural.
RMS ideals have nothing to do with it, as hard as you try to use them in
your argumentation (something I can't and won't follow). All that is
relevant is written down in the GPL.
It is correct that GPL code can't be used in all DFSG free software
projects. That's correct. If you don't like it, the GPL is not for you, and
in particular you may have to stay away from GPL'ed software.
Because this decision is within yourself, you can't blaim anyone for this.
Blaim yourself instead, if at all.
[irrelevant remarks snipped]
> Copyright law is here to stay. It isn't going to become weaker in the
> face of software, it's going to become stronger.
The GPL is about using the copyright law to protect your freedom.
This is the fundamental principle. This is why the GPL is often called
"copyleft".
[again snipped]
> Before you talk about my high horse, you should look at RMS's.
You are misunderstanding something here. RMS has a vision, but he is
perfectly capable of ignoring anything that is not relevant to his vision
(like proprietary software). Sure, he tries to help people going his way,
and he is trying firmly. But if you tell him to go away he will leave you
alone.
You seem to complain about the sole existence of the GPL, which I consider to
be highly inappropriate.
> > The X license does support license fragmentation, the GPL does not. If
> > everybody would use GPL, we would have no license fragmentation, and no
> > debian-legal list.
>
> Eh? What the hell are you smoking? How many licenses are there out
> there whose job it is to be almost GPL but not quite? QPL, {N,M}PL, ZPL,
> NCPL, the list goews on... Yet stuff that's X licensed is just X
> licensed. People use and abuse it however they feel like, usually
> incorporating it into GPL or proprietary works.
All those licenses will go away, because they only
fit one particular need of one company. Furthermore, those licenses are not
compatible to the GPL, so they can't extend GPL code. So, HOW can the GPL
support these licenses? It does NOT. Code under the X license CAN be used
with QPL, NPL'ed etc code, so the X license code DOES support these
licenses.
All these code is not within the GPL world, so it is irrelevant to it.
With or without GPL'ed code, people can still write their own licenses. But
it would be useless inthe first place. If all free sofwtare would be GPL'ed,
it would make no sense to write other licenses. Because a remarkable size of
BSDish and Xish software exists, people will write their own licenses to use
this code and still protect their own code more.
> > Unfortunately, some people don't buy in either license,
> > X/bsd'ish nor GPL, but try to cook up their own which allows them to
> > incorporate this in their business model (QPL, NPL). This is what creates
> > the real problems.
>
> And here you go and agree with me.. People don't like the GPL because
> they can't make any money using it and the X license is all but public
> domain. So they write their own licenses. The GPL being pushed as the
> "standard" and "preferred" license is what drives these dozens of new
> licenses.
You are wrong. You are very very wrong. If the GPL would not exist, all
those companies would still write their own licenses QPL, NPL etc etc and
use the BSDish code. probably they would not write DFSG free licenses at
all.
Tell me which free software license should be pushed as standard which
prevents the creation of new licenses instead of the GPL?
The more I think about it, the less I can follow your argumentation...
[...]
> The Artistic license is unsuitable because my code can become proprietary
> and I don't want that. I don't care if someone else writes something
> under BSD license and uses my code (say my code is a shared lib) in their
> program. However, I don't want non-free code to use my lib. A license
> which took this middle ground between the GPL and the LGPL is something a
> lot of people have asked for and even more have tried to write.
>
> Had there been such a license it would have been used in place of the QPL
> I am pretty sure.
Sounds fair enough. However, some people would still prefer the viral
effect.
[...]
Marcus
--
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Marcus Brinkmann GNU http://www.gnu.org master.debian.org
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