Re: Recently released QPL
hm, perhaps five pages is a bit long. i'll try to make this one a bit more
clear. ;)
* the problem: the most popular available copyleft licence around has severe
compatibility issues, even with other free software (more silly arguments
on the exact extent of this is not really productive; we know there is at
least one example of free software that would benefit from linking to a
gpl'ed library but can't because of it's license, and i'm fairly certain
there have been others in the past and there will almost surely be others
in the future). the next most popular (lgpl) deosn't provide a lot of
protection, because works covered under it can be used with non-free
software. i'm not aware of any other copyleft licenses (certainly none of
them are well-publicized enough to go into /usr/share/common-licences),
but i would like to use one that allows my work to be used with any free
software (and -only- free software).
* my solution: create a license that shares the transitive property of the
gpl for modifications, but that has a clause like the lgpl's allowing
other programs to link with it *so long as they are covered by a dfsg
compliant licence*. even if that licence is not a copyleft that's ok:
modified works that are placed under non-free licences magically lose the
permission to use my work. thus am i protected by copyleft, yet all of the
free software community can benefit from my work, regardless of race,
color, creed, or licence orientation.
i've already proposed the terms for such a licence in my previous mail,
which seems to have been read (wow), so i shan't repeat them. it also
contianed a clause that allows the work to be relicenced under any copyleft,
which i think should enhance its portability yet further; for instance, if
this licence is declared incompatible with the gpl, for whatever reason,
authors of gpl software who want to share with me can still do so by
releasing my work under the gpl, even after i've donated my work anonymously
and can't be reached to ask for permission. (note that i misworded that
clause in my original post; i wanted to make it so that the work could be
relicenced under any licence that was dfsg-free and requires modified copies
to be dfsg-free, but not necessarily to require all licences to allow
relicencing at will, which was implied by that clause... you get the idea.
i'll need a lawyer at my side before (if) i actually write this...)
hope this clears my points and intent up a bit.
--phouchg
"Reasoning is partly insane" --Rush, "Anagram (for Mongo)"
PGP 5.0 key (0xE024447449) at http://cif.rochester.edu/~phouchg/pgpkey.txt
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