Re: The QPL

[John Hasler <john@dhh.gt.org>]

Peter S Galbraith writes:
> He was almost ready to use the GPL, but I pointed out that once people
> send in patches his work is no longer his alone.  He can't turn around,
> modify the work and sell it without hunting through for all patches and
> re-writing them.

Or negotiating licenses with the patch authors.  He can release the package
under the GPL and not integrate patches into his source tree until he gets
satisfactory licenses for them.

> This program has been `available' to the oceanographic community for
> close to ten years, but 99% of it (or more) is still the upstream
> author's code.  I don't think that the threat of reduced hacker code
> input is an argument for him since it hasn't been a driving factor so
> far.

Then the risk of having to rewrite a negligible number of patches should
not be a threat either.
-- 
John Hasler
john@dhh.gt.org (John Hasler)
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI