Re: dual licensing (was: Re: [no subject])

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 06:21:10PM -0800, Arc Riley wrote:
> What makes you think Arc isn't my real name?  It's a gaelic name that died out 
> after the romans invaded and most of the male gaelic names were replaced by 
> happy christian names.  There's a certain amount of cultural sensitivity here, 
> noting the difference between handles and names is important.

It's not generally important to be able to tell the difference between
an alias and an obscure name.  (And, frankly, I don't mind if someone
finds it "insensitive" that I don't recognize names like that, because
I find that expectation unreasonable.  :)

In any case, posting first-name-only is little different than using an
alias.  (Though, it's better than using an absurd alias--I've seen someone
posting to a technical list as "Elvis Presley".  Right ...)

> Read the preamble:
> 
>   When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
> price.  Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
> have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
> this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
> if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
> in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

Sorry, I don't understand the relevance.  The preamble explains the FSF's
goals in the GPL; it doesn't make promises on behalf of the licensor.

If you did manage to convince people that the GPL could be used as a stick
against the copyright holders themselves, I'd suspect many people--at
least, those paying attention--would quickly run away from it.  You'd
have uphill convincing to do, though, since common understanding is the
opposite of your claim.

> It'd be interesting to see what Eben Moglen would say on the subject.

Feel free to ask him.  I'd need to be convinced further before I'd
consider taking up his time with this, though.

(By the way, I seem to recall that Eben is no longer general counsel
for the FSF, and it may be more appropriate to ask the FSF directly.)

-- 
Glenn Maynard