Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Glenn Maynard wrote:
> No, I've described why they practically *prohibit* code reuse. The only
> counterarguments I've ever seen are:
>
> - "code reuse isn't important" (often thinly veiled as eg. "you don't
> really need to reuse code, you can always rewrite it"), and
> - "if you really want to reuse code, you can create a complex, massively
> impractical patching system to handle it" (and I'm not convinced that's
> even possible, when two separate patch-clause code bits end up mashed
> closely together).
Incidentally, I think you're right about this; I don't really see how to
distribute a single file in the form of a patch to TeX and a patch to, say,
an old release of Qt (under their patch clause) simultaneously. If I put the
Qt code into the patch to TeX, I violate the Qt license; if I put the TeX
code into the patch to Qt, I violate the TeX license; if I do neither, I
violate both licenses.
Have you heard argument three?
"A new license incompatible with all other free software licenses practically
prohibits code reuse in the same way. This sucks, but we consider it Free
(while discouraging it). Patch clauses suck in the exact same way, so we
should consider them Free too (while discouraging them)."
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