Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 11:14:03PM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> 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)."
The difference is that such a license is at least compatible with itself: if
you put your software under the same license, or something almost guaranteed
to be compatible (eg. public domain), you can reuse the code. Patch clauses
aren't even "compatible" with themselves: putting your work under the same
license doesn't fix it.
Also, a license incompatible with other licenses wouldn't cause problems like
"can't put the code in CVS". I have trouble viewing any software under a
license that prohibits the use of ordinary source control as a valuable
contribution to free software.
--
Glenn Maynard
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