Re: Copyleft variation of MIT license
Gervase Markham wrote:
> Suraj N. Kurapati wrote:
>> I had been using the GPL for some years without fully understanding
>> its implications. Recently, I spent some time thinking about my
>> ethical beliefs regarding free software and discovered that I prefer
>> something like Creative Commons' by-sa (attribution + share-alike)
>> license. That is, I want the source code of my software to remain
>> free, like a free bird that cannot be caged.
>
> What important difference do you see between the GPL and BY-SA? They
> were designed to work in similar ways.
BY-SA has less restrictions than the GPL:
Any GPL work can only be incorporated into other GPL works. On the
other hand, BY-SA can be incorporated into a other works so long as
the BY-SA part is satisfied.
>> I looked at other by-sa licenses (particularly MPL, CDDL, CPL, EPL)
>> but found them to be lengthy. Instead, I admire the MIT license for
>> its short length and comprehensibility, and wish to make a copyleft
>> variation of the MIT license[2].
>
> This is a really bad idea, for reasons already explained by people more
> coherent than me. Please don't do it.
You are correct. However, I find the licenses I have examined so far
don't really suit my ethical beliefs or could be made simpler. So
I'm going to go through the entire OSI approval process (which
requires examination of existing licenses and convincing them why I
need to make my own).
Hopefully, I will find an *existing* license that suits my needs in
the process. If not, at least I will have more knowledge of this
licensing stuff by the end.
> This might also be of interest:
> http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html
Thanks for the article. I will make sure that my license is GPL
compatible.
On a side note:
Personally, I don't really care for the license proliferation
argument. Proponents are afraid that too many licenses will confuse
developers and cause incompatible licenses.
To me, this sounds like saying "we have too many window managers
(WMs), and some are even incompatible with each other! So stop
making new WMs just to try new ideas..."
All WMs adhere to the X Windows API, otherwise we wouldn't be able
to use them on our *NIX systems. In this manner, the X Windows API
is like the DFSG -- providing a common ground for the licenses to be
considered as free software.
Beyond this level of cohesion, the choice of WM should be up to
me... I don't use a WM just because it is the most popular (e.g. I
use wmii instead of GNOME or KDE because it makes sense to me).
Likewise, the choice of license should be up to the developer, based
on their ethical beliefs or other needs.
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