Re: Request for comment on license file
Francesco Poli <invernomuto@paranoici.org> writes:
> On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 10:24:00 +0100 Simon Kainz wrote:
> > I agree, that if Torque would be under GPL, it would be much easier
> > to package it for Debian(and we won't have this thread)
There are clear benefits for the copyright holder, also: The GNU GPL has
benefited from a huge amount of community and legal attention, and it is
a robust, widely-understood, effective copyleft license.
Rolling one's own license is inadvisable, because either one spends a
lot of effort, or the result is not effective for the intended purpose,
or (much more likely) both.
This is why the Free Software Foundation makes efforts to produce a
*General* Public License; one which can be generally applied to software
works, instead of inflating the number of incompatible licenses out there.
> The suggestion (at least on my side, but I think on Ben Finney's side
> as well) is to get in touch with the copyright holders of Torque and
> try to persuade them to re-license it under an uncontroversially
> DFSG-free license, such as the GNU GPL. I don't know whether this is
> feasible, but I hope it is.
Right.
Simon, to the extent you are motivated, please compassionately engage
the copyright holder. Help them to understand that license proliferation
is to no-one's benefit, so that they can instead choose an established,
well-understood license like the GNU GPL.
--
\ “The Things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see |
`\ need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be |
_o__) done.” —Richard Buckminster Fuller, 1970-02-16 |
Ben Finney
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