license suggestions?

[phil hunt]

On Sun, 8 Jul 2001 19:44:52 -0500 (CDT), Chris Watson <chris at voodooland.net> wrote:
>
>
>> This seems really strange to me. So you are saying you can integrate it
>> into any proprietary product without problems? You can intergrate it into
>> perl, python etc with their various licenses. Why do you specifically not
>> want anyone to integrate it with GPL code but allow everything else?
>
>Strange? Not that I dont know where this will end up but how is wanting to
>keep the GPL (which would add restrictions to my code that *I* did not
>place on it) from infecting my licensed code strange?

Because you're happy to have your code infected by proprietary code.

Consider:

You write program Y, licensed by the BSDL

Person P writes code C, which incorporates Y. The executable C+Y is licensed 
under a proprietary shrinkwrap license.

Person Q writes code D, which incorporates Y. D is GPL'd.

A 4th person, R, can do some things with C+Y. But R can do asll those things,
and more with D+Y.

So if the restrictions on D+Y are bad, why are the (larger) restrictions
on C+Y not also bad?

This is a genuine question BTW. 

> I release everyone
>can choose their OWN licenses. I have NO problem with that. The thing's I
>have problems with are the fact that A) you can GPL BSD licensed code.

Not really. The BSDL'd version still exists. If I merely take some
BSD code and don't change it, I'm not the copyright holder so I
can't change the license. If I change the code, so the result is
partly my work, then I can license the result in any way that's
compatible with the BSDL. So I could GPL it if I wanted.

>terms. Nothing more or less. You can do whatever you wish with the code. Make
>it binary only and keep your secret modifications secret, release them with
>source, whatever you wish. You just can't add any restrictions to my code.

The GPL doesn't as I understand it. But it could add restrictions
on someone else's code that they wrote but that links to your code.
Is that OK by you?


-- 
## Philip Hunt ## philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk ##