The Industry choice

[Rob Emmons]

> I'd go further.  It's not possible to force anyone to share, but the
> GPL aims to remove software from a system that instead aims to force
> people NOT to share. 

Well said.  

I do think the point is -- no one liscence fits all.  The GPL
is a great tool for those that write software for the purpose of sharing
with those that want to mutually share. Personally it has the feel of
justice to me -- but that's just me.

But of course it does not fit all needs and the politics and 
personalities of all developers and teams of developers. For example, RMS
developed the LGPL for other cases where it makes sense, and I think 
I read somewhere that RMS encouraged the release of BSD (is that right?) 
-- because that too is a help to free software in the end.

As for Python -- I think the best liscence depends on the goals of the
developers.  If you want python to be infrastructure, especially, for
applciation scripting -- it's kind of nice that it's BSD like or perhaps
LGPL, on the other hand if you want it to be free software focused -- 
then GPL would be better.  So there are many alternatives depending 
on goals.  You see this played out throughout the Open Source community.

In any case -- regardless of liscence -- I think Python is the greatest
and I have great respect for all those that have made it possible.

Rob