Picking a license

[Paul Boddie]

On 11 Mai, 15:00, Lie Ryan <lie.1... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Come on, 99%  of the projects released under GPL did so because they
> don't want to learn much about the law; they just need to release it
> under a certain license so their users have some legal certainty.

Yes, this is frequently the case. And the GPL does offer some
certainty that various permissive licences do not.

> Most programmers are not lawyers and don't care about the law and don't care
> about the GPL; if a commercial programmer want to use the GPL-code in an
> incompatible licensed program, and he comes up asking, many would just
> be happy to say yes.

Yes, quite possibly. I did mention this myself elsewhere.

> Most people release their code in GPL just because it's popular, not for
> the exact clauses in it. Heck, many people that releases code in GPL
> might not actually have read the full license.

Yes, this is also probably the case for a number of people. Although
many probably understand the principles of the licence and feel that
it represents their wishes most accurately.

> Only big GPL projects have the resources to waste on a lawyer. And only
> very big projects have the resources to waste on enforcing the license
> they uses. The rest of us just don't care.

Well, that's always an option as well, but at the same time, there are
people willing to pursue licence violations, and these people have
done so successfully. There's no need to make an impassioned argument
for apathy, though. Some people do wish to dictate what others can do
with their work.

Or are you trying to make another point here? That people would choose
something other than the GPL if only they "knew better", perhaps?
Since the FSF goes out of its way to list lots of Free Software
licences, GPL-compatible or otherwise, and those other licences aren't
exactly secret anyway, I hardly think there's a conspiracy at work.

Paul