Picking a license

[Albert van der Horst]

In article <7bdce8a7-bf7d-4f1f-bc9d-1eca2697497e at d27g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,
Patrick Maupin  <pmaupin at gmail.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
>
>That is correct.  All "privileges" as you put it are merely things
>that a user can do with the code without fear of a lawsuit by the
>author, and when an author uses a permissive license, he indicates
>that the things that he could possibly find egregious enough to sue
>over are very few.  For example, if you give an Ubuntu CD to your
>friend without giving source code or a written offer of source code,
>you have violated the license on quite a few of the programs on the
>CD, but not, for example, on Python or Apache, because these licenses
>do not attempt to forbid you from doing this.

Bit this is stupid! The GPL is to accomplish a political goal,
an operating system with tools available to all, that can be
modified by anybody capable of doing so.

Enforcements not amenable to that goal will not happen.

It might surprise even RMS himself but ...
The political goal has been large and by accomplished at the expense
of great legal effort and great efforts of Linus Torvalds c.s. Without
the GPL Linux would not exist -- except in the form of an academic
exercise -- and neither would gcc, so neither would Python.
By proxy I estimate that none of the software with a permissive
license you mention would not be available.

You seem to imply that RMS is a nasty guy.
Yes, RMS is a nasty guy. All warriors are! Get in his
way and you're blasted. But some warriors fight for a right
cause ... This really has nothing to do with anything.
The meek will inherit the world, yes, but only after
the second coming.

>
>Regards,
>Pat

Groetjes Albert

--
-- 
Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters.
albert at spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst