Still no new license -- but draft text available

[Pat McCann]

Grant Griffin <g2 at seebelow.org> writes:

> In article <39997465.A9BC44BD at basho.fc.hp.com>, "John says...
> >
> ...
> >The five Python modules I've created and released have all been
> >LGPL'ed.  Use of these modules in a commercial environment is perfectly
> >fine, with the one caveat that changes TO THE MODULES must be released
> >back to the community.

There's more than one caveat. Like you might have to cause your program
to output certain statements per the LGPL. One of the worst caveats is
that you have to try to understand the LGPL and pay your lawyer to try.

> waitaminute!  Shouldn't that be the "Greater Public License"?!)

No, because it's not a Public License. It is only a license between the
licensee and those people who accept its conditions, not the Public.  It
is a public offer of license, but not a offer of public license. And
since it's copyrighted by the FSF (with no free or other license I'm
aware of, btw), one could call it a private public offer of license.
They could rightfully call it the General Public License Offer and the
ambiguous word grouping would still maintain some of the deception, but
I"m not going to hold my breath.

> >The GPL is not as some have painted it to be.
> 
> Perhaps.  But fortunately, the GNU web site and the writings of Richard Stallman
> make the intent of the GPL, and (to a lesser extent) the LGPL very, very clear. 

Read this post (apparently by him) and see if you still think that's true:
http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists/?l=berlin-design&m=93118897023514&w=2

> Here's a quote from http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html"
> "In the GNU project, our aim is to give all users the freedom to redistribute
> and change GNU software. If middlemen could strip off the freedom, we might
> have many users, but those users would not have freedom. So instead of putting
> GNU software in the public domain, we ``copyleft'' it. Copyleft says that
> anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, *must* <emphasis
> added> pass along the freedom to further copy and change it. Copyleft guarantees
> that every user has freedom."

Each of those glowing claims apply equally well to the BSD and other
licenses, even the verbose Python license.  His "it" refers to the
licensors IP.  Only the copyleft says that one *must* pass along the
freedom to copy and change one's own IP.  That's not at all clear in
that quote.  I wonder if he really believes that stuff or if his ends
justifies his means. "So the real question is, what result do you want?"