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Seminar On Details Of The GPL And Related Licenses
bkuhn writes "Given the recent confusion about LGPL on slashdot, and the concern it
raised for those convincing corporate legal departments to adopt to Free
Software, perhaps your readers might be interested in FSF's legal seminar on
the GPL and related licenses. The first one is in Silicon Valley, and
if it is successful, we hope to hold others in the next 8 months in New
York City and Tokyo." Since the FSF and the GNU project have long created and fought for software that's shareable, Free, and Not UNIX, what's taught at these seminars will probably differ sharply from what you can hear at next Monday's SCO conference call on the "IBM lawsuit, UNIX Ownership and Copyrights."
Why there's any confusion myself - it's pretty straightforward to me. OTOH, it's good to see the FSF giving their official explanations, maybe I'll learn something.
Could someone here tell me what's so hard to grasp about the GPL? or LGPL? Not trolling, just wondering. Maybe its just completely different world views or something. *shrugs*
C|N>K
So they'll try their best to make the news again I see. Hope some critics get online to foul their scheme up.
Meanwhile, they're all selling. Sean Wilson (Sr Vp Corp Dev) is just the latest in a long row.
Lets see, GPL, GNU not UNIX, so lets mention SCO? Where the hell is the logic, just seems like you wanted to post a link that might cause a little slashdotting to SCO's site. One might infer this as particularly malicious.
SCO has never once said anything against the GNU, in fact the GNU actually semi-support the SCO standpoint, if code was not given by the author than it violated the codes original copyright.
I do believe making this thread appaling to the commentors because of a mention to SCO is pretty tasteless and definantelly offtopic.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
How about a license that's simple enough that you don't need seminars to be trained on all the subtle implications, nor an army of lawyers to ligitate the fuzzy edges?
The BSD license is pretty simple. And it's equally simple to rule out for-profit use of your code, if that's your beef.
The complexities of the GPL stem from its attempt to be "viral" and enforce the FSF's philosophy on other people. It's easier just to stay away from it altogether than to fuss about with all the niggling details. If you have nothing to do with GPL code, then it's easy to be sure you're not violating the license terms.
Unfortunately, this tends to cause harm to OSS in general, as many people just slap the GPL on their code because it's a popular "free" license, without really understanding or considering the consequence. And thus, it becomes easier "just to stay away from" lots of OSS code that might otherwise get used in more contexts were the license less murky -- or if another license altogether became popular.
It seems to me that you should be able to glean the intended meaning of a license by reading it and filtering it through a lawyer-speak sieve. Which is not as hard as it sounds really.
However, being as they make the big bucks, other, competing lawyers, seem to like to play games and find obscure definitions or wording loopholes so they can slip through contractual obligations. No matter what you learn from this seminar, this will continue to happen and you will still have to deal with these issues. That is the first point you should commit to memory.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
like superdug, i gotta wonder why the obligatory M$ jabs are being supplanted by gratuitous SCO jabs. i mean, remaining moderately on topic wouldn't be such a bad thing...
ed
That would definitely be from the Free Software Foundation and not the Free Seminar Foundation...
Informed (L)GPL advocate: "Unreleased source code is EVIL. If you don't publish software under GPL you are EVIL, too. Producing software under GPL and breaking the spirit - if not the letter - of the license by nasty binary links is an abomination. SOURCE CODE MUST BE FREE OR OUGHT TO DIE FOR PRODUCING IT!"
In other words: if you want to produce free code (ie. no restrictions to anyone), do NOT release it under "Free Software" license. Use any of the "Open Source" licenses instead. That way other people can benefit (=really, economically benefit) from your code too.
BOO! TERRO
and prevent your software from being released or extract money from your company.
RMS is like IBM obtaining thousands of patents so that it can prevent others from developing anything remotely similar to an IBM research patent.
Hey Timothy, how about praising and pushing the BSD license, instead of the GPL, which is free, but not as free as the BSD?
A lot of all this confusion and trouble could be avoided if people knew more about the BSD license, and used that.
I think it's time that FSF et al actually court a lawsuit to test strength of the GPL out, put an end to backseat sideline quarterbacking on it's legality.
Do Editors Moderate?
The Slashdot Editors have unlimited mod points, and we have no problem using them. Our moderations represent about 3% of all moderation, and according to Meta Moderation, the fairness of these moderations are either statistically indistinguishable from non-admin users, or substantially better. The raw numbers are: 95.1% of non-admin upmods are fair, and 94.7% of admin upmods are fair. 79.1% of non-admin downmods are fair, and 83.6% of admin downmods are fair.
The editors tend to find crapfloods and moderate them down: a single malicious user can post dozens of comments, which would require several users to moderate them down, but a single admin can take care of it in seconds. This tends to remove the obvious garbage from the discussion so that the general population can use their mod points to determine good. Otherwise, a few crapfloods could suck a lot of moderator points out of the system and throw things out of whack.
You can argue that allowing admins unlimited moderation is somehow inherently unfair, but one of the goals of Slashdot is to produce readable content for a variety of readers with a variety of reading habits. I believe this process improves discussions for the vast majority of Slashdot Readers, so it will stay this way. If you don't like it, well, I don't care. This is my sandbox, those are my rules, and until someone takes this site away from me, what you see is, ultimately, what I want you to see.
Answered by: CmdrTaco Last Modified: 4/12/03
Please spare us the editorial comment. In yesterday's article, Dave Turner specifically bemoaned the fact that CowboyNeal had not double-checked his facts and just went ahead and posted. The story submitter then apologized to Dave for going "sensational", which is apparently the only way to get a story through the "editors" nowadays, with the exception of anything that remotely smells of "M$" or the RIAA.
So I think an apology to the FSF (and your readers) is in order.
Those who follow discussions concerning the arguments being prepared for the SCO lawsuit are betting right now that the GPL will be among the targets of that action. They may be right, they may be wrong, but references to that action are relevant to any discussion about software licensing these days.
The best way to do is to be.
You are not using RMS-approved browser. Please download emacs www functionality right now or else.
BOO! TERRO
Debian has moved a large amount of documentation licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License into the non-free section of its software archive, out of concerns that the GFDL is not free, at least as far as "free" is defined by the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
One issue is essentially with the ability of authors to define "invariant sections" of their documents, the subsequent modification of which would violate the GFDL. This conflicts with the requirement of the DFSG that licensing must allow modifications, and must permit the modifications to be distributed under the same licensing terms as the original, as e.g. the GPL does.
Other people have raised the concern that the GFDL's restrictions on the use of "technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute" -- a restriction that, on the surface, makes sense in that it prevents attempts to limit the freedom others have to read the distributed copies -- could have the unintended consequence of forbidding putting documents covered by the GFDL on devices which are encrypted for personal security.
I'm curious whether FSF folks speaking about licenses plan to discuss this at the seminar(s).
As slashdot posters, we're all getting laid so much that we're free to pick and choose.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
How can a voluntarily adopted license "force" anybody? As you say, you just have to reject the use of GPLed software if you don't like it. And remember that the GPL must only be accepted if you redistribute another's program, not just if you use it. A programmer should be aware of the terms in which the code she relies upon is licensed, right?
The whole point of the GPL is to build a community of people freely sharing code and donating it to each other. The license is tuned and tweaked to do just that, and do it really well.
If someone want to use the GPL for a different purpose (like, say, earning some money), hey, the code it's free! They can do it, but they should be very aware that the license is not intended to do that. So, it's not the FSF fault if they got it wrong, as their goals are cristal clear.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
No longer is FSF/Free Software being seen by the /. crowed as the "liberating force" or the next great revolution that would sweep us into a better future.
The underlying zealotry, the undelivered sweeping promises (quality products for free; ha!) and the increased control in the name of freedom (if you license your software under GPL, can you do anything you want with it? No!) are beginning to show.
BOO! TERRO
The FSF has been hoping for such a case for years. The problem is finding a sucker who'll be willing to take the other side. So far, no one has volunteered. (Note, it'll have to be a legitimate case, because a judge is likely to throw out any case that's an obvious setup.) If you know anyone dumb enough to violate the GPL and take it to court, please let the FSF know.
What I find confusing is the list of incompatible licenses.http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list. html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses
I understand why the licenses are incompatible, but I don't understand when it's an issue. Since they are listed as incompatible, does it mean I can't use code licensed under them and gpl my application? For example, if I write an application and use xerces (apache license), can I gpl my program? If so, what is the incompatibility list about? Note that my intent is not to re-license xerces under the GPL, but to license my code that uses xerces under the GPL.
Did you miss the Java thing over the last few days? The assumption was that when developing java stuff, you could link to something that's LGPL'd without *GPL'ing your project. But the linking timeline is pretty convoluted, and it resulted in some people getting a bit of a surprise when they discovered the projects they're working on would be *GPL'd, which they had thought not the case.
So some clarification is a good thing.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Currently here at the megacorp where I work, a colleague and I are talking with the legal department for releasing some of our code as open source.
We've found that while there are official guidelines for using open source software within the company, we are trailblazing as far as choosing a license to release the code under.
Has anyone else gone through this process? Can you share any information?
Actually, the Free Software Foundation (FSF), which monitors the scene and enforces the GPL, says a Mountain View company has been violating the GPL for more than a year. The foundation calls the violations serious and is threatening a lawsuit.
The specifics of the FSF's beef with OpenTV have to do with the company's policies in sending source code to licensees of OpenTV software tools created under the GPL. According to the foundation, OpenTV has either refused to provide the code, or has attached improper conditions on providing it, to several programmers who have every right to it.
OpenTV's intellectual property lawyer, Scott Doyle, says there's been missed communications on both sides but that the company has no intention of violating any legal agreements. He says the company plans to post the code in question online.
But if the FSF is right that OpenTV is violating the GPL, and if this behavior is found to be legal by the courts, the entire free-software and open-source movements could be derailed. Agreeing to share the improvements you make in the GPL-licensed software you've used is an essential part of the larger ecosystem.
Some people I respect say the GPL is a bad idea, period. They say it's too restrictive of programmers' rights, in the sense of forcing them to open what they've done to the world. Fine: If you don't like the GPL, don't create software from code that used it in the first place. Then put different licensing terms on what you've done.
But legal agreements are supposed to matter in our system. Just because the GPL turns the idea of intellectual property somewhat around doesn't make it less valid.
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
Actually, GNU products are excellent and free-as-in-beer. They're so good they're usually invisible. When's the last time you had to work around a bug in ls, or gcc?
Chill out. They are probably getting flooded with submissions about the SCO conference call, which is the first "news" out of SCO since the Japan Trip (I don't think their ballyhooed July 9 conference call ever happened). But SCO announcing a Monday conference call is certainly not worth its own story, and there is no point waiting until the next Slashback. So Timothy stuck it in a mildly-related story to stop the submissions and so that people who are interested in the SCO case can follow the link and investigate/comment. Sounds reasonable.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
So if they go mad, and make version 3 one that allows anyone to do anything they like without having to release their changes....
Of course, there is a little proviso that says:
The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
but that wording is very wooly. What does similar in spirit mean?
Get your own free personal location tracker
Troll alert!
Nobody promised quality products for free (as in price), not even the FSF. If you don't support the developers of free software, you won't get quality software.
...is that one funny or insightful?
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
or just you can't read properly? you have the option of following [...] either of that version or of any later version So, if the FSF goes mad on version 3, stick to the previous version you prefer.
There ought to be a clever way of turning this into a comment about Slashdot and crap instead of conference line and FUD, but I'm too tired to pull it off. Anyone?
They are zealots but I don't think you can say that their promises were faulty. Remember to distinguish between the Open Source folks and the Free Software folks. Free Software is all about making sure that the code is always free as in liberty. They don't care about making money, or code quality, etc, it's about their vision of software freedom. It tries to create a level playing field for all people who use a certain code base, insuring that nobody can make it proprietary. This isn't about free as in beer software, that just tends to be the way it happens.
In fact though, if you license your software under the GPL, you may also license it under a more or less restrictive license. You, as the copyright holder, have the power to release a copyrighted work under multiple licenses. The code you release under GPL will always have the GPL applied to it, but you can alter the direction of your proprietary version and never have to release it to the community.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
You know what, I wonder what's to stop me releasing a GPL? Mine would be pretty unrestrictive, I can assure you.
OK, I'm only half serious, but legally, what prevents another organisation from releasing GPL v3 that looks like the artistic licence, for example?
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
and the increased control in the name of freedom (if you license your software under GPL, can you do anything you want with it? No!)
Ok, guess you are viewing it from a developer's perspective. The GPL is about giving freedom to the USER. You have the freedom as a user to inspect, repair and modify the program as you see fit. With many other licenses you may not even be able to look at the source code. (Think TCP/IP stack in Windows, it's licensed to Microsoft under BSD and then licensed again to the end user)
I'm no zealot, I think other licenses are just fine. But if you don't see that the GPL is designed to help USERS, not developers, you are missing the whole point of Free Software.
--fatboy
Is there a documented case of someone not following the GPL (or a similar open license) and those people holding the licensed software suing (?) to enforce it?
Hrm... it depends on your goals in releasing the code. The BASIC (I'M NOT A LAWYER... I DON'T EVEN PLAY ONE ON TV) breakdown of the common liscences is this:
BSD: Your source code is free to include and modify in any project, but any copyright information that you put in their (who wrote it, etc) MUST stay there. (The best example of this is the TCP/IP stack in windows. It was written by the BSD team, I guess you can still find their copyright info if you look at the binaries)
Benifits of this liscence would include creating a standard (such as TCP/IP) because then everybody can include it in their works (windows, linux, OS X, etc).
GPL: The source code and any derivative works thereof, must ALWAYS (it gets sticky here... technicly you could release the same code under 2 different liscences, one branch would always be GPL the other would depend on its liscence... check out mysql's marketing to see how this might be advantagous for you) be available upon request.
The benefits of this liscence are basicly that once it enters GPL-land... it can never come out (Big Moneygrubbing Company inc. can't come along and steal your work and put it into their product without giving something (in this case, their product source code) back).
I know I'm not 100% on targed, and some BSD/GPL zealot is going to jump all over me... but that's a fairly basic breakdown.
Hope it helped.
This post paid for by my employer... bringing you slacking off since... wait... I'm fired? Damnit!
Not Free(as in beer). Free(as in "I'm free to beat you over the head for being a dumbass")
Oh yeah, you could always just make your own liscence. Just because you don't use GPL or BSD doesn't mean you can't be open source...
but if you ask me. The two schools of OSS are: GPL and BSD (either it's always open source, or it doesn't have to be; respectivly).
Not Free(as in beer). Free(as in "I'm free to beat you over the head for being a dumbass")
Look at the case of the Virgin WebPlayer.
/. doesn't has the stomach to actually fight for their rights, just post to /.
An out-right violation of the GPL and the FSF and Linux authors did nothing.
Why?
Because Virgin has real lawyers. Real lawyers with real money scared the FSF into inaction.
Not to mention the average pro-GPL poster here on
What causes them to form this opinion? The GPL section 2 even states the following, which seems to contradict it:
This seems to contradict the GPL FAQ, Can I use the GPL for a plug-in for a non-free program?
Is there any case law that states that dynamic linking creates a derivative work? Some kind of precident? Or is it just a fiction invented by the FSF people?
Thanks
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
At $500 a pop, they'd damn well better be giving out some free beer.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Easy. First of all, don't listen to the constant rain of bullshit here in slashdot. There are really only three choices:
If you don't give a shit what happens to your code, use the BSD license. You might see your code on the shelf at the local software store though, with a restrictive EULA and a $5,000 price tag.
If you REALLY don't give a shit, put it in the public domain. Same deal as above.
If you want to give out your code, but you want to be sure that the software isn't commercialized by someone ELSE and the changes kept secret, use the GPL. If you choose the GPL, you might have to spend a little more time keeping your eye out for violations.
That's it. BSD, GPL, public domain. Everything else is a hybrid or variation. You can also dual-license with another license but I really recommend sticking with those three choices. I personally use GPL for everything unless it's small, then I just use public domain.
For many clients, I don't give them any license to copy the software AT ALL. This means they can use the copy I put on their computer, but not copy it. Some of them insist on having a license anyway because of the BS that microsoft, et al, have been feeding us for all these years. So I just write on a piece of paper "you can use the software but not copy it".
Whatever you do, please don't just "make up" a license like IBM, Mozilla, Apache, etc., please stick with an existing license. There are a lot of subtleties here. It's not that tough.
I support production applications that often take weeks of regression testing before a rollout. Application executables are statically linked so that if a patch is applied there is no possible way it can impact anything that has already passed QA.
No, you can't just drop in a replacement with static linking. But that's a problem you have with either your own source code and build management policies, or with the vendor that has provided you the application.
I prefer dynamic linking from a technical standpoint, but that is a far cry from demanding that anyone who uses my code has to use dynamic linking.
I provide code. I expect you to share your changes to that code with the community. I do not presume to have any right to tell you what compiler to use, what command line options to use, what OS to use, nor how that OS is going to allowed to link an executable.
If you provide a blueprint for a rec room (the code), and the builder uses that design for a house (compiling and linking), it's ridiculous to suggest that you could complain about whether the house in question was a multi-story building, or whether it had a brick or stucco exterior. Your design has not been "stolen", it's been used as intended -- as part of a whole.
Seems to me that forbidding static linking is impacting my freedom to use the code to resolve a technical issue, while the intent of the license is to protect that freedom.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
wget -r http://www.gwmwebdesign.biz/pr0n/aria/
if you license your software under GPL, can you do anything you want with it? No!
I don't know the point of your post (you're encouraged that folks are critical of the Free Software Foundation? Why? So the OSS community can come apart from the inside instead of having Microsoft try to destroy it?) (And what's the deal with comparing Iraq and Communism to the FSF? Comparing the destruction of human lives to a license you don't like is a little over the top.)
But I have to correct you here. If you license your code under the GPL, you can still do whatever you want with YOUR code. Don't give the GPL magic powers that it doesn't have.
I think the issue here is more the LGPL. The GPL itself is pretty clear, as you mention. But the LGPL is less so. So I can use and LGPL library with my project, and it doesn't GPL my project. Unless it's early-linking. Or is it late-linking? Or what? A lot of people are confused by the conditions of the LGPL, and I'm not ashamed to number myself among them.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
The worst possible thing is that you must distribute .o files and instructions on how to link them.
I think it is legal to offer, for free, to relink the application with any version of the library a user submits.
However personally I think the whole LGPL is wrong here. These rules provide no benifit to the end user: any possible enhancement of the LGPL library is probably useless unless you can rewrite the calling program to use it, and every other change is a "bug fix" and I would much prefer a situation where such fixes have to be propagated back to the original author or at least to a lot of users of the LGPL software.
We desperately need an "LGPL" that is explicitly worded to mean exactly what most users think it means: they cannot modify the library without redistributing the source, but they can use the library all they want.
Currently I use the LGPL with an "exception" that basically says a program that links with the library has not restrictions at all, however you cannot modify the library itself without releasing those modifications. However I would much rather see a license designed from the start to do this.
$500 for information from the GNU people, for whom "information wants to be free." I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Where's Rod Serling when you need him?
bkuhn taught a class at OSCON regarding the GPL license, and walked through the licenses section by section, explaining the purpose of each section, and how they worked together to help keep software free. I attended the class and found it to be very worthwhile. I had some misconceptions about the GPL that were set straight. After the class, I found myself wishing the slashdot readership could attend the same class for their own benefit, and to help clean up the signal-to-noise ratio on slashdot.org about licensing.
/. of old.
Regarding the comment earlier about how "sensationalistic article submissions" seems to be the way to make it through the editors, I completely agree. So many story submissions are one-paragraph editorials versus simple presentation of the facts/details that it's getting downright annoying. It certainly doesn't feel like the
They are working on a GPL-less gcc! Got a script that rips the "license" out of every file. Then they are cleaning it of lisp-isms. Can't wait. We will all be better off with freer software! Free, freer, freest (spelling?). GPL, BSD, Public Domain. Yahoo!
Think TCP/IP stack in Windows, it's licensed to Microsoft under BSD and then licensed again to the end user
If you distribute source code, people are going to use it in their own project, and some of those people are going to use in proprietary projects. It doesn't matter if it's BSD, GPL or anything else, it's still going to happen.
It's like alchohol. People are going to drink it. When the US, Canada, and other countries decided to have a prohibition on alcohol, they intended that people wouldn't drink. But what happened in reality is that no one stopped drinking, but a lot of people got arrested and thrown in jail. Ditto for narcotics (actually, more people are using narcotics now than they ever did before the Harrison act).
Using someone else's source code without permission is a victimless crime. It harms no one. Someone else's licensing decision might, but using the code itself does not.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Most developers think the licence is about them, probably like me most of them have a strong opinion (stubborn and vain, lol...), in fact it's to protect the users from us developers to bind them into ridiculous black box, nanana i can see the (buggy)source but you can't, type of licence. GPL and LGPL are visions that came from times when most of us werent even born, they span into a far future where common day people like you and I need, yes need, a reliable alternative of any aplication at any time... These are visions of future times, not merely some licencing... Richard and Linus each in their own merits have a better vision often of the balance of power than most of us on here... :)
Yes, I do. And it is a mistake to relicense GPLed software under a more restrictive license than the GPL, even if the additional restriction seems minor. The "fiasco" that created the KDE dispute was that the KDE code had incorporated GPLed code but was also subject to an additional restriction imposed by the QPL. The GPL explicitly forbids applying additional restrictions to GPLed code in section 6:The QPL adds an additional restriction by requiring persons who incorporate QPLed code in thier programs, but do not distribute them (as in an in-house application), they must make the source code available to the initial developer of the incorporated QPLed code, as stated in section 6 subsection c of the QPL:Thus there was an incompatibility issue that was both real and a problem for the validity of both licenses. The problem was publicized by Debian when they decided to not distribute KDE until the license issues were worked out It was suggested that KDE either remove the GPLed code from thier programs (no-one really wanted that), or ask for special dispensation from the originating copyright holders to link the incorporated GPLed code to the QPLed qt libraries (difficult, but theoretically possible). TrollTech eventually (pleasantly) surprised everyone by releasing the qt libraries under a dual license which allowed the GPL to be applied to programs that incorporated qt without the additional restriction required by the QPL alone. Every one went away happy, except for those who didn't understand the issue in the first place.
To understand how these two Free licenses are incompatible read this and this.
For an understanding of some of the other issues involved and how it worked out read this and this
Then there was the Corel LinuxOS fiasco. They had a "private" beta, and everyone jumped all over them.
The Corel situation was brought up by the beta testers, as they were refused copies of the source code to the GPLed binaries that were distributed to them. Ther was nothing "private" about thier beta, you could download it off of thier website.
By the way, IANAL, but I do no how to read the source material before I shoot my mouth off. I'm not going to argue with your post being rated "interesting", as it certainly piqued my interest, but whoever it was that modded it insightful needs to do thier homework before they use up all thier points.
Read, L
SCO has a worldwide network of more than ... 8,000 developers
The last reliable reference I could find for the total number of SCO employees was 375, as of last August. Of course, not all these were developers. SCO will claim that this figure of 8,000 includes everyone who works for their resellers and has ever touched SCO code. But, in reality, this is just deliberately misleading.
Thanks for the feedback. We've got legal looking at the GPL, LGPL, and BSD license. They've been asking questions about exactly what you mentioned (IBM licensing, etc). Seems like they want to join the bandwagon.
:)
The thing is, we use TONS of open source here. None of our code is released (it's all internal) so we haven't had to worry too much about the terms.
But I think corporations should give something back.
Plus, if we get laid off we can still have our code without sneaking a copy out
Yes, They Do. And fuck you, capitalist/fascist fuckhead.
Anyone ever notice that the folks who scream loudest about "free software" and the pro-GPL arguments, which is entirely based upon copyright law, are also the ones who have no qualms about violating copyright law by "sharing" their music collection via P2P and whatnot? Interesting.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Why does MySQL claim that if you distribute your commercial software with MySQL, that you need to purchase a commercial license in order to avoid your commercial software being subject to the GPL?
I mean, if I modify, recompile, or dynamically link to MySQL, fine I need to either GPL my code or buy a different license.
But if I use it in a separate binary, and treat it like any other DB, why would merely distributing it with my commercialware make my code GPL?
Don't get me wrong, I like the GPL-or-$$$ business model, I'd probably use it myself, and I like MySQL, but I feel that their claims are misleading.
r4lv3k
last post!
--
Ruby says "bwarghhhhh!"