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FOSS License Proliferation Adding Complexity

Posted by kdawson on from the do-what-i-say-no-me dept.

E5Rebel writes "Business is embracing open source like never before, but the effective demise of SCO's claims against Linux doesn't mean an end to licensing problems, an analyst warns. The debate on Slashdot seems to focus on the GPL and its virtues, but there are 1,000-plus open source licenses (according to analyst Saugatuck), and businesses face having to manage multiple licenses within a single open source product. What can be done to minimize multiple-license pain for corporate open source adopters?"

2 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. Just use the GPL by Nibbler999 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Easy.

  2. Re:Best answer? think first by coryking · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    in the CPAN FAQ: "Most, though not all, modules on CPAN are licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL)..." Not the ones people actually use. The first thing I check before using a CPAN library is what it's license. Almost all are dual, like perl itself. If it is GPL only, I avoid like the plague.

    GPL'ing libraries used by "high level" languages like Perl, PHP or Python should be punishable by death. What a cruel joke.

    And before I get a snippy retort about "if you dont like it, dont use it", guess what, I dont contribute to any GPL projects. I'll use a GPL product only if I'm 100% sure I'll never need to touch the source code. If there is any chance I might want to tweak the code, it is BSD or the like.

    "You are a leech" you might say. Yeah, well, guess which projects get any patches or improvements I might make? Hint: it ain't GPL projects. GPL'd software is about as useful as closed-source alternatives, only usually of much lower quality.