On Sat, Feb 19, 2000 at 11:57:00PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 03:15:40AM +0200, Adi Stav wrote:
> > I suggest that the virality clause be limited, not removed, and
> > /allow/ including GPLed software in non-GPLd software as long as all
> > the non-GPLd parts of the program are distributed under a Free
> > Software license.
>
> I find it interesting that you characterize the GPL's protective nature as
> "virality". Personally, I'd characterize proprietary licenses as "viral".
I was only using what I perceived to be the most common way to mean "a
license restriction that requires all code linked to or from a certain
program to be licensed under the same license as the program". In THAT
sense most proprietary licenses are not viral as they don't care what
you link to them, as long as you don't distribute the program itself.
I agree that this term does have some negative overtones but I feel
that "strong copyleft" is not exactly the same thing. I didn't mean it
negatively, anyhow.
> ...
>
> > If this change is made, Free Software will still have the advantage
> > over proprietary software, as it would still be illegal for
> > proprietary software to link to GPLd libraries.
>
> QPL is a proprietary license. Clause 3b makes it so.
Clause 3b?
I fail to see why this would make it non-free. If the modifier did not
choose to release their modifications as Free Software, the initial
developer still has the right to force this by releasing those
modifications under the QPL. Definetely not copyleft, but not worse
than BSDL. And you're allowed to make unpublished modifications, as
the clause is only activated "When modifications to the Software are
released".
> DFSG allows proprietary licenses. GPL does not.
I'm not sure what you mean by that... Of course DFSG doesn't allow
proprietary licenses. Its very goal is to define what's Free and
what's proprietary (unless you're using a different definition of
"free"). The QPL is considered Free by all of DFSG, OSD (irrelevant
here) and the FSF. I can't think of any other important Free Licenses
definitions.
Please clarify? :)
> Perhaps you're thinking of authoring a GPL-like license which allows
> any DFSG software to be combined?
That could indeed be useful but is not what I had in mind. I did mean
upgrading the GPL.
> DFSG doesn't even require that licenses not contradict each other.
Hmm... Why would it need to require that? If a product has
contradicting licenses, it would be illegal to distribute by
definition, and its Free license would be already contradicted.
> --
> Raul
>
Thank you for your comments!
- Adi Stav
