hello, i'm writing some software for linux and right now fighting with what license i should use. i was told to write to this list to get some help to find a suitable license for my work that satisfy the requirements of the 'opensource' community and that protect myself for the worries and concerns that i have. maybe some of you don't like the concerns i have but if you continue reading you may understand it.
i'm using linux for many years now and at the beginning i was impressed and beliver of the 'opensource' and GNU/GPL community. but over the years i realized that many people simply release their stuff under the GNU/GPL because other people are doing so. it's like following the big flow. a lot of these people actually never clearly read the GNU/GPL. i don't want to say that i understand everything of it that's why i am here now so please let me continue describing. in the past we often saw that people are using the GNU/GPL in an uncareful way and get really pissed off afterwards as soon as someone really starts forking their software. e.g. heavily change stuff in it. we all know what happened with KDE recently in redhat's new distro. the programmers are not really happy with what happened there. somehow i can understand their situation. they work hard on such a project try following their ideas and visions and some big company came up heavily changed things that doesn't fit the visions of kde anymore and try selling it to their customers. ... and here my worries starts. i am still a beliver in opensource, having the code is a good and necessary idea. to learn from it, to help the developer fixing the software and make a better product out of it. generally to have the possibility to compile that software on all kind of systems. i know myself good enough and i respect the original author for his work (or the maintainer of it). but i know also that i don't really like the idea to allow other people to make forks from my works. it would drive me nuts and at the final end it will result in a never ending flame and offending of the person who forked my work. for sure this may not happen but it could happen one day. i also don't like the idea of companies making the big money with my work. personally i get more and more the impression that the 'opensource' community is the best thing that happened to many companies. to say it in harsh words from a companies view: "there are a lot of stupid people outside, that work for free. we let them work and sell their stuff. we get the big cash." i want to avoid this situation. i don't like the idea to work for free knowing in the back that some companies can take the stuff and sell it for their own profit. things heavily changed in the past few years. the vision and idea of opensource and real freedom heavily changed and bigger companies starts to behave without moral on other people's work. i went to http://opensource.org and read some of their OSI aproved licenses. personally i think that maybe the artistic license is closest to what i need but i am not sure if i understood it correctly. so please if someone feel to help me here then i would be thankfull. please CC the reply to my original email address because i'm not subscribed here. friendly greets, ali akcaagac -- Name....: Ali Akcaagac Status..: Student Of Computer & Economic Science E-Mail..: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW.....: http://www.fh-wilhelmshaven.de/~akcaagaa
