On Sat, Jun 05, 2004 at 08:23:12PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > I thought the advertising clause was just about the only restriction > > in those licenses, the problem being that the GPL doesn't allow extra > > restrictions. > > That's the "not quite" part. It's almost entirely irrelevant because > "advertising clause" is just the name for this clause, and has got > nothing to do with the reasons why it is a problem. I could call it > the "stupid invariant section clause", which would be about as > accurate, without changing anything significant about it.
The FSF's "OAC" reasoning is combining the fact that 1: it requires credits in advertising with 2: these clauses "stack" as different people use different texts. The result is that the license ends up meaning "you must include the following 70 verbatim texts in all of your advertising if you mention the software". I believe this is why it was dubbed the "OAC"--not merely that it required verbatim texts. A "stupid invariant section clause" only has #2, and not #1. The Apache license (1.1) has one of those. Those are annoying, and to be discouraged, but they aren't the OAC. I don't (personally) consider the OAC free. Requiring credit is fine; requiring that I advertise your name is not. Advertising space is expensive--and where would I put all that text if I'm taking out a banner ad for my derived work? A seventy-frame GIF animation? I dislike and avoid "stupid invariant section clauses", but they're not on the same level as the OAC. -- Glenn Maynard
