Barry deFreese wrote: > Have you folks seen this "debate"? > > http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/02/10/23/1247236.shtml?tid=4
While I'm generally quite pro-GPL, I accept (and I believe RMS does as well) that sometimes another license such as BSD or MIT/X is appropriate. For example, the Ogg Vorbis audio codec originally was licensed under GPL, then relicensed under LGPL, and now uses the X license. The Vorbis developers discussed these changes with RMS, and he agreed with their reasoning that X was the right license for Vorbis. The goal there was to make it easy for Vorbis to be used in a wide variety of contexts, both open-source and proprietary, so that there would be no artificial obstacles to its replacing fully-proprietary, closed-source codecs such as MP3 and WMA. So don't assume that RMS thinks that the GPL is the only acceptable license for all situations -- he's on record that that's not the case. (Though possibly he considers the use of non-GPL licenses as only a temporary tactical maneuver -- you'd have to ask him.) As to the present topic, the NewsForge/Slashdot headlines about a congressman wanting to "outlaw the GPL" are misleading and inflammatory -- dishonest journalism at its worst. As far as I can tell, this has nothing to do with outlawing the GPL. The issue is deciding on a license to recommend or mandate for use with software that is developed under government funding. That's a legitimate issue. Software developed by the government, or under government contract, ideally should be considered to be in the public domain; the government, representing the people, paid for its development, so one could reasonably argue that it should be freely reusable by any American citizen for any purpose, including incorporating it into proprietary products, developing proprietary extensions, etc. On the other hand, one could argue that the GPL is the best way of ensuring that this publicly-funded software is used to the maximal benefit of the people as a whole. Which side of the debate one takes is likely to be predictable from one's general view of the free software movement, but neither position seems inherently right or wrong to me. My view is that the GPL is a bit too strong for publicly-funded code, but BSD/X is a bit too weak, since, as I understand them, they do not discourage Microsoft's "embrace and extend" strategy. Something closer to the LGPL might do the job nicely. You should be able to use publicly-funded code in closed-source products, but alterations to the publicly-funded code should be required to be released under the same license as the original code. This would allow everyone to use the code for any purpose, but prevent "embrace and extend" takeovers. Craig -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
