On Sun, Jun 22, 2003 at 08:37:35PM -0400, Bijan Soleymani wrote: > Ron Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Well, if the "free license" was written to be revokable, then they > > could revoke it. Remember, as much as some people would like to > > think it, RMS didn't carve the GPL in stone with his finger, so > > that Moses could carry it down the Mountain... > > "You're free to use this software as long as we feel like it", doesn't > sound like a Free Software license to me.
Not now, certainly; ideas on this have evolved over time and with bitter experience. Fairly permissive "do what you want as long as it doesn't cause us trouble" licences used to be a lot more common than they are today, for instance. At the time, AT&T's source licences made Unix very popular and allowed a lot of students to experiment with their software under not-terribly-onerous terms. Over the years things turned nasty, but I don't think that negates what had gone beforehand. Back then very few people had any idea how to read or write free software licences. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
