Alan,
> As it stands however the reality of a GNU GPL license is that if a
> manufacture wanted to modify and include a program licensed under it in
> order to sell a larger manufacturing process for commercial purposes then
> they would be denied access unless all 10 people who wrote the software
> gave explicit permission, even if the software was written using public
> money.
In the case of Fox, most of the code (>>95%) rights belong to me & the uni
of Geneva, so if I had to 'sell' the code with the Uni of Geneva, I could
rewrite the other parts easily.
For another software with many important contributors it would indeed be
impossible. But then the software would not have existed in the first place
with a non-free license, so.
> GNU GLP is divisive, it divides, its practices exclusivity and it's a sham
> in my view. Denial of access is what this all about.
You are denied access only if you want to modify & distribute as a closed
source program - for all other purposes you are absolutely free. It is a
fairly strong policy, but there are huge benefits - just look at all
the "free" OS available - BSDs and Linuxes. The most important difference
between the two are the licenses they put forward (even if they share a lot
of software, both under bsd and gpl licenses). Linux is much more successful
because a *lot* of developers wouldn't release their source code if they
thought that their contribution could be used in a closed source project
without their approval. This is what makes the GPL useful - it gathers many
developers around it, as they feel the lifetime of their code will be longer
with that license.
As for commercial developers who are excluded from using GPL'ed code, if
they cannot buy the code using another license then they still have access to
the source code and can rewrite the parts they want - under corporate
finances they should have the means for that.
In the beginning of this thread you complained that scientists wanted
software for free ! Now it's my turn - but to use my software I'm not asking
for money, but rather for sharing your contribution in return.
Vincent
--
Vincent Favre-Nicolin
Université Joseph Fourier
http://v.favrenicolin.free.fr
ObjCryst & Fox : http://objcryst.sourceforge.net
