Björnke von Gierke wrote: > On 27 Nov 2010, at 15:53, Ruslan Zasukhin wrote: >> Sorry, If license not says 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 year... >> Then when? And who choose when? > > In cotract rights (like for example licensing) both parties agree > on common terms, and then follow trough with it. As partners, > they both agree on the terms. No one will agree that a year > delivery time is just for both sides, certainly not for an > electronic good. > > I still think you just wanted to make a weird point by feigning > stupidity.
It seemed to me that, although worded with a light-hearted reductio ad absurdum, Ruslan's post raised a valid question:
When using GPL code, what is an acceptable time limit for making your source available?
If the GPL itself doesn't specify this, it would seem a loophole that companies could use for making proprietary products with GPL'd code, risking only their reputation among FOSS advocates but without significant impact on their desire to protect their source.
Sure, it's not in the spirit of the law, but if it conforms to the letter of the law then to less ethical people it may not matter. To some, FOSS is just free (as in beer) stuff, and the other freedoms just don't matter.
Note that I'm not advocating such delays; on the contrary, I feel that if you're going to use GPL then you should do so wholeheartedly. But for the GPL to be enforceable it must have some specifics, and this detail Ruslan raised seems a potentially significant one.
FWIW, in my own opinion (fully acknowledging that no one asked for it <g>), it seems to me that Oracle has thus far done nothing to hamper the open nature of MySQL.
The questions that have been raised here and elsewhere about MySQL licensing seem more inherent in the sometimes-non-obvious nature of a dual license, and to some degree the GPL itself, than anything Oracle has done since they acquired the DBMS.
This is why I prefer the clarity of the Creative Commons licenses for some projects; too bad they're not recommended for software. :(
-- Richard Gaskin Fourth World LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com LiveCode Journal blog: http://LiveCodejournal.com/blog.irv _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
