[plug] [article] Open Code Market (OCM)

[Cameron Patrick]

On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 01:29:24PM +0800, James Devenish wrote:
| In message <20031114043558.GC724 at erdos.home>
| on Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 12:35:58PM +0800, Cameron Patrick wrote:
[...]
| > You are not free to restrict the rights of others (on GPL'ed code).

Er, no I didn't! ;-)  That was someone else.

| ?!?!? The GPL *does* restrict the rights of you to distribute your own
| work,

!?!?! No it doesn't.  You can distribute your own work however you
bloody well want to, and that GPL can't influence that one whit ---
unless your work is a derivative of GPL-licensed[1] software, in which
case you must follow the GPL as it is the only licence you have to
distributed modified versions of said software.

| and it restricts the rights of others to distribute *their* own
| work.

Only if others base their work on something that is GPL-licensed.

(Unless you had another point that I've missed?)

| That is how the GPL achieves its goals! By imposing these limits
| on your rights, the openness of your own work (when distributed) is
| ensured.

Except that it doesn't limit the rights of authors of GPL'ed works,
unless you consider those rights to include "make money from a business
model based on selling proprietary software" or "keep my source code
locked up safely where no-one can touch it."  If you /do/ want to have
these rights, you're welcome to /not/ license your code under the GPL.
Note too that other licences (e.g. the BSD licence or MIT X licence)
also take away these rights and /don't/ ensure the openness of your work
and everything based on it.

| This would probably be fine if all computer programmes were likewise
| licensed, and if there were no benefits to proprietary interest. I
| guess this the hope.

That is certainly RMS's goal!  It is a noble one from one perspective,
although not one I entirely agree with, and you are correct in observing
that software licensing can be a bugger in some situations.

| Tragic consequences of the GPL include debian-legal, debian-devel,
| etc... ;-)

Hehehe.  Perhaps what is even more tragic is that I'm subscribed (and
occasionally post) to both of those mailing lists... :-P

| PS. Aside from actually considering the meaning of the GPL ourselves, it
| does seem to me that there is a great deal of GPL-inspired loss of
| global life energy tied up in discussions about whether mothers can pack
| their children's lunchboxes in compliance with the DFSG (Debian Free
| Sandwiches Guidelines) and the GPL (GNU Patisserie Licence). Poor mum.

*grin*  <insert witticism about lawyers here>

Cheers,

Cameron.

[1] Attention pedants: Am I correct in assuming "licence" is the noun
and "license" is the verb?  Too bloody lazy to check a dictionary (-:

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