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SubjectRe: FreeGPL license proposal (was Re: Linus Speaks About KDE-Bashing)

On Wed, 15 Jul 1998, Kendall Bennett wrote:

> "Jon M. Taylor" <taylorj@ecs.csus.edu> wrote:
>
> > > >just FYI: you're collecting more and more points why I personally
> > > >don't like GPL anymore and probably won't use it in the future for
> > > >some sort of projects.
> >
> > I'm starting to feel the same way. The GPL now appears to have
> > too much baggage and to be too poorly worded to continue using it. It is
> > choking the practicality out of itself.
>
> I have to agree with this sentiment, and in fact our company looked
> seriously at the GPL and LGPL for our SciTech MGL Graphics Library
> when we made it free. I really wanted to use the LGPL because it was
> well known, but after reviewing it extensively ourselves (and getting
> our lawyers to review it) the ambiguities in the wording and the
> requirements for developers using our libraries to distribute source
> code was unacceptable (our library was previously commercial and has
> many commercial game developers using it for games like WinQuake,
> Half-Life, Mortal Kombat Trilogy etc).

the LGPL does not require that the source of the application using the LGPL'd
library be distributed. i think the ambiguities will be fixed in GPL/LGPL
v3.0. this should be coming soon, from what RMS has hinted. when it does, i
suggest your lawyers take another look. it may be just want you want.

> We invented our own free license initially and this was not every
> well accepted in the Open Source community (primarily because our
> initial license kept us as the sole mainatiner of the source code).
> We recently switched over to a modified version of the Mozilla Public
> License (modified by changing the names to the SciTech MGL Public
> License basically) which after review we found to be well worded and
> acceptable.
>
> > So who's up for creating a "FreeGPL" license, extra-capitalistic
> > rather than anti-capitalistic in spirit?
>
> Why not consider making the Mozilla Public License the basis for the
> new FreeGPL license? The one thing about the Mozilla Public License
> is that it has been extensively reviewed and hashed out by both
> Netscapes laywers and developers in the Open Source Community to the
> point of agreement.
>
> The one downside to the license is that it is legalese and can be
> difficult to follow at times, however Netscapes 'Annotated Mozilla
> Public License' makes it a lot easier to understand the issues is
> covers.
>
> The one biggest plus is that this license is now well known, and I
> think it is highly beneficial to the Open Source Community for as
> much code as possible to fall under the same license. I think this is
> a primary reason why the GPL/LPGL has been popular; people use it
> because it is well known and accepted, not because they necessarily
> understand all the legal ramifications of the license. In fact IMHO
> if you interpret the GPL/LGPL's anti-commerical sentiments it would
> appear to me that much of the commercial software appearing for Linux
> does violate some of the GPL licensing (but this is argueable because
> the damn license is so vague!).
>
> Regards,

by the way, i *really* like scitech's video software. you guys support
everything, and do a very complete job. good work :). now if it was only GNU
free.. <grin>

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| / |/ /_ __/ /_____ | Nuke Skyjumper |
| / / // / '_/ -_) | "Master of the Farce" |
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