GPL3 first public draft due early 2006

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Fortunately

with the GPL you know what the rules are upfront, so you can make an educated decision on whether to use code restricted by that license or not.

Rest assured, most people out there see this as a religious issue the same way that FSF does. The GPL is a good idea, and I think it would sure be nice if everybody used it, but I have no right to demand that, and I wouldn't even WANT the right to demand that any more than you want to have the right to deny me the right to use the GPL.

Personally, I do think it's a good idea to have extremists around simply to protect a certain point of view that is a legitimate point of view (I'll use Jesse Jackson and Rush Limbaugh as two polar opposite examples). But you never want those extremists calling all the shots. You want them to vocalize their points of view, but you don't want to take their extreme measures to fix problems, at least not all the time.

Also keep in mind that there are less extreme solutions which cater to the non-extremist. Licenses like the LGPL and the Mozilla public license, and there are dual license schemes which work well.

Posted by: Michael Kelly   Posted on: 08/10/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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