About Ghostscript and the Aladdin Free Public License...

On Wed, 5 Jun 2002, Sean C. Farley wrote:

> > Actually, Aladdin probably wouldn't be relicensing as GNU at all, if
> > it weren't for the fact that Stallman got Ghostscript's author to
> > commit to placing ALL future versions under the GPL.  (I think the
> > commitment was in writing.)
> 
> How old was the author when he signed the agreement?  I am curious if he
> was in college or not at the time.

It was 1986.  I have no idea when he was born, or if he was in college or 
recently graduated at the time.  He's certainly 16 years older and wiser 
now, in any event. :-)

> I am intrigued.  Where did you find that information?

It was from memory, but I seem to have found a copy of the interview:

     http://devlinux.org/deutsch-interview.html

In particular, in the "Why choose the GNU General Public License?" section:

> When I started working on Ghostscript, I said to Stallman, "I want to 
> keep the copyright on this code because someday I may want to license it
> commercially.  I will release it with the GNU license, but I won't 
> transfer the copyright. I'll keep the right to license it in other ways 
> if I want to."  And Stallman was not happy about this but he basically 
> said, "We would rather have it this way than not have it."
>
> And I did something which in retrospect I wish I hadn't done.  Which was 
> that I promised Stallman in writing that all future versions of 
> Ghostscript would be released with the GPL.  And now I sort of regret 
> that.  I don't feel I can go back on my word, and I've done something 
> which I'm sure Stallman doesn't like, which dilutes that a little bit. 

Later, under "Genesis and rationale of the Aladdin Free Public License":

> As you recall, I promised Stallman that I would continue to distribute 
> Ghostscript with the GNU license.  But I saw a number of companies 
> bundling Ghostscript with commercial products while just barely complying 
> with the letter of the GNU license, so I decided that I did not want to 
> make Ghostscript as available for commercial distribution as it would be 
> with the GNU license.
>
> And so I am now continuing to distribute Ghostscript with the GNU 
> license, but about two revisions back from the version with the Aladdin 
> license.  The latest version is now always called Aladdin Ghostscript 
> instead of GNU Ghostscript, and is released with the Aladdin Free Public 
> License. 

Read the whole interview.  It's interesting stuff...

Deven