Re: Linus about GPL x BSD(long)

On Mon, 15 Jul 2002, Deven T. Corzine wrote:
[...]
> I think this is exactly what rubs people the wrong way about the "viral"
> nature of the GPL.  Because the FSF thinks that the GPL is "the grand
> poo-bah of licenses", the GPL demands that OTHER code must be licensed
> under the GPL, and even a "kindred spirit" license like the MPL just isn't
> good enough, because it's not THE one license that's good enough, the GPL.

Deven, could you please stop spreading lies. gcc and many other projects
are GPL and yet this does not prevent you from contributing to X11
projects such as XFree86. Even the fact that Wine is now LGPL does not
prevent you from contributing to the X11 ReWind project (only spending
all your time ranting in this forum prevents you from contributing).

The GPL does not prevent you from putting the license of your choice on
your own code. What it does prevent you from doing is taking other
people's code and putting a license of *your* choosing on *their* code.

And unlike the 'weak copyleft' licenses it also ensures that you cannot
use workarounds like putting your code in a separate library and modify
the GPL work so that it is unusable without your library.

I really don't understand how you can expect everyone to license *their*
code in such a way that *you* can do whatever you want with it. Not
everybody is going to put his code in the public domain or the X11/BSD.
And what's wrong with that! Your rants sound like you want to strongarm
everyone into doing so. You are just as much a bigot as Stallman!


--
Francois Gouget         [email protected]        http://fgouget.free.fr/
           If it stinks, it's chemistry. If it moves, it's biology.
                  If it does not work, It's computer science.