Re: "Licences Wars"

On Thu, 2008-11-06 at 01:33 +0200, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> Another curious licence is the Affero GPL - 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License - which aims to 
> close the "Application Service Provider Loophole". What it means is that if I 
> install an AGPLed program on a web-server and modify it then I must make my 
> modifications public.

It is my understanding that you do not have to make your modifications
available to people, who don't surf your Web site.  So if you install
the stuff on your own PC and allow only localhost to access it, then you
don't have to release your modifications to the public.

But IANAL and I may be factually mistaken about this.

> 5. Bad Idea No. 5: Use the GPL or the LGPL:
> -------------------------------------------
[... snipped ...]
> The GPL and LGPL are of more political nature than other similar FOSS 
> licences, and as such should be avoided.

I agree that GPL and LGPL have political agenda.
I disagree that they should be avoided because of this reason.

In an ideal world, in which all software vendors act fairly and compete
only over the merits of their products, politics would not be necessary.

But in today's world, politically-charged licenses - on at least part of
the software running the world - are essential to keep the unfair
software vendors in check.  For, without viral licenses, they can take
over any Free Software and create closed source derivatives out of it.

Unrelated to the above, consider the fragmentation of the Unix world in
the 1980's vs. the natural tendency to converge in the Linux world.  The
GPL played an important role in making this convergence happen.

> Finally, not a statement of a bad idea in itself, but a call to use the X11 
> Licence (or similar FOSS licences). That's because
> 
> - It's simple.
> - It's easy to understand.
> - It's practically PD which is what people innocently expect.
> - Much fewer worries on who can violate your licence.
> - Still gives you protection against litigation.
> - It's GPL-compatible.
> - You can boast that your program is Public domain / BSD-style.

However the X11 License still allows unfair software vendors to use your
software to maintain their stranglehold over the software world.


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