Re: licensing

On Sat, 18 Oct 2003, Randy Edwards wrote:

>     I think the key difference between the BSD and GPL licenses is the 
> concept of "future freedom."

  I believe that governments should support both copyleft (GPL being an
example) and non-copyleft (BSD being an example) licenses.  Each category
of license meets different needs which will relate to the specific public
policy goals of the project at hand.

  The concept of "future freedom" has been mentioned, and I will add the 
concept of "reciprocity".  When I create my own software I always license 
it with a copyleft copyright license.  The idea is that I am offering my 
code to others, but in return I expect them to offer their code to me.  To 
me it is a simple matter of fairness.

  There are other times when you want your code to be able to be included
in non-FLOSS software. An example would be when you are offering a
reference implementation of a file manipulation tool for a standard you
wish to be quickly adopted.

  There are also hybrid licenses such as the GNU LGPL (GNU lesser General
Public License) which says that the code itself is reciprocal/copyleft, 
but you may interface to it with software which is not reciprocal in any 
way (including non-Free Software).



  As a citizen I believe that since "code is law" that software
created/used by governments should be FLOSS for the same reasons we have
access to information and other accountability/transparency requirements
for other laws.  When it comes to derivative works there are a number of
other public policies which come into play. Future Freedom of governments
would be guaranteed better by mandating accountability/transparency to the
citizenry for any code=law in the government than by mandating the use of
copyleft licenses.

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Governance software that controls ICT, automates government policy, or
 electronically counts votes, shouldn't be bought any more than 
 politicians should be bought.  -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/