Re: Licences

On 2004-08-23 18:17:39 +0100 David Van Horn <[email protected]> 
wrote:

> Several licenses are agnostic with respect to code v. non-code, such 
> as the 
> Academic Free License, one that I'm fond of.

Sadly, the AFL terminates both copyright and patent licences for any 
patent action involving an OSI-certified licence, regardless of 
whether the AFL'd software is involved. I suggest that the licence 
clearly "contaminates other software" but not considered so by OSI 
because they ignore patent issues.

The GPL is quite careful how it defines "Program" and "Source code" to 
achieve some level of code-agnosticism but those features seem to be 
missing from the LGPL.

> In the end, I would rather see a free license detract from the 
> commercial 
> success of the book, [...]

If we must err, I'd rather err on the side of freedom, too. Friendly 
publishers exist and I think they're likely to become more plentiful.

-- 
MJR/slef    My Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
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