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List:       linux-kernel
Subject:    Re: FreeGPL license proposal (was Re: Linus Speaks About KDE-Bashing)
From:       "Kendall Bennett" <KendallB () scitechsoft ! com>
Date:       1998-07-15 20:05:06
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"Jon M. Taylor" <taylorj@ecs.csus.edu> wrote:

> > >just FYI:  you're collecting more and more points why I personally 
> > >don't like GPL anymore and probably won't use it in the future for 
> > >some sort of projects.
> 
> 	I'm starting to feel the same way.  The GPL now appears to have
> too much baggage and to be too poorly worded to continue using it.  It is 
> choking the practicality out of itself.

I have to agree with this sentiment, and in fact our company looked 
seriously at the GPL and LGPL for our SciTech MGL Graphics Library 
when we made it free. I really wanted to use the LGPL because it was 
well known, but after reviewing it extensively ourselves (and getting 
our lawyers to review it) the ambiguities in the wording and the 
requirements for developers using our libraries to distribute source 
code was unacceptable (our library was previously commercial and has 
many commercial game developers using it for games like WinQuake, 
Half-Life, Mortal Kombat Trilogy etc).

We invented our own free license initially and this was not every 
well accepted in the Open Source community (primarily because our 
initial license kept us as the sole mainatiner of the source code). 
We recently switched over to a modified version of the Mozilla Public 
License (modified by changing the names to the SciTech MGL Public 
License basically) which after review we found to be well worded and 
acceptable.

> 	So who's up for creating a "FreeGPL" license, extra-capitalistic
> rather than anti-capitalistic in spirit?  

Why not consider making the Mozilla Public License the basis for the 
new FreeGPL license? The one thing about the Mozilla Public License 
is that it has been extensively reviewed and hashed out by both 
Netscapes laywers and developers in the Open Source Community to the 
point of agreement.

The one downside to the license is that it is legalese and can be 
difficult to follow at times, however Netscapes 'Annotated Mozilla 
Public License' makes it a lot easier to understand the issues is 
covers.

The one biggest plus is that this license is now well known, and I 
think it is highly beneficial to the Open Source Community for as 
much code as possible to fall under the same license. I think this is 
a primary reason why the GPL/LPGL has been popular; people use it 
because it is well known and accepted, not because they necessarily 
understand all the legal ramifications of the license. In fact IMHO 
if you interpret the GPL/LGPL's anti-commerical sentiments it would 
appear to me that much of the commercial software appearing for Linux 
does violate some of the GPL licensing (but this is argueable because 
the damn license is so vague!).

Regards,


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