license suggestions?

[Chris Gonnerman]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Watson" <chris at voodooland.net>
> [ kosh wrote: ]
> > Also no one can make your code GPL. Your code is always under the
license
> > you released it under. However the GPL would make the entire collection
GPL
> > if GPL code were released with it. That really is no different then
> > including BSD code in a closed source product since the closed source
> > license takes precedence.
>
> That is where you are wrong. If someone either A) uses my code in a GPL
> app the entire app is GPL'ed *including* my code. Or B) someone can just
> flat out put the GPL on top of my code *HAD* my code been licensed with
> only clause 1 and 2. The BSDL does *not* say you cannot place further
> restrictions on it. Thats the whole point of BSDL. Do whatever you want
> with it just dont sue me (the author) if you put it in your pace maker and
> you die the next morning.

Wrong.  The right to create derivative works does not include the right
to change the license.  Note that I am not a lawyer, and this is based on
my layman's understanding of contract law, but this has been brought up
so many times I looked into it.

The BSDL doesn't *have* to mention that "further restrictions are
prohibited"
since that is the default.

Suppose that Mr. W creates a marvelous piece of software and places it under
the BSDL.  Mr. G sees it, finds some component parts useful, and integrates
them into his new app which he places under the GPL.

Now Mr. K comes along and finds Mr. G's app.  Mr. G could not rightly and/or
legally change the licensing of the components he borrowed from Mr. W, and
further as the BSDL requires the original author's identity to be revealed,
Mr. K could bypass Mr. G and contact Mr. W directly in case of confusion
in this matter.

Mr. G's app IS under the GPL, but the components (individual source files
no doubt) written by Mr. W will still have the BSDL license at the top
(unless Mr. G has violated the law, which of course is always possible
regardless of license).  For Mr. K to avoid GPL "contamination" he would
have to carefully extract only the BSDL parts *or* go back to the original
software distribution from Mr. W.

The GPL states how the creator of derivative works must behave.  If the
creator of the derivative work cannot obey both the GPL and the law at the
same time, the law takes precedence always.

Watson, I understand that you hate the GPL.  By now the entire Python
community is well aware of that; you have called me stupid in this public
forum before and may well do so again.  I am no fan of Stallman, although
in principle (but not in practice) I agree with him.  By "not in practice"
I mean that I don't make it my holy war to fight for free software (per
his definition) but I certainly use and appreciate it.

The main reason you hate it seems to be that you have seriously
overestimated
the power that the license gives to others.  No matter what I or anyone else
wants to do, without your approval I can't change the license of your code.

In the aggregate with GPL code, the aggregate must be distributed as if the
GPL covered the whole thing, but that aggregation still doesn't change the
license of non-GPL code in "the mix."  Further, if the license of the non-
GPL code is GPL-incompatible you simply can't legally distribute the
aggregation at all.