Picking a license

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Thu, 13 May 2010 17:18:47 -0700, Carl Banks wrote:

> The thing you GPL fanbois refuse to understand or accept is that, in the
> real world, a person or company who doesn't want to open source their
> "derivative work" will only rarely be forced to by the GPL. They'll work
> around it instead, vast majority of the time.  They could:
> 
> 1. Derive their work from a project with a license that grants the user
> more freedom
> 2. Reimplment the functionality seperately (*cough* PySide) 

Yes. So what? In what possible way is this an argument against the GPL?

If I offer to mow your lawn for $20, and you refuse, I don't have to 
force my services onto you. You can mow your lawn yourself, or find 
somebody who will do it for $10, or find some kind generous soul who will 
do it for free under an MIT licence.

If you don't want the obligations of the GPL, nobody is going to force 
you to distribute or derive from the GPLed software. If you're not 
willing to meet my conditions to use my software, then I don't want you 
using my software. Go write your own, or find somebody else who will do 
it for a fee, or for free. What you see as a disadvantage of the GPL is a 
feature, not a bug.

You seem to be under the impression that the only public good developers 
should care about is maximising the number of people who create 
derivative works from your project. That's obviously not so in the real 
world, where vast numbers of developers release software under closed-
source licences, or don't release it to the public at all, and it's 
certainly not the case for people who use the GPL. The FSF even has a FAQ 
about that exact point.



> 3. Ignore the license

This is a crime under copyright law, and there have been many instances 
of companies who thought they could ignore the GPL learning different.


-- 
Steven