Picking a license

[Ed Keith]

--- On Fri, 5/14/10, Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> wrote:

> The GPL ensures that once software has entered the commons
> (and therefore 
> available for all), it can never be removed from the
> commons. The MIT 
> licence does not. Now, you might argue that in practice
> once software is 
> released under an MIT licence, it is unlikely to ever
> disappear from the 
> commons. Well, perhaps, but if so, that's despite and not
> because of the 
> licence.


Several years ago I released a C++ library under the Boost license. I put it up on a small free server. Later my hard drive crashed, both my backup copies were corrupted, and when I went to retrieve it from the site I found it no longer existed.

I am recreating the code, and it will be MUCH better this time, and it is on three web sites, but are you telling me that of I have used the GPL instead of Boost I would not have had this problem?

I use the Boost Libraries (http://www.boost.org/) in most of my code. Do you believe they are likely to disappear because they are not covered by the GPL?

   -EdK

Ed Keith
e_d_k at yahoo.com

Blog: edkeith.blogspot.com