Subject: Re: [lojban] jbofi'e version 0.36 released

From: "Robert J. Chassell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 18:32:45 -0500 (EST)

> - Switch to GNU General Public License
> license)

GAAAAAKKKK!

Ummm, are you _sure_ that you want to make it impossible for people to
make commercial software based on jbofi'e?

Robin, what do you mean? 

The GPL *guarantees* that *anyone* can make commercial software based
on jbofi'e. With the GPL, you can sell software, you can give it
away, you can change it, you can do what you like; but you may not
take aways others rights. You are forbidden to forbid.

It is a different kind of license, what the games theory people call a
`sucker license', such as the BSD license, that makes it possible for
one company to take Richard's work and prevent him and you and anyone
else from using a derivation of Richard's work, even if you are the
person making the changes and your changes are somewhat different from
theirs and independently. Remember, the GPL guarantees your and
others freedom. It does not let anyone else take it away, whether
from the author or from anyone else. The BSD license does permit
that: taking even from the author. (That was the intent, since the US
military, the funding agency for BSD, was trying to subsidize US
companies. The authors were paid for `work for hire'.)

Over the past 15 years or so, people have tried this sort of attack
against GPL'd software more than once a year. By `this sort of
attack', I mean an action that is not accidental and is not cured by a
simple email, but an attack that requires having FSF lawyers send a
legal letter saying FSF will sue in court unless the company abides by
the license and permits other people work commercially and
non-commercially with the software.

Most of the people in the world are decent and honorable; but not
everyone.

And remember, if you ever get into this deeper, `derived work' is a
legal term -- it means what courts say it means...

-- 
Robert J. Chassell [email-masked]
Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com