Re: [9fans] Plan 9 Binaries and Source for Free

[Pat Gunn <pgunn01@ibm.net>]

> The world which wants open source can be a bunch of ungrateful
> bastards, and in this case I'm one of them.  There are two things I,
> and I suspect others, consider unacceptable about the new Plan 9
> license:
>
>         * Lucent has the right to come in and demand full
>           non-exclusive rights to any derivatives of Plan 9 which you
>           make and use--even if you don't distribute them.
>
>         * You can't sue any contributor to the version of Plan 9 you
>           use, for any intellectual property reason whatsoever,
>           without destroying your copies of that version of Plan 9.
>           (I don't know how enforceable this clause is.)
>
> Maybe some people think these things are okay, but from my point of
> view, this is on the level of the APSL: technically open source, but
> with a few poisonous clauses which will probably prevent it from
> generating real interest.  And it's certainly not compatible with the
> GPL.
>
> These aren't issues of personal gain, incidentally.  I don't think I
> would ever write a derivative of a work of free software and
> intentionally keep it to myself, and I don't think I would ever sue
> someone for intellectual property reasons.  But I think truly free
> software shouldn't require people to give up these rights.

Personally, I don't see it as any more restrictive than the GPL, and
for a licence, those points are generally positive -- like the GPL it
helps to create a small part of the ideal world in which we'd have
no intellectual property protections at all, and that's a good thing.

--
"Religion is a crutch, and only the crippled need crutches" -- Madalyn Murray
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