Re: License wars (was Re: [Caml-list] ANN: ChartPak - a data visualization library for the web)

[Brian Hurt <brian.hurt@qlogic.com>]

On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Matt Gushee wrote:

> But quite apart from wanting to keep open (for myself) the option of
> using my code in a proprietary app, 

IANAL, but I do hang out with an IP lawyer, and as I understand it if it's
100% your code you can do whatever the heck with it you like.  You own the
copyright.  Everyone else is bound to the GPL (unless you decide to
release it under another license), but *you* are not.

Mind you, this only applies if it's 100% your code.  If you accept a patch 
from me, for example, then I own part of the copyright as well, and you 
have to get my agreement to change the license on my code/patch.  For 
large projects with lots of involved people (like Linux) it becomes 
effectively impossible to change the license.

I generally perfer the GPL, *because* I'm a professional programmer.  As 
the saying goes, I have to put food on the table as well.  If you want to 
use my code, pay me for it- either money (code for hire), or payment in 
kind.  Which is basically what the GPL is.  The payment to use (modify) my 
code is that I get some of your code.  Don't like the deal?  Don't use the 
code.  Write your own code.

But I'm not religous about it.  I strongly beleive that the guy writting
the code- the guy putting the sweat equity in to create the value- gets to
decide what sort of license it goes under.  Note that by choosing to
extend, and thereby reuse most of, GPL licensed code you are choosing you
license.  This can be viewed both as an advantage (everyone else has to
play under the same rules you play under) and as a disadvantage (you have
to play under the same rules everyone else plays under).  Note the same
can be said about the BSD license- it's both an advantage and a
disadvantage.  It is, however, your choice.

And compared to some of the EULAs that various commercial companies are 
foisting off, there's almost no difference.

Brian

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