Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!ames!oliveb!Ozona!chase
From: chase@Ozona.orc.olivetti.com (David Chase)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Copylefting
Message-ID: <45971@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Date: 3 Aug 89 20:13:55 GMT
References: <12344@pur-ee.UUCP> <4415@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <634@skye.ed.ac.uk> <8871@attctc.Dallas.TX.US>
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Reply-To: chase@Ozona.UUCP (David Chase)
Organization: Olivetti Research Center, Menlo Park, CA
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In article chasm@attctc.Dallas.TX.US (Charles Marslett) writes:
>Like its commercial equivalent (the shareware license), a copyleft is very
>hard to enforce, but the ethical individual should abide by the author's
>wishes.  And in some cases this means that a tool (even a "free" tool) is
>not accessable.

True, but one point (or implication of this) is missed.  Note that the
GNU "license" has not been tested in court.  If I do some work
derived from GNU software (and distribute it) thinking that the GNU
license protects me from getting ripped off in some unethical way (or
from being held liable in some suit), I'd end up really really sad if
that weren't the case.  That is, I know that I'm ethical, but do I
have any guarantee that (a) all users of my code will be ethical and
(b) I can do anything about it if they aren't?  

If I could require that users sign a license before getting a copy,
I'd be in much better shape; this shrink-wrap stuff sure cuts down on
the time and hassle, but what if it carries no legal force?  What if
it only carries legal force if I spend a zillion dollars on lawyers to
haul someone into court?  In this uncertain situation, of course, the
ethical thing (if you dislike legal uncertainty) is to *not* derive
interesting things from GNU software; I'll cheerfully make incremental
improvements and send them back to FSF, but I won't commit massive
amounts of time or money to a project, because I might end up with
*no* control over its use.

Understand, too, that what the FSF lawyer says means n-o-t-h-i-n-g to
me.  Since when does anyone take advice from someone else's lawyer?
Not this fool, no sir.  It is possible to do standard licensing in a
do-it-yourself fashion, yes, but the GNU copyright/license is most
definitely not standard.

It takes more time to get things signed, and it might even cost more
money to handle the paperwork, but a file full of signatures on
licenses would be extremely useful if it were ever necessary to haul
someone into court.  The "copyleft" need not be hard to enforce.

Understand, please, that I'm not bashing Stallman or the FSF or their
goals.  I *am* bashing (1) their casual approach to licensing and (2)
all the people who claim that people reluctant to base work on GNU
software are greedy software-hoarding idiots.

David