LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Alan Kennington <ak1.linuxsa@topology.org>
  To  : LinuxSA <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 08:22:43 +0930

Re: Re: bsd- easier than you think

On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 02:12:57PM +0930, Mark Newton wrote:
> 
> What the GPL does is to remove my right to license my own code in the
> manner that I see fit, if that code happens to add value to a GPL 
> program.
> 


Mark,

That's all fine and good. But you haven't mentioned what is possibly
the scariest thing about the GPL - the blank cheque clause which says
that the end user or developer may use alternatively any future GPL licence.
There are very many scary scenarios which could result. For example,
a new version could say that the developer may make modifications and
create a closed source version on payment of 50% of all profits to the FSF.
A lot of companies might find this attractive. 
Strangely, although the blank-cheque clause has been removed from the
linux licence, I don't think it's removed from the full licence terms
which you implicitly sign up to if you indicate in a kernel module
that your software is under a GPL licence. So the modules might
be under the blank-cheque clause but not the kernel as a whole. 

To me there is little doubt that the GPL is guided by a communist vision,
by which I do not mean Marxist communism but rather a pre-19th century
notion of communism which has nothing at all to do with the sham
communist governments of the 20th century. (Communism is good in principle,
but no one has tried it yet in practice.) The GPL is certainly trying to
create an alternative body of commonly owned software which is owned in
some sense collectively by the developers - the software preletariat.
The problem with communism, as always, is the "Animal Farm" scenario
of the "more equal" animals eventually becoming worse than the original
oppressors. It hasn't happened yet, but it could happen in our lifetimes.

This is why every time I think of using the GPL, I feel ill when I read
through the terms in detail - I just feel an instinctive repulsion from
the attempt to put a noose around my neck, whether the noose is held by
someone who says they're friendly or not.
I much prefer a licence which I can understand, and which is not written
by sneaky lawyers with hidden meanings. That's why I use the Artistic Licence.
It's sort of like BSD, except that it also requires derivative developers
to _not_ ascribe their dodgy third-rate modifications to me.
The BSD licence doesn't seem to care about that.
So the Artistic Licence seems to be a happy half-way house between BSD and GPL.
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/artistic-license.html

The Artistic Licence has the further advantage that, as far as I know,
it is _not_ on the list of licences which the evil monopolist MS approves of.

CHeers,
Alan Kennington.

PS. I've just this minute received an e-mail from the author of a
"stop abductions" website assuring me that aluminium beanies really
are necessary. He's given me some further references to add to my
own links to the subject.
http://www.topology.org/net/crazy.html#bizarre
Somehow I'm starting to see connections between the GPL and aluminium
beanies, but I'm not quite sure what the connection is.
Maybe it's something to do with the desire of both to free us all
from dangerous mind control. And maybe they're both equally effective...

-- 
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