THE PROBLEM I keep spinning in a tight circle, over an issue of copyleft. I hope someone can help me get unstuck. To begin, please read the copyleft notice in my signature block.
The reason I carefully append a copyleft notice is as follows. I want any person to be able to drag anything I write through the clipboard and drop it into any copylefted document. I typically choose the LGPL over the GPL because I want any copyleft works that contain my words, to be able to be affiliated with non-copyleft works. If I want to assure copyleft purity, I use the GPL. Here's the rub. I want people to be able to use my words directly, edited or un-edited, in whole or in part, without having to attribute anything to me. I don't want people to have to paraphrase in order to avoid infringing on my copyright. I only grant this "without attribution" permission provided that the resulting work is copylefted. I am honored that anyone would find my words worthy of distributing, copying or modifying, and I want nothing more, than to know my words will grow up, to live an honorable life, in a copyleft world. PROPOSED SOLUTION I propose to create a copyleft "patch" license that defines how the "without attribution" clause applies to copylefted works. Please review the following Without-attribution General Public License (WGPL) patch to see if it is 100% correct. Thank you for your consideration of this matter. WITHOUT-ATTRIBUTION GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE This License applies to any work (Original) which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be copied, distributed and modified under the terms of a named "Base" license and subject to the Without-attribution General Public License (WGPL). The "Base" license must be one of the following three (3) licenses: the GNU General Public License (GPL), the GNU Library General Public License (LGPL), or the Public Domain. The WGPL License may be considered as a patch license that preserves all of the conditions of the named Base license with the superceding condition that attribution back to the Original work is optional. The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow. 1. If you copy or distribute a verbatim copy, you must either leave the Original copyright notice intact or you must meet condition (2). 2. If you modify (or do not modify) the work, you may remove the Original copyright notice, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: a) If the Original work is under the GPL, your work that contains a portion of the Original must be properly licensed under the GPL. b) If the Original work is under the LGPL, your work that contains a portion of the Original must be properly licensed under either the GPL or the LGPL. c) If the Original work is under the Public Domain, your work that contains a portion of the Original must be properly licensed under the GPL (with or without the WGPL) or the LGPL (with or without the WGPL) or the Public Domain (with the WGPL) or any other non-proprietary copyleft license listed directly on "What Is Copyleft?" <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html> (with or without the WGPL). -- Copyright(c) 1998 Lyno Sullivan; this work is free and may be copied, modified and distributed under the GNU Library General Public License (LGPL) and it comes with absolutely NO WARRANTY <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lgpl.html>; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
