Re: Accusations, accusations, always accusations

[Brian Behlendorf]

On Mon, 18 Oct 1999, Richard Stallman wrote:
>     Since this concept of getting "credit" for software seems to be so
>     important, it probably should be embodied in the license. 
> 
> I disagree on principle; however, even if I agreed, I see no way that
> a license could be written to address the issue.

Yay, a discussion about licenses on license-discuss.  In the new Apache
license (which has not yet been applied to the HTTP project, but is being
used on Jakarta), we have changed the much-maligned "advertising clause" 
to read:

   3. The end-user documentation included with the redistribution,
      if any, must include the following acknowledgment:  
         "This product includes software developed by the
          Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org/)."
      Alternately, this acknowledgment may appear in the software itself,
      if and wherever such third-party acknowledgments normally appear.

It may not be satisfactory to Richard, but it does address the issue, and
is much more liberal (by being more specific) than the older one.

        Brian