At 13.26 25/06/2003 -0400, you wrote:
This is an example of a good software with a non-free license, the so-called "Aladdin Free Public License". The license states that "Open Source licenses unfairly prevent developers of useful software from being compensated proportionately when others profit financially from their work".
I had to choose that license because of the naugthy HiFi situation here in Italy. I don't know how the HiFi world is in other countries, but here in Italy is full of small "garage factories" that know near to nothing about HiFi but know very well how to make money based on just snake oil, especially if they can do it on top of other people work. I was feared that some of this snake oil company could take my work implementing it completely the wrong way, ruining it, and so converting it, which could be a real improvement in reproduction accuracy, into another one of the many snake oil myths already circulating in the HiFi world.
The AFPL was the license closest to te GPL that could (losely) prevent this to happen. If you know of some other license that is even closer to the GPL and would provide at least the same loose protection, I'm willing to adopt it ASAP. I'm not trying to make money with this program, else I wouldn't have released it with its source code and just the "protection" of a short electronic document. I'm even willing to allow the use of DRC for free even for commercial use, provided that it is used the right way, not just as a way to put a "Digital room correction" sticker in front of an almost empty box, and provided also that any improvement to the software coming from the commercial use is also released for free under terms similar to those of the AFPL or the GPL.
I'm a strong GPL supporter, I have already released some other software under the GPL (take a look at sredird, for example), but in this situation using it could have caused things I don't want to happen. I don't want to see my software used as a base for snake oil myths circulation. Hope this helps clarify the reasons behind the use of the AFPL instead of the GPL.
Bye,
--
Denis Sbragion
InfoTecna
Tel: +39 0362 805396, Fax: +39 0362 805404
URL: http://www.infotecna.it