On Thu, 2011-01-06 at 14:49 +0530, jtd wrote: > How does the conditions on which an open licence is based change with > a country?
I have not really gone into this. I did note that CC tries to give country specific licenses. One possible use case would be a country that prohibits export of a particular category of software beyond it's borders (and makes it a criminal offence). One would need a few extra clauses in the license to deal with this. <snip> I cannot really answer the stuff below because I do not understand it. Can you clarify: > > > One might note that, > much of M$ problem creation capabilities arose from the freedom > granted by BSD (or similiar licenced) code. what do you mean by 'problem creation capabilities'? > Most of the embedded device makers were (and are) making merry with > gpl (and bsd) code. Several have been brought to book because of the > gpl. most of them have not been caught yet! and I do not understand what this has to do with the points that I am raising. > That the only thing that might yet save JAVA is the GPL save JAVA from what? > One might note that with the sale of Novell's patents, GPLV3 like > terms seems to be the only option for all other non BSDish open > licences. what does this mean? > > Much of your arguments (except one) is about (1) expecting others to > behave huh? who am I expecting to behave? and behave how? > and (2) the assumption that an improvment is not desired by > the original developer. where did I make that assumption - I am on record saying that a major motivation for open sourcing code is the hope that people will step in improve the software. > > I fail to see how (1) holds in the light of the above list. > The whole point of opening your code is the desire for improvment, so > proposing (2) as an argument against gpl seems rather strange. I haven't proposed this > > The exception is BSD not benefiting from literal copying of gpl code. > Note that reading and reimplementing gpl code is a viable > alternative, are we allowed to do that? I wanted to port RT to python/django, but I saw GPL and was discouraged. If you can certify that I can do this and license it under BSD I will be forever grateful to you > particularly because much of gpl code is incremental > improvements, especially if it is derived from BSD, or when bsd code > is folded into gpl. I have news for you - most open source code is incremental improvements - the methodology that is proven to be successful. This is methodology and has nothing to do with license. > > I am quite sure that most foss developers are not anti BSD either, cool - are you among their number? > except for the major irritant of having to reverse engineer closed > derivative works. be clear on one thing - I personally feel that writing closed source code is immoral and evil, I campaign against it - but unfortunately closed source software has not yet been added in the schedule prohibited substances in relevant anti trafficking laws. -- regards KG http://lawgon.livejournal.com Coimbatore LUG rox http://ilugcbe.techstud.org/ -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
