Hi All,
> On Mon, 20 Mar 2000, DeRobertis wrote:
>> We deliver Scott his UI under any licence he wants. Just because we
>> licence something under the GPL to someone, does not mean we can't
>> licence it to someone else under another licence.
>
> Adrian: Actually, by licencing something under the GPL it means that we
> have to continue to licence it under the GPL - no other licence is
> compatible with the GPL. The GPL will allow other licences to be changed
> to it, but once something is under the GPL, it is under the GPL for good.
> Besides, if we gave the stack to Scott under a different licence, he would
> distribute it under a different licence, and so on...
I beg to differ Adrian. I think DeRobertis is correct. (Of course, who says
what isn't important -- just that we get the right ideas put forth and
understood.)
The original author can do what he/she/they want. And doing what one wants
can be MULTIPLE releases with MULTIPLE licenses, even including the GPL.
Case in point: Many folks went to bat to fight hard for Netscape to release
its browser code (Mozilla) under a dual-release back before it was put out
into the world. There was a lot of talk and a few months of time after the
news of a pending release and the actual code release. In that time lots of
license discussions happened. The Netscape lawyers and corporate types came
to release their asset under both a NPL (Netscape Public License) and MPL
(Mozilla Public License). At first, the release was only going to be a NPL.
Lots of kicking and tugging got the MPL release too. And, FWIW, there were
still others calling for and hoping for a GPL (GNU GPL) release as well. It
was proven to be possible and such -- but it was decided against such a move
as it was too much for the corporate types to agree to, IMHO of revisionist
history. :/
All the various flavors of the released code is possible since Netscape was
the ORIGINAL AUTHOR of the code. It had copyright ownership rights.
In the real world, each title then takes on a life of its own, following the
release. So, a bit of futuristic planning is called for in making these
decisions. It gets to be hair-splitting - forking and confusing, perhaps.
Case in point with FC: Say the FC community releases FC to the public under
the GPL. And, say the FC community releases FC to MetaCard under a different
license. That is okay on day 1. Easily done. The birth is only part of the
process in having a baby -- now you got 2 kids on your hands to parent.
Others (Third Party-GPLers) can take the GPL'ed release of FC, make
significant changes, keep the changes GPLed (of course), and then we would
have Third Party-FC 2.0). For now, the name isn't important. The significant
changes are the things to notice. Once those significant changes arrive from
other creators with a GPL license we will be facing a fork. The FC team
won't be able to re-merge/re-build the MC's version of the HOME STACK under
a different license with all the new contributions.
MC's and FC's HOME STACK will be different forever more (if the Third
Party-FC 2.0 owners don't want to give-back their ownership rights to anyone
else).
Gulp. So what??? We cross (or burn) that bridge when we get to it? Planning.
???
>> And it'd be pretty hard for Scott not to include source code for the
>> home stack we give him, so he'd be complying with the GPL anyway.
>
> Adrian: At this stage, I don't think it is important to consider how the
> choice of licence affects our arrangements with MetaCard. We choose a
> licence that provides the freedom and protection that we want - then if
> MetaCard want to make an agreement with us under those terms, we discuss
> it then. Changing our aims for the licence because it might increase
> development time isn't wise. It's better to take longer to achieve
> something great, instead of quicker to create something poor.
Hummm. Since we had a disagreement on what was POTENTIAL above, its hard to
do anything but ignore what follows. However, I do think it is important to
think and talk it through, slaving over the details, so as to get the
desired synergy with MC AND the "something great" too.
Ta.
Mark Rauterkus
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
