On Thu, 2004-07-22 at 07:47, Douglas Bates wrote: > I'm not looking to start a discussion of the GPL on R-devel; I'm just > giving a reference because the subject of the GPL, the license under > which R is issued, has been brought up on this list. > > If you want to follow some of the legal discussion of the Free Software > Foundation's General Public License (GPL), the web site groklaw.net is > required reading. One reason is because Pamela Jones (PJ as she is > known there), the primary author, writes so well. Even if I didn't > agree with her opinions I would enjoy her writing. > > Recently a lawyer wrote an article for LinuxInsider criticizing the GPL. > PJ rebuts the article in > http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2004072110004290 > > One thing to realize about legal discussions of the GPL is that the > whole concept is so foreign to the typical corporate lawyer that they > frequently misconstrue it, as you will see in PJ's comments about the > article. Also, some proprietary software companies have taken to > spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) about the GPL and many > people take such material at face value.
If I may tack on to Doug's post, a somewhat related FYI. For those interested in a multi-faceted dissertation on Open Source, there is a relatively new (April 2004) book available from Harvard University Press. The book is: The Success of Open Source by Steven Weber ISBN 0-674-01292-5 http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WEBSUC.html Weber is a Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley and provides an interesting insight into the history, technical, political, social, organizational and business/legal perspectives of the Open Source community. I recently picked it up at our local Barnes and Noble, though I have not yet finished it due to distractions (otherwise known as work). I have so far found it to be a fairly balanced presentation with respect to evangelism and pragmatism and his perspectives on some of the personalities well known in the community. It is also interesting to get a sense of the background and history on the evolution of the various licensing schemes (ie. GPL, BSD, etc.), addressing both the convergence and divergence of philosophy over time. I note that it is on back order at the moment from the publisher, but it is available via Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0674012925 and presumably other outlets as well. HTH, Marc Schwartz ______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
