On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 01:21:29PM -0800, John McNally wrote:
> It seems you are upset that the ASF has some flexibility in their
> license, but not enough for your satisfaction.
No, in their license approval process. The license is fine, it's
a license. I have no big issue with it.
> But you are quite happy
> with the FSF for having no flexibility at all.
Actually I found the FSF to be much more flexible than the ASF.
They're helpful people with a clearly expressed philosophy who
will patiently work through with you how and where your license
may differ from their views. Assuming you correct your license
to be compatible with that clearly expressed philosophy they
are happy to declare it a free software license, or if you go
far enough, a GPL compatible license. The process is informal,
friendly, and fun.
The ASF on the other hand is a quagmire. Near as I can tell a
bunch of religious nuts hell bent on proving to the rest of the
world that anything that isn't ASF is wrong, and anyone who does
anything in any way different "doesn't get it". An altogether
unpleasant lot of people who are unable to clearly express
their philosophy and unable to work with other groups.
The process of trying to determine what a license would have to
say to be consistent with the ASF's philosophy proved to be
extremely frustrating. The people I had to deal with were
stubborn, and generally rude. Altogether an unpleasant
experience which left me questining whether there really
is such thing as an Apache community--or whether it's just a
bunch of egotistical jerks trying to increase their noospheres
at everyone else's expense.
Sorry to be blunt, but that's how I found the process.
> You say the FSF has said the SPL is okay as long as it says the
> GPL is a 100% valid alternative license.
No they did two things. First they told me whether or not the SPL
qualified as a free software license in its own right. It didn't
at first, but they helped me work through it until it did. Second
they helped me determine whether it was a free software license
that also would be compatible with the GNU GPL. Eventually we
managed to achieve that as well.
It was quite an enjoyable, pleasant, and friendly experience,
which was remarkably different than the bullshit I had to put
up with from the ASF.
> Are you saying the SPL was modified to say, users of WebMacro
> are free to use WM under terms of the SPL or alternatively they
> are free to use it under terms of the APL or GPL
The original idea was to create a free software license which
was also consistent with the principles of the ASF, so that I
would need only a single license to keep everybody happy.
> and the FSF was okay with this and the ASF was not?
The FSF has clearly expressed their philosophy on their website
and numerous other places. You may not agree with it--I don't
care to debate it with you--but it's very clear what a license
must do or say in order to be a free software license, and
furthermore what it must do in order to be GPL compatible.
I'm saying the FSF was OK with me creating a free software
license and Richard Stallman in particular responded in detail
to me on several occasions to help me with the process.
I got no such interest or support from the ASF. On the contrary
I got a bunch of hostile jerks telling me I didn't get it because
I wasn't one of them and my license wasn't invented by the ASF.
Or some such thing. Ask Jon, he can tell you all about it.
> I find this hard to
> believe. Or did you bend to the FSF's requirements and then try to
> state that the SPL was "close enough" to the APL that it fit the
> requirements under your view and it was not necessary to allow users the
> same flexibility to use the APL as the GPL?
Of course I bent to the FSF's requirements, the goal was to make
everyone happy. I wrote repeatedly to ASF people asking, point
blank, what my license would have to do or say, and how it would
have to bend, to also be compatible with the ASF's worldview. I
got a fairly hostile response.
My goal was to bend my license to fit both worlds, without asking
anyone else to change their philosophy of software or licensing.
I failed because the ASF threw up one roadblock after another.
You people (generalizing to the whole ASF "community") have a
whole hell of a lot to learn about collaborating with the rest
of the opensource community.
Justin
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