Gregory Brown
2/1/2006 8:11:00 PM
On 2/1/06, Austin Ziegler <halostatue@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Not at all. My problem here is that WSS4R is under GNU GPL only, not
> >> dually licensed. It is the GNU GPL that is a problem, not the Ruby
> >> licence.
> > That's really highly subjective. Outside of Ruby, I *always* use the
> > GPL.
>
> Hmmm. Not really subjective. The GNU GPL is explicitly a highly
> restrictive licence. The GPLv3 is going to be even more restrictive,
> although it looks like it might play better with open source licences.
It is a highly protective license, yes. All of it's restrictions are
centered around ensuring permanent protection of the essential
freedoms.
> > The license of Ruby only holds ground because the GPL is there. The
> > terms and conditions that Matz wrote are highly permissive, but do
> > very little to protect an authors rights.
>
> Can you please elaborate on what you mean here? I personally suspect
> confusion in what is meant, but the Ruby license is in fact little
> different than the MIT-style licence or the modified BSD licence, which
> both provide better protection than the GNU GPL for authors' "moral
> rights" (which most emphatically do not exist in the US or Canada) of
> insisting to be recognised as the author of a particular work. The GPLv3
> will, again, handle this better.
It's not a legal document. It does not have adequate definitions and
does not qualify as a free software license. It is not recognized by
the OSI (unlike the MIT/BSD licenses), and it simply does not have
adequate legal backing. If a lawsuit was fought and won over the Ruby
license, my opinions might change. But it's truely not something I'd
be willing to bet on.
In fact, I would be much more comfortable seeing the Ruby license
written so that it can be recognized by the FSF and the OSI as a Free
and Open Source license.
If this was the case, I would find less discomfort in it.
> > Still, in interest of avoiding a flame war, myself being a strong
> > supporter of the Free Software Foundation and copyleft in general,
> [...]
>
> And this is where you and I differ. I do *not* support "copyleft." I
> *do* support open source. I hold no opinion on the FSF proper, but have
> great dislike for RMS and his stances.
I find RMS to be a zealot, but many of his stances make sense when the
zeal is stripped away. I try to be pragmatic in my decisions, and
idealistic in my discussions, so I suppose my point is that though I
do support copyleft, I should not like to impose it in places where it
might be harmful.
However, I should like to keep the door open for those who wish to support it.
> I do maintain and will always maintain that my applications and
> libraries released under an MIT-style licence will always be freer than
> anything released under the GNU GPL, any version.
Yes, you grant more freedom. But you do not ensure the protection of
these freedoms.
Granting an infinite amount of freedom to be stripped away easily in
the future is to me worst than granting some freedom with a few
responsibilities attached which help to ensure it's survival.
Of course, the concept of freedom is subjective in of itself. If you
mean, "I want to give people the freedom to do whatever they want with
my code", then yes, MIT/BSD would be a good way to go.
If you mean, "I want my code to remain free forever", certainly, the
GPL offers the strongest protection for this.
> As you said, though, the Ruby disjunctive licence is (almost) the best
> choice for Ruby applications and libraries. I still use the MIT licence
> where I can.
Agreed. The thing you are giving with the disjunctive license of Ruby
is the freedom to choose, and that is A Good Thing.