Simple Public License, second draft

[Justin Wells]

On Fri, Sep 03, 1999 at 03:52:35PM +0200, Philipp Gühring wrote:

> >I sure I'm not done yet: comments, problems, suggestions?

> There is one big problem, Richard Stallman made me aware of: The
> compatibility between licenses. I wanted to add just one article to
> the GPL, which was already covered by the previous one, but he said,
> that it would be incompatible to the GPL, so I decided to give it up,
> and to use the GPL, and print the addition as a comment on my
> products.

Yes. In order to be compatible with the GPL you have to drop any other
restrictions you might impose and defer to it. I put a clause in the
text of the SPL that provides an exemption for all of its obligations
for code released under the GPL. Then it is only necessary that I 
provide all of the rights required for the GPL to work.

Of course, under the GPL you are not allowed to compile and sell 
proprietary binaries, so you give something up in exchange for 
that exemption. 

As for geekcode licenses... well I'll let someone else try that :-)

Justin