Legal Bounds of Licensing...

[V. Alex Brennen]

David Starner wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Sep 28, 1999 at 12:57:59PM -0400, V. Alex Brennen wrote:
> > Basically, I have written an IDE for GNU/Linux which I'm
> > about to release. I would like to dual license it under
> > the GPL and a license which I will write. I would like the
> > second license to go to greater lengths than the GPL does
> > in it's effort to help make software free.  I am curious
> > what the legal bounds would be for the efforts of the second
> > license.
> 
> You do realize that this is practically irrelevant if you dual license it.
> If the second license just adds restrictions to the first, then people
> will just use it under the first license.

Hello David,

  I will allow people to choose which license they wish to
license the source code under.   I will not require people 
to accept the terms of both licenses in order to license
the code.  They may choose to accept the terms of the GPL
or the terms of my license.  My apologies for not making
that clear in my first message.

  It's important to provide licensing under the GPL so that
people who have GPL'd projects can use my code to advance
their projects. If I only license under my new license, I
will isolate myself and my code from the community, and my
program will likely be reimplemented.  Once there is a
significant code base under my license terms, I anticipate
that I will discontinue dual licensing when the next major
version of my programs are released.

  The dual licensing provides me with the benefit of working
in both the GNU GPL codebase and my more restricted codebase
at the same time.  I do not think that I can attempt to
compete with the GNU GPL codebase.  It is moving far to fast.
Allowing my current code to be licensed under the GNU GPL
virtually guarantees that my code will not be reimplemented
by the free software community.

	- VAB