Help with license decision for "cluster" of similar projects

[Alex Rousskov]

On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, Russell McOrmond wrote:

>   This is quickly off-topic for this list again.  I wonder if there
> needs to be an @opensource.org discussion group for discussing the
> business model and legal analysis of license agreements beyond the
> question of approving them as OSI compliant?

... Or the undocumented(?) charter of this list can be expanded. Or
any off-topic posts should be moderated out.

> When a business chooses a copyleft or non-copyleft free software
> license it is best when it relates to ones own business model.

Yes, as well as to political preferences and moral code (if any).
There are many factors at play here.

> When people make non-free derivatives they are "taking from me
> without paying" in the same way as "software pirates" are claimed to
> of non-free software.

Exactly. And in the same way you did not pay Newton or Dekart for what
you are "taking from them without paying".

Modern legal system gives us many legal tools to balance "giving" and
"taking". People who post their license on this list ask for help
achieving the right balance for them. There is no universally
best/right balance (or, at least, we would never agree on what it is).

>   Talking of freedom in this context ends up based more on personal
> politics than anything else.

Only if you talk about the side-effects. The summary below tries to
focus on the core facts. For example, business models, morals, and
politics do not affect the summary, but may use it.

> > - Copyleft licenses maximize the freedom to access  the code
> > - BSD-like licenses maximize the freedom to develop the code
>
>   The main feature of a BSD-like (non-copyleft) license is that it allows
> non-free derivatives.

It is one of the side-effects.

> Non-free software minimizes the freedom to develop derivative code
> of that non-free software.

The summary does not talk about non-free software. One side-effect of
development may be appearance of a non-free software, but we do not
care about side-effects here.

> So +1-1=0, meaning that BSD-like licenses do not maximize the
> freedom to develop code as it appears in the short term, but in fact
> minimizes long-term freedom to develop the code.

You are speculating about the future of side-effects, assigning them
arbitrary weights, and ignore other important side-effects, to arrive
at the desired result. I can easily build a symmetrical speculation
against copyleft, but I am not going to, because not only it would be
similarly pointless, but it would be out of this list and this thread
scopes.

Again, the summary is meant to state the facts, not argue about their
long term side-effects. Whether maximizing read-only access is
"better" than maximizing development access is out of scope.


Thanks,

Alex.

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