suggestion: optional clauses for open source licenses

[Evan Prodromou]

On Sat, 2004-13-11 at 04:24 +0100, Bernhard Fastenrath wrote:
> >>terms. The license name could be written as GPL+PIP which would
> >>mean "GNU Public License with additional Public Intellectual Property clause"
> > 
> > The GPL forbids that.
> > 
> > No additional restrictions.
> 
> The GPL cannot forbid this.

The GPL is a copyrighted document in its own right, and you're not
allowed to distribute derivative works, such as modified versions.

"Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
     59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed."

Many Open Source licenses are copyrighted like this.

But, y'know, you may be interested in something like the Creative
Commons license suite. They let you mix-and-match license elements,
_and_ claim no copyright on their licenses. Trademark rules, though,
prevent you from calling a modified version of a CC license "Creative
Commons".

~ESP

-- 
Evan Prodromou                  .O.
http://bad.dynu.ca/~evan/       ..O
evan at bad.dynu.ca                OOO