A prototype License Wizard up and running

[John Cowan]

Russell Nelson scripsit:

> If you believe http://www.benedict.com/Digital/Software/OpenSourceWiz.aspx
> then 32 licenses are needed.  Six binary attributes taken to the power
> of two is 32.

That would be 64, the last time I tried it.

> It may be that some of those combinations don't make sense, and so
> there may be no license that fulfills those combinations.  But still,
> claiming that three licenses are sufficient, as you and Sam Greenblatt
> claim, seems a bit of a stretch.

Indeed this wizard recommends only the Apache License (no version
specified), the IBM PL, the MPL (no version specified), the Artistic
License, the LGPL, the GPL, and the QPL.  The other 57 combinations
of answers lead to a (IMHO pernicious) recommendation to write your
own license.

In addition, the fifth question asks about commercial sale, and the
logic believes that the Artistic, LGPL, GPL, and QPL all forbid it.

For the record, here is the wizard's (partly incorrect) view of its
seven licenses:

ASL: mix with nonfree, nonfree forks, modifier need not license patents,
	modifier need not redistribute, commercial sale, not GPL-compatible

IBMPL: mix with nonfree, nonfree forks, modifier must license patents,
	modifier need not redistribute, commercial sale, not GPL-compatible

MPL: mix with nonfree, nonfree forks, modifier must license patents,
	modifier must redistribute, commercial sale, not GPL-compatible

Artistic: mix with nonfree, nonfree forks, modifier need not license patents,
	modifier need not redistribute, no commercial sale, GPL-compatible

LGPL: mix with nonfree, no nonfree forks, modifier need not license patents,
	modifier must redistribute, no commercial sale, GPL-compatible

GPL: no mix with nonfree, no nonfree forks, modifier need not license patents,
	modifier must redistribute, no commercial sale, GPL-compatible (duh)

QPL: no mix with nonfree, no nonfree forks, modifier need not license patents,
	modifier must redistribute, no commercial sale, not GPL-compatible


-- 
John Cowan  jcowan at reutershealth.com  www.reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan
If a traveler were informed that such a man [as Lord John Russell] was
leader of the House of Commons, he may well begin to comprehend how the
Egyptians worshiped an insect.  --Benjamin Disraeli