GPL + advertising clause

bruce at perens.com bruce at perens.com
Tue Oct 12 21:02:38 UTC 1999


interesting you should bring this up now. The University of California
recently removed the advertising clause from the BSD license in order
to make it GPL-compatible.

Why not just use the GPL and politely request in a notice attached to it
that you be acknowledged in advertising, packaging, web sites, whatever
you want? Most people will do it. This is what I negociated with Digital
Creations for the Zope license (see zope.org) - they had a requirement for
a web-site badge that became a request, and everybody carries the badge.
If you do something similar while using the GPL, you will have a certified
Open Source license immediately, without all the hassle of creating a new
license.

In general, people who produce and use free software are sensitive about
author-attribution issues and will honor the author's wishes regarding them.

	Thanks

	Bruce



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