[Approval request] CMGPL licence

[John Cowan]

Marcel van der Boom wrote:


> This would be very bad and I'm realizing this, but what I cannot 
> understand is why this would happen with such a minor change.


Because 3c provides a loophole that you are closing.  For a license
to be GPL-compatible, it has to impose conditions that are a subset
of what the GPL imposes.  Alternatively stated, it has to allow
behaviors that are a superset of what the GPL allows.

For example, the modified-BSD license imposes only the condition "Don't
remove this notice", so it is GPL-compatible.  The old BSD license also
imposed "Acknowledge us in your ads", which the GPL does not, so it was
incompatible.

Your license imposes "Send the source code or make a written offer
of it" on everyone, including non-commercial distributors.
Non-commercial distributors have rights under the GPL that your
license denies them: namely, the right to piggyback on someone
else's source distribution.  That means that products under
your license can't have GPLed components.

-- 
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    the corridors               || http://www.reutershealth.com
during the hours of repose     || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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