GPL vs APSL (was: YAPL is bad)

Greg London greglondon at oaktech.com
Tue Sep 25 15:59:10 UTC 2001


David Johnson wrote:
> 
> On Monday 24 September 2001 11:08 am, Greg London wrote:

> You err slightly in (B). It does not mean that
> the source code must be made equally available 
> to those without the binary.

you missed my following paragraph that said (paraphrasing)
:(B) somewhat implies public distribution
:but it is possible to distribute a binary
:and give a well publicized URL that requires
:a password to get the source.

> > One thing Bob can't do, according to OSD,
> > is fix a bug in Alice's code, send her a binary
> > that works, and taunt her, saying "I'll send
> > you the source for a million bucks."
> > Once Bob sends Alice a binary, he must make
> > the source available to her.

> In the case of the MIT license, Bob certainly 
> *can* charge Alice a million
> bucks for the source, but the license would 
> still be an Open Source license.

It seems to me that the MIT does not meet
item #2 of the OSD, then. The APSL goes 
above and beyond #2 requirements. But the
MIT license seems to fall short. 

OSD #2 seems to be setting a clear minimum
requirement that source code must be included
with any distribution, or be made publicly
available.

looking at the MIT license, it seems to simply
waive all rights and throw in a No Warranty 
clause.

IANAL TINLA 
GREG
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