Fork-prevention in the GPL

Bruce Perens bruce at perens.com
Tue Apr 19 05:52:11 UTC 2005


David Dillard wrote:

>>So a license that enables and allows forking is good?
>>    
>>
>
>I would say yes.  In fact, I'd say that the OSD, in effect, mandates
>that it be possible.
>  
>
Correct.

>>I thought that was the whole point of the GPL, to prevent forking
>>    
>>
The GPL makes forks extremely easy to heal, becuase the only agreement
necessary to merge forks together is the GPL itself. This was useful,
for example, when the Linux fork of LIBC was merged back into the GNU LIBC.

Thanks

Bruce



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