On 7 Oct 2002, Ali Akcaagac wrote: > On Mon, 2002-10-07 at 14:07, Fredrik Persson wrote: > well i don't have any problems releasing the sourcecode. thats not what > i am concerned of.
Yes, but releasing the sourcecode is not what makes free software. Really, it comes down to people's ability to do things that you don't like with the software. If I can't fork the program without your permission, it's not free. It's clearly your right to choose this, but it won't go in Debian, and depending on what license you DO choose, you won't get some other benefits of free software (people will be less likely to send patches, it will get less-wide distribution, you won't be giving as much to the community). > i only search for a suitable license NOW to protect > myself for the future. it's better to search NOW for a correct solution > than having to deal with the consequencies afterwards. Absolutely. I'd urge you to consider that making the software free is the correct solution, and the GPL is a good license for that. If that's not correct for you, you'll have to define exactly what freedoms you want to allow and what you want to restrict. > why not ? i mean i don't like GNU/GPL much because it is too free. > allowing everyone to do whatever they like. "Too free" is always a worrisome phrase. Be specific which freedoms you want to restrict from your software and we'll see if it's still free enough to fit one of the other free licenses. Be aware, though, that most free licenses are less restrictive than the GPL, not more. > http://opensource.org is full of > different OSI aproved licenses. not necessarily GNU/GPL. at the very > final end its the users problem if he/she wants to use the software or > not. Agreed. You'd be hard-pressed to find any of them that don't allow a program to be forked, though. It's one of the basic premises of free software. > i only want to make sure he/she is able to get the source and > compile it. You don't need a free license for that. There are a lot of non-free no-charge licenses you can choose as well. > yeah but i am not linus torvalds. personally i see the kernel situation > losing it's focus and bounds. everyone is forking its own kernel now and > at the very end we deal with 10 derivates of it which none of them is > really perfect. As opposed to one which is an arbitrary compromise between some subset of the imperfect patches? I know which world I prefer. In the end, I choose free software over non-free, when both are available, and I believe that freedom has innate strengths that simply lead to better programs. I hope you come to the same conclusion, but if not, I wish you the best regardless. -- Mark Rafn [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.dagon.net/>
