Re: GPL and other licenses (was ANN: XML Marshalling for Objective C on OS X)
Re: GPL and other licenses (was ANN: XML Marshalling for Objective C on OS X)
- Subject: Re: GPL and other licenses (was ANN: XML Marshalling for Objective C on OS X)
- From: Bill Cheeseman <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 06:54:42 -0700
on 03-06-19 12:15 PM, Chris Meyer at email@hidden wrote:
>
Unfortunately as a commercial developer I can't use (and for that
>
reason wouldn't contribute to) this framework under GPL.
A lot of developers have heard of the GPL and assume that, since it's
famous, it must be a good thing. They use it without understanding what it
is or what it does. I think the folks behind the GPL should make a greater
effort to be sure people understand that it has very serious ramifications
for any developer who uses it. If you want to buy into the GPL philosophy,
that's perfectly all right, but you ought to look before you leap.
Recently there is a new option for licensing which I, personally, find quite
attractive. It is the Creative Commons set of licenses at
<
http://www.creativecommons.org/>. It was developed by Prof. Larry Lessig,
now at Stanford Law School, formerly at Harvard Law School.
For stuff I develop and want to make freely available for use by anybody, I
specify the attribution license. If you use my stuff, you have to say so.
That's your only obligation.
Even the Creative Commons licenses have issues you ought to be aware of,
however. For example, they would have you, basically, warrant that your
product doesn't infringe someone else's intellectual property rights. When
I'm releasing stuff for free, I'm not willing to risk warranting anything --
especially that some Crazy out there isn't going to claim I copied it, so I
exclude that paragraph.
--
Bill Cheeseman - email@hidden
Quechee Software, Quechee, Vermont, USA
http://www.quecheesoftware.com
The AppleScript Sourcebook -
http://www.AppleScriptSourcebook.com
Vermont Recipes -
http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/VermontRecipes
_______________________________________________
cocoa-dev mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/cocoa-dev
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.