Re: [Caml-list] Licenses - Confusion

[Chet Murthy <murthy.chet@gmail.com>]

> Regardless of copyleft -- which I'm certain could be expressed in a BSD-like
> concise way -- I would personally say that BSD-style licenses are for
> humans and GPL-style for lawyers.
> 
> If you need a lawyer to understand your freedom you are not free anymore.
> Stop feeding the lawyers and the bureaucrats.

-Well-.  Suppose you wrote a really, really useful piece of software.
Big Software Company X (BSCX) starts using it, and they develop some
really nice stuff on top of it, filling a really important gap.  But
let's be honest: your stuff was the key contribution, and they're just
adding a very useful thing to it.  But they patent that useful
addition, and -then- open-source it.

So now, any company that whats to use your software, and get the value
of that nifty addition, has to license the patent from BSCX.  But
that's not at all what you wanted, is it?

I guess what I'm saying is, you might -think- that legalese is there
to employ lawyers, whereas the -lack- of legalese can often leave
loopholes thru which corporate lawyers and their clients will slip.

I'm not saying you should use the GPL.  Just that there's a -good-
reason most corps don't like the GPL: it restricts their ability to
suck value out of open-source without giving back.

--chet--