Re: [Caml-list] Licenses - Confusion

[Ernesto Posse <eposse@cs.queensu.ca>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1853 bytes --]

On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 4:41 AM, Daniel Bünzli
<daniel.buenzli@erratique.ch>wrote:

> Le jeudi, 23 mai 2013 à 07:36, Stéphane Glondu a écrit :
> > I would say BSD-style licenses cater for the needs of organizations, and
> > GPL-style ones cater for individuals.
>
>
> Well as everyone seems to know and speak for the others, here's my take.
>
> 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.
>
>
I'm afraid this is a little bit too naive. I am not a lawyer, and I agree
that the GPL is quite unreadable, but the choice of licence does matter,
and has real consequences. A BSD or MIT licence is very permissive, but one
could argue that they is too permissive, with no attribution required for
example. If what you want is "anyone can use it in any way and I don't
care", then BSD-like is fine. GPL, imposes restrictions on derivative
works, which could be argued as limiting freedom. My point is, not all
"copyleft" licences are the same, and the choice depends on your needs and
how you want people to use your software. Personally I like Apache. I find
it much more readable than GPL and without the same derivative works
restrictions.




> Best,
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>



-- 
Ernesto Posse

Modelling and Analysis in Software Engineering
School of Computing
Queen's University - Kingston, Ontario, Canada

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2754 bytes --]