Comments on: Why licenses don’t matter (and why they do)

By: Stefan Wagner

Stefan Wagner — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:31:08 +0000

I had very similar thoughts about MySql too (back in 1998, when I first met it). Fortunately I found postgresql matching my needs much better.
The way MySql deals with the GPL is very unclear. I don’t like it. But I didn’t find a second usage of similar kind.

Revoking a license:
The license has to somehow fit to national laws. AFAIK, a license is considered a contract in Germany. So if I publish some work under the GPL, and you download it from Sourceforge, and start using it.

Now I decide to revoke the software. I delete it from freshmeat, but you are using it on the basis of our contract, which is the GPL. So this contract can’t be cancelled from a single side.

Mr. C would like to use the software too, but I’m not bound towards him, to publish the sourcecode. And you aren’t too. If you like, you could publish it on your own, but Mr. C can’t force you to do so.

Of course I may use a complete different, second license too on my software, if I have written it from scratch.

By: liedra

liedra — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:15:55 +0000

I think you’ll be surprised about how many people who choose the GPL for their project really have no idea what the actual requirements of that license are. I used to work for freshmeat.net and one of the email response boiler plates we had was one that basically said “you obviously don’t understand the requirements of the GPL” (freshmeat doesn’t deal solely with GPL’d software but we as staff were required to make sure the license they chose on the site matched the actual licenses, and we found so many bizarre ideas about what the GPL was that we had to make a boilerplate just for that — one example was one that basically said that because the software was released under the GPL it meant “you can do whatever you want with it, because that’s what the GPL means, freedom!” which is obviously wrong). I think a lot of those idealists really are just that, idealists! They’re caught up with the GNU religion, essentially, latching on to the concept of “freedom” without understanding that the GNU version of freedom is a lot different from the normative concept of freedom!

Anyway, I found this article really interesting :) Thanks!

By: ben

ben — Wed, 07 May 2008 04:46:47 +0000

i think the lesson here is that the GPL ends up being very close to LGPL when your library implements a well defined interface and can easily be subtituted. assuming none of the non-GPL components apply any restrictions on the client the client can simply substitute in a GPL component and as long as they don’t distribute it they are adhering to the terms of the GPL. i’m not a lawyer but that is how i understand the GPL works.