On Oct 15, 7:55 am, Jeremy Henty <onepo... / starurchin.org> wrote:
> On 2007-10-15, Chad Perrin <per... / apotheon.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Mon, Oct 15, 2007 at 01:35:03PM +0900, Jeremy Henty wrote:
> >> On 2007-10-15, Jon Lambert <jlsys... / hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > Jeremy Henty wrote:
>
> >> >> The GPL gives the *user* *complete* freedom. It restricts *other*
> >> >> activities, such as distributing a derived work, but it imposes no
> >> >> restrictions on simply using the software.
>
> >> > Using that limited definition of user, one who "simply uses the
> >> > software", most proprietary licenses also give the user complete
> >> > freedom.
>
> >> Including the freedom to install and run the software *without* paying
> >> anything for it?  I think not.  And at my last office job I didn't see
> >> any proprietary software whose license did not restrict either the
> >> number of installation hosts or the number (total or concurrent) of
> >> users.  GPL software has no such usage restrictions.
>
> > Considering we were talking about "freedom",
>
> Chad, *I* was responding to someone's direct reply to one of my
> comments.  It's not relevant that you thought "we" were talking about
> something else.
>
> > ... I didn't think we were talking about "free cost".
>
> The right to do some things for free is a pretty important freedom.
> Or would you be happy having to pay $1000 to vote?  Anyway, I
> mentioned (and you conveniently ignored) several other freedoms.  And
> other posters have mentioned more.
>
> > The user does not necessarily get "complete freedom" (for instance,
> > I'm in the odd position of having a bunch of GPLed software on a
> > shelf that I cannot legally give away for free,
>
> Irrelevant.  My point was that *usage* is not restricted.  And it
> isn't.
>
> > I'm just trying to stick to the cold, hard facts of the matter.
>
> You most definitely are *not*, otherwise you would not have accused me
> of:
>
> > ... simply applying the blanket term Freedom to all things GPL and
> > defend it to your last breath -- as you seem to be gearing up to do.
>
> Why don't *you* "stick to the cold, hard facts of the matter." rather
> than spreading rumours about what I "seem to be gearing up to do."?
> Meanwhile I'll stick to defending what I actually *said*.  Life's too
> short to waste time on other people's silly fantasies about my
> motives.


Uh oh. We were doing so well! A potentially flaming subject kept to a
congenial ember.

Tell you what. Lets now take a different bent: Here is what I think I
learned from this thread.

1) Licensing can be complicated ;)
2) Unless you have specific reasons to do otherwise pick a very simple
one like MIT.
Specific reasons are either:
     1) I demand all derivative works also be OSS.
     2) This software is mine mine mine (non-OSS or partial-OSS)
     3) Another lib, that I must use, is forcing my hand.
3) Ruby license is not a good license to use, but unfortunately so
many Rubyists have used it we are kind of stuck with it --see 2.3
above. Thankfully, clause 4 of the license gets us out of point 2.1
(barely?).

T.