Re: comparison of public licenses?

Comments, one gratuitous <g>, and a correction.

On Fri, Jan 28, 2000, Stephen B. Schott <sschott[_at_]sglm.com> wrote:
>
> Some of the public license discussion was forwarded to me and I
> thought I'd pitch in my knowledge on the subject. I'm currently
> writing a paper about the GNU General Public License. I am focusing
> on issues of enforceability though I'd love to hear from anyone with
> thoughts on open licenses, especially if there are any equivalents
> anyone can think of throughout history. If anyone has any thoughts
> about open licenses, I'd love to hear them.

Interesting project. WRT comments, drop me a line.

> First some additional sources:
>
> Voices from the Open Source Revolution (O'Reilly 1999) is a great
>

<...>
>
> differences. Also <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html>

Both previously noted in this thread.

> At least a couple articles have been written about the licenses
> themselves: Heffan, 49 Stan. L. Rev. 1487 COPYLEFT: LICENSING
> COLLABORATIVE WORKS IN THE DIGITAL AGE is a good review of the GNU

Thanks, hadn't seen it.

> General Public License and Gomulkiewicz, 36 Hous. L. Rev. 179 Houston
> Law Review HOW COPYLEFT USES LICENSE RIGHTS TO SUCCEED IN THE OPEN
> SOURCE SOFTWARE REVOLUTION AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR ARTICLE 2B also

Previously noted. Largely dismissed. See also Mark Traphagen, previously noted and largely dismissed.

> The GNU General Public License (GPL) <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html>:
> The GPL is a copyright license. Its terms allow for the modification
> and distribution of the software by the licensee as long as the Program
> is always distributed with the license and copyright notice. Any
> modifications of the original copyright holder's program must be
> conspicuously noted. The license allows for a licensee to sell the
> unmodified Program for the cost of making the copy and also allows the

No. "You may charge a fee". No limit set. GPL v2 (1).

There is a limit on the fee charged for distributing a work in source format, if such a distribution is independent of the binary distribution of the work. GPL v2 (3)(b).

> licensee to offer warranties on the software (otherwise the software
> comes with all warranties disclaimed- this is part of the license).
>
> It does not allow for the licensee to sell the Program for a fee if she
> made changes to the Program (the licensee can't profit from a derivative
> work) (there are other conditions but these are the highlights).

No. "You may charge a fee". No limit set. GPL v2 (1).

There is a limit on the fee charged for distributing a work in source format, if such a distribution is independent of the binary distribution of the work. GPL v2 (3)(b).

What a licensee may *not* do is impose any additional conditions to those of the GPL, including any conditions which would limit the right of tertiary licensees to modify, copy, and distribute the program and/or its source.

> Any violation of the license terminates the license, thus opening
> up the licensee to copyright infringement.

Beautiful mechanism, isn't it? [*]

-- 
Karsten M. Self (kmself[_at_]ix.netcom.com)
    What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?

SAS for Linux: http://www.netcom.com/~kmself/SAS/SAS4Linux.html
Mailing list:  "subscribe sas-linux" to mailto:majordomo[_at_]cranfield.ac.uk


[*]  This was the gratuitous comment.  <g>