Re: The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:)

[dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar)]

"Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> wrote in message news:<9j1v7e$8ik$1@nh.pace.co.uk>...

> I suppose there are some who put their software out under GPL free of 
> charge from some sort of contempt for the free enterprise system.

Actually, I know a lot of programmers who do this because they want
fame and riches, which is rather far from being contemptuous of free
enterprise. If you have copyrighted software that you want to license
to people, there are lots of different models of how you can license
that software. Even if your only goal is to maximize profit,
proprietary licenses may often be a poor choice (simply because they
are a poor choice for your customers, and giving customers what they
want is a rather important dynamic in success in the marketplace).

A lot of nonsense has been written about the GPL recently, most
notably by a large company in Redmond. I suggest that anyone really
interested in understanding how this license works, and how it can
be used successfully in the context of our free enterprise system
should read the GPL FAQ now available at www.gnu.org.