Re: ada < - > java bindings wanted

[Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>]

In article <37BEB3BB.78C0B230@acenet.com.au>,
  Geoff Bull <gbull@acenet.com.au> wrote:
> You might find "idiosyncratic" licenses a problem.
> However, for us, code that is straight GPL or LGPL
> is a problem.

As I said in my message (please reread!) it is perfectly
understandable that you may not want to use the GPL for
some of your software (indeed we do not use the GPL for
the GNAT library!)

But my point was that there are several well understood
OSI-certified and/or free software compatible licenses
which *are* well known, and other things being equal it
is probably a good idea to use one of these for two reasons:

1. It saves the attorney fees you otherwise need to pay to
craft and carefully checkout the license you propose to use
(no one should use a license which does not have this kind
of careful evaluation, since otherwise you can find surprises).

2. Your potential users will know the license and its
implications without having to pay *their* attorneys to
figure it out.

There are three typical reasons for wanting to explore other
licenses than the GPL in this setting:

1. You want to give more freedom to people to include the code
in their proprietary programs. The modified GPL used in the
gcc library, and a similar Ada-modified one used in the GNAT
library are examples of this. These are still of course
free software compatible, since they give MORE rights than
the GPL.

2. You want to give complete freedom to people to do anything
they like with the code (perhaps retaining the copyright notice
as the only restriction). An example of a license in this
direction is the BSD licenses, or you could even go all the
way and use the public domain route.

3. You want to restrict the GPL to ensure that if people make
modifications, you still own these modifications, and perhaps
that people are required to distribute them to you. There are
OSI-certified licenses with this kind of general character
(e.g. the Apple license), but of course such licenses are not
considered free software compatible.

My real point here, without any kind of suggestion of
ideology or encouragement to go in any of the above directions,
is simply that whatever direction you go in, it pays to use
a standard existing license, if you can find one that matches
your needs, and it is worth the effort to do so (and almost
certainly cheaper than paying attorneys to make a completely
new license).

Of course it goes without saying that you can use any
license you want, all these licenses are licenses for
copyrighted sofwtare (with the exception of the PD route),
and you most certainly can do what you want, you can even
use a home brewed license that has not been reviewed by
attorneys (though I would recommend against this, simply
because of legal risk factors).

I am not at all trying to criticize here, but simply to make
a constructive suggestion that will make your software more
accessible to others. Usually the idea of open sourcing of
any kind is to increase this accessibility!

Robert Dewar


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