From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,33ec2881cc3ecf36 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robert Dewar Subject: Re: ada < - > java bindings wanted Date: 1999/08/21 Message-ID: <7pmm02$r94$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 515520644 References: <37BD0169.B49F73A5@acenet.com.au> <7pjm8u$on1$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <37BEB3BB.78C0B230@acenet.com.au> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x36.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 166.72.82.184 Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. X-Article-Creation-Date: Sat Aug 21 17:00:53 1999 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDrobert_dewar Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-08-21T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <37BEB3BB.78C0B230@acenet.com.au>, Geoff Bull 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 Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Share what you know. Learn what you don't.