I don't mean to nitpick or quibble...

On 2002.02.14 12:50:50 -0500 Paul Schmidt wrote:
> On 14 Feb 2002, at 16:12, David K. Trudgett wrote:
>
> >
> > >
> > > The GPL is a restrictive license.
> >
> > The GPL is a free license, designed to promote freedom. Not everyone
> > wants freedom, of course, such as people trying to sell their
> > applications according to the normal commercial model. That's fine.
> > These people shouldn't use the GPL. Nor should they expect a free ride
> > by incorporating GPL'd software into their binaries. Share and share
> > alike is what it's about. As for it being "viral", that's a load of
> > poppycock. Use the public API of GPL'd software and don't link it into
> > your executables (statically or dynamically) and you're quite safe.
> >
>
> The GPL is the most restrictive licence around,

surely you don't really mean that. More restrictive than licenses for
closed source where you have to pay a royalty per user? More restrictive
than licenses that threaten you with doom if you decompile to try to find
out why it doesn't work as advertised?

you are effectively
> limited to producing "free" software with it, because anybody else
> can re-distribute that software for free, your hopes of actually
> making money, are slim to none. In some cases you don't have a
> choice, if the library you want to use is GPL then you can't make
> money off your work,

Maybe not by charging people to use it, but that is certainly not the only
way to make money from software. Selling docs, training, consulting, and
support also make money from software.

and that isn't always a good thing. This is
> why there are so many variants of the GPL like the MPL, IPL, etc.

These are hardly variants of GPL. They have different aims.

david jencks

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