Re: RPG 'CPAN' site

David,

The "preceding text" you posted proves my point.

You state the the key word is "modify".  I think that the key word(s)
are "contains" and "meets all of these conditions".  Emphasis on the
word ALL.

Look at what you posted in section "b": that states: "that in whole or
in part contains" and concludes with "to be licensed as a whole at no
charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."

Now I don't know about you, but the way that I read it is that if I have
a commercial Fixed Asset package "that in whole or in part contains" an
open source depreciation calculation the GPL is a poison pill that
requires the entire Fixed Asset package "to be licensed as a whole at no
charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."

Please don't make the mistake of cherry picking phrases to blind
yourself to the blight on the tree.  And no matter how many cherries
that may exist, there still exists the blight.  Nothing you say can make
that blight disappear.

For us business folks this is a very serious matter.  Just a change to
one word in a license can make a major difference in how it is argued.
Not to say that this in on the same scale, but just to point out how
detailed the arguments can get in court, take a look at the debate about
the placement of a comma in the second amendment.  When push comes to
shove, the words "meets all of these conditions" will mean ALL
conditions.

This does not mean that I do not like the GPL, I just think that it has
a limited place.  That place is where it was spawned.  The tax payer
funded/government channeled/military industrial complex projects that
gave us things like the internet.

When "We the people..." pay our tax dollars so a collage can receive a
federal grant to write Mosaic, that is open source at it's purest
sense.  Even then, the collage or grant funded student received
compensation for their work.  There is no free lunch.  All software, one
way or another gets paid for.

"We the people..." have already paid for the internet core software so
we should not have to pay for it twice.  I have yet to see a tax payer
funded/government channeled/military industrial complex project that
included a Fixed Asset package available to the people (we, the tax
paying people) that would have paid for it.

Oh, sure, some federal granted student or tax paid civil servant might
come up with a depreciation calculation service program, but that in
itself does not make a Fixed Asset application.  Even then, it would not
be that hard to argue that all public funded works are automatically
public domain and do not require a license for use.  Do I really need to
give myself a restrictive license to use what I have paid for?

What it boils down to is that the GPL is a license for personal use
originally created in the tax payer funded academic world.  I don't know
about you. but I write software for business commerce and a personal use
academic funded license does not fit.

Round hole, square peg. Ouch =8-o

J. Kilgore



David Morris wrote:
>
> James,
>
> Relax, don't worry. Taken out of context
> what you say would certainly be something
> to worry about. Here is the preceding text:
>
> ...2. You may modify your copy or copies of the
> Program or any portion of it, thus forming
> a work based on the Program, and copy and
> distribute such modifications or work
> under the terms of Section 1 above,
> provided that you also meet all of these
> conditions:
>
> ...b) You must cause any work that you
> distribute or publish, that in whole
> or in part contains or is derived from
> the Program or any part thereof, to be
> licensed as a whole at no charge to all
> third parties under the terms of this
> License.
>