[darcs-users] Darcs API?

[Leif Frenzel]

I didn't mean to make this into one of these infamous 'free vs. non-free'
licensing discussions; but just for clarifying my point:

>If you don't want to release it at all then you can do this using the GPL.
>If you want to sell your software then you should consider the effects of
>reselling parts that you got for free is not sees as honest. Even if you
>are able to add some value in some way.
What if I want to sell my software and provide free those parts I got for
free? (see below)

>If you want to release under another open source license;  why not
relicense
>that under the GPL since more then 70% of open source software already is
>GPL licensed which simply makes business sense.
Hm, I don't quite understand your argument here. Do you really mean to say:
'If you want to release under a different license than the GPL, then you
should release under the GPL'? Probably not, but then, what are you saying
here? I would like to have a real choice when I release software.

The important (IMHO) point is: there is, and should be, a variety of stances
you can take if you release open source software. And if I do this, I would
like to try and preserve that freedom also for other people who use what I
released (as long as they don't try to take undue credit). I like to think
of that as more liberal than constraining their choices.

There are license models that are differentiating enough for this purpose:
for instance, the Eclipse license (EPL) allows to build on top of the
Eclipse platform and choose whatever license you want for your own piece (OS
or not). It disallows redistributing the platform (which is EPL) under a
different license than the EPL, and it disallows any changes to the EPLed
parts to be redistributed under a different license than the EPL. This
means, for instance, that you can build a GPLed plugin for Eclipse (you
can't build an EPLed plugin for a GPLed framework).

And this makes business sense, too. The Eclipse foundation is a large body
with lots of big software companies in it, and many of them have their own
commercial products built on the platform. (And besides, all of them
contribute OS software back to the project.) The same applies to Apache. I
don't think this is the only model, but it seems to be a good model (for
business). Why exclude it from consideration? Why indeed exclude everything
but GPLed software from consideration? But then, this seems to be what the
principles behind the GPL are driving at, doesn't it?

Ciao,
Leif