inode0 wrote:
Please explain how a work containing any GPL'd material can contain any that
is not covered by the GPL, given the 'work as a whole' provision in the
license. While there are indeed licenses that permit their own terms to be
replaced by the GPL when used in this way, that means the terms _become_ the
GPL, not that different terms are or can be, by design, compatible.
By definition a license is compatible with the GPL if it allows the
work to be combined with GPL code and redistributed as a combined work
under the GPL. There is no reason to redefine or explain this in any
other way.
The only reason not to explain that terms become the GPL in this context
is to keep up the pretense that the terms of the original license are
compatible.
Lots of licenses are compatible with the GPL.
Only the ones that permit effectively becoming the GPL.
Some
people value freedom for developers more than freedom for users.
Restrictions have nothing to do with freedom no matter how you spin it.
Restrictions have nothing to do with anarchy, but they are the normal
way people organize themselves to preserve freedom.
The GPL is a reasonable anti-competitive tool for someone who offers a
program under a commercial license as well and wants to ensure that the
open source version can never be improved more than his own. But it has
nothing to do with freedom, which would permit it to be improved in any
way possible.
So drop the misrepresentation and make the license enumerate all of the
things it prohibits instead of hand-waving about freedom while in fact
preventing most of the possible ways of re-using the code.
It is impossible to enumerate things like this just as it is
impossible to enumerate all the ways people can harm each other.
Many licenses list things that are prohibited. And it would be less
deceptive if the GPL stated plainly that the covered code may not be
improved and redistributed with anyone who wants to make their own
choice about the license covering their own code that they add. And it
may not be improved by combining with existing code with existing and
different terms.
The
intent of the GPL is to preserve the essential freedoms enumerated by
the FSF. That is the clear intent, revisions are necessary as people
invent new ways to circumvent the desired wishes of the copyright
holders.
A license that was really about freedom would have no reason for anyone
to need to circumvent it.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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