Re: PepperfishProfiler

[Jamie Webb <j@...>]

On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 03:20:43PM +0100, Daniel Silverstone wrote:
> >>For people scared by that idea... the only change was to remove the word 
> >>'sublicense' from the list of rights in the first paragraph.
> >AIUI the ability to sublicense the software is what allows people to
> >include your work in commercial products, or indeed GPLed code, which
> >could completely change the nature of the license. Arguably though,
> >that permission is implicit in the "without restriction" part, in
> >which case your change has no effect. So, yes I am scared by slight
> >modifications to standard licenses.
> 
> This isn't how the people I discussed the change viewed the meaning of the 
> word
> 
> >What was your intention in removing this word?
> 
> The intention and AIUI the effect is to prevent people from re-licencing 
> sections of the code or including the code directly in other codebases and 
> subsuming the licence in a viral licence way (such as GPL)

That's exactly what I meant. People (maybe) cannot include your code
and distribute the result as GPL (or anything else). It has to be 'GPL
plus a little bit under the Pepperfish License'. It seems like it's
just making obstacles for the sake of it. Note that this problem only
really applies to open-source software. Commercial products can
probably comply with your license just by mentioning that their EULA
does not apply to 'certain components', or something.

You've already got your assurances that your copyright notices will be
retained, and you know that your source is going to remain free
anyway (someone GPLing a particular instance of it has no effect on
the original), so what is there to gain with this restriction?

> If people are genuinely concerned about the licence then I'm prepared to 
> alter the licence on the profiler to revert it to the MIT word-for-word.

Personally, I have no intention of creating derived works from your
profiler. The existence of this license just bothers me, because a)
it's confusingly similar to the MIT license, b) it's ambiguous (that
list is just a list of /example/ rights; that's why it says 'including
without limitation'), and c) the restriction is an odd one to have.

So, I do suggest you either revert to the MIT license, or change to a
license that clarifies your intent (i.e. explicitly prohibits
sublicensing, if that's what you want).

-- Jamie Webb