gpgme license

[Marcus Brinkmann]

Hi,

On Tue, Jul 23, 2002 at 09:29:42PM -0400, marius aamodt eriksen wrote:
> right.  and redistribution under the terms of the GPL restricts some
> of the fundemental freedoms of the BSD license.  these are not
> acceptable terms for me.

What you call freedom is really only the power to restrict the freedom of
others.  The GPL provides a balance between freedom and power.  It exercises
some of its power under copyright law to restrict other people, yes, but
this is necessary so that those other people can not take away the freedom
from everybody else.

In this case, it is much more important that the freedom is guaranteed for
all humans than to grant some individuals power to restrict everybodies
freedom.

> the LGPL, on the other hand, would prevent
> my software to also be under these conditions, and thusly not tainted
> by the GPL.  the GPL is even more restrictive than a proprietary code;
> had i bought a commercial, closed-source library, the conditions would
> (most likely) allow me to keep my current license for *MY* source,

This is wrong.  Your code is never tainted by the GPL.  You can always keep
whatever licenses you want for your code.  If you create a derived, combined
work, that consists of the work of somebody else's GPL code and your own,
then this combined work is subject to the terms of the GPL.  But such a
combined work is not *YOUR* source anymore, it is the combination of yours
and other people's work.  You seem to want to have your cake and eat it, too.
Sorry, but the goal of Free Software is not to make hoarders happier.
The GPL provides a mutual agreement of sharing.  We share, you share,
that's the deal.  The deal is not, we give, you take.  (This "you" is
impersonal.  I don't mean necessarily you personally, but whoever wants to
include the code in proprietary software).

And that's a simplification even, as the GPL does not really require you to
share at all.  Only if you distribute such a combined work, you are required
to share your improvements.

Thanks,
Marcus

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' GNU      http://www.gnu.org    marcus at gnu.org
Marcus Brinkmann              The Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
Marcus.Brinkmann at ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de/