[MUD-Dev] Re: My vision for DevMUD

[James Wilson]

On Wed, 04 Nov 1998, ApplePiMan at aol.com wrote:
>At 11/3/98 9:32 PM James Wilson (jwilson at rochester.rr.com) altered the 
>fabric of reality by uttering:
>
>>*blink* that didn't seem to stop commercial ventures from using BSD-license
>>code. And what's to stop someone from saying, in the license, "You are hereby
>>granted rights in perpetuity such that..."? Then there's no issue with
>>someone switching licenses on you. 
>
>OK... so maybe I'm more paranoid than most. =) I'm no lawyer, so I'm not 
>sure if such "in perpetuity" phraseology would cover my concerns or not.
>
>>I for one would not contribute anything without some sort of suitably
>>communist license. 
>
>You can't *get* more communist than PD. =) By definition, *everyone* has 
>an equal claim to ownership of it, and nothing anyone can do can change 
>that.

communist = FSF, fascist = Microsoft. see below for why I disagree with your
second statement,
 
>>I prefer LGPL as I have no interest in whether or not
>>anything I do appeals to commercial entities, while I DO have an interest 
>>in keeping anything I write available + alive in a free form. (Trying to
>>maximize the potential size of the Noosphere.)
>
>PD assures availability and "free-ness" much more than LGPL or BSD. It 
>removes all restrictions on usage, and in doing so *ensures* anyone, 

sorry, you're missing the point here. PD makes it possible for a commercial
entity to fork my code, by making some super modifications and not releasing
them in source form. Then the free version of my code is killed by the
commercial version. This is the central reason why people use Gnu-style
licenses.

>>I assume I'm probably a bit further to the left than the norm, tho... 
>>(leftmost
>>being RMS, rightmost being Bill).

>As with most things, I tend to be centrist (though in this one issue I 
>appear to be left of you

to the right, actually, according to my intended usage.

James