wouter van ooijen <wouter <at> voti.nl> writes:
> > Exactly. And above all, please stop whining (this is not 
> > personal) about the 'limiting' GPL.
> 
> I think there is one reason I am entitled to whine: I would like to see
> a license that serves the (deeply) embedded world like the GPL did for

Well, that is not whining, that is wishing. There have been several attempts 
to apply the GPL to hardware and hw/sw projects. So far they have been very 
limited.

> What I (in non-license speak) want is: distributed source is subject to
> the same license, GPL V3 would be OK, application is not. As yet I have
> not found a license that fully does this. In particular the more free
> licenses (BSD and the like) do not require that source, when
> distributed, is distributed under the same license.

You are not the only one looking for such a thing. But yo must understand that
the license it a scarecrow that must be backed by real teeth. Honest people do
not need licenses just like they do not need locks. Dishonest people need
licenses just like thieves need policing and watchdogs. As such, a license made
up by a small company is only as powerful as far as the legal funds the company
can afford to spend will reach. After that it becomes another failed try.
Analyzing the precedents shows why. The Lindows/Linspire/M$ matter is
interesting to study here, for example, just like the RIM issue si, in the US.
Speaking of the US, I get the impression that the US is not a 'block' from the
legal point of view, as it has about 48 different legal systems, all different
from each other. There seem to be *very* few legal assumptions that can be said
to span that country as a whole.

Basically the license you draft is a draft and it stays a draft, however it
might inspire others to come to a consensus. Then, there will be more backing
to it, and its chances to exist and hold up will be better. The selfish nature
of businesses usually prevents this. However, looking for precedents in other
domains, such as usual small standard contracts (like standard house,
production means (including land and livestock!) and vehicle rental contracts
and the like in your country) may help to get some clues as to what might work
and what not. I am not a lawyer and what I write here may be totally wrong but 
I think that it's common sense based on existing facts, and that it might have
better chances to stand up in court than something drafted based on utopical
assumptions made by a person without legal training based on engineering
'logic' (which is anatema in law as far as I can tell) and hope for a better
world.

Peter P.


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