On May 10, 2008, at 1:32 PM, Byron Jeff wrote:
>> "My needs include being able to keep my modifications to the open
>> source material proprietary when I distribute the software."
>
> I don't think there's any viable resolution to this one. The right  
> answer
> is that if you need to keep your software proprietary, then you  
> need to
> write is all yourself.

Nonsense.  I just need software with a different license.  There are  
open source licenses that allow this, and there are LOTS of people  
selling proprietary software libraries that allow me to re-distribute  
their code in MY proprietary product.  Usually it's pretty expensive,  
and sometimes the license terms are unattractive in other ways  
(royalties can be a real pain to calculate.)   But these alternatives  
DO exist.


> The GPL and to a lesser extent the LGPL are licenses targeted to  
> protect
> the end user, not the developer. They are both really unabashed  
> about that.


I have trouble thinking of a developer as anything other than a  
"user" of a library-like piece of software.  I guess LGPL tries to  
make that distinction, and doesn't do TOO badly except for embedded  
systems.


> The problem is that if you change the license significantly, and  
> end users
> get screwed, with very limited access to source, and little or no  
> ability
> to use that source in any productive way.


This assumes "end users" and "software" such that source is useful to  
the end user.  In particular, it assumes end users than are  
programmmers.  See the comment earlier about Olin's "open source" not  
being too useful cause it was too hard to do anything with anyway  
(being written in odd-looking assembly language, after all.)  And in  
many cases, the end user is "less screwed" by needing to pay for a  
supported proprietary piece of software than they would be by needing  
to support free source software themselves.  It is nearly insulting  
to equate "needs to pay for something" with "screwed." Perhaps it  
made more sense when so many "computer users" were starving college  
students.

BillW

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