wxPython Licence vs GPL

[Alex Martelli]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

Steven D'Aprano <steve@REMOVETH IScyber.com.au> wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 17:43:22 +0100, Martin P. Hellwig wrote:
>[color=green]
> > if I owned a company
> > making profit on software sales (sale =! support) you sign a death wish
> > for using GPL[/color]
>
> Apart from Microsoft, and possibly Quark (makers of Quark Express desktop
> packaging software), and perhaps a few console game developers, is there
> any company making a profit on software sales?[/color]

I believe Oracle is doing fine (and they appear to be trying to buy up
most everybody else -- other companies which used to make profits from
software sales before they got gobbled up). I think SAP and Adobe
aren't doing badly, either, but I haven't checked up on them in a while.

I'd be surprised if there weren't many relative minnows that I didn't
think of, beyond the few "obvious" big fishes above listed.


Alex

[Steven D'Aprano]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 20:17:15 -0800, Alex Martelli wrote:
[color=blue]
> Steven D'Aprano <steve@REMOVETH IScyber.com.au> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 17:43:22 +0100, Martin P. Hellwig wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>> > if I owned a company
>> > making profit on software sales (sale =! support) you sign a death wish
>> > for using GPL[/color]
>>
>> Apart from Microsoft, and possibly Quark (makers of Quark Express desktop
>> packaging software), and perhaps a few console game developers, is there
>> any company making a profit on software sales?[/color]
>
> I believe Oracle is doing fine (and they appear to be trying to buy up
> most everybody else -- other companies which used to make profits from
> software sales before they got gobbled up). I think SAP and Adobe
> aren't doing badly, either, but I haven't checked up on them in a while.[/color]

My understanding is that both Oracle and SAP make most of their money
through consulting and customization rather than licencing or sales. I
don't know anyone who has bought a SAP solution that didn't spend an awful
lot of money having it customized -- and unless I'm very mistaken, you
don't own the customizations you pay for.

Adobe, I'm not sure -- I suspect their biggest source of income is
royalties on Postscript for laser printers, but I could be wrong. I don't
even know anyone who uses Pagemaker any more -- it seems to have been
almost completely overshadowed by Quark Xpress.
[color=blue]
> I'd be surprised if there weren't many relative minnows that I didn't
> think of, beyond the few "obvious" big fishes above listed.[/color]

Yes, there are a few -- Quickbooks and MYOB, although arguably their main
income comes from subscription/upgrades rather than sales. But still,
consider the sheer size of the software industry, and the fact that apart
from the 800lb gorilla of Microsoft, almost nobody can make a profit from
selling software.



--
Steven.

[Steven D'Aprano]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 03:25:58 +0000, Ed Jensen wrote:
[color=blue]
> Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@nospam.i nvalid> wrote:[color=green]
>> Python and *BSD are getting far less volunteer development love than,
>> say, GCC or Linux, and the licensing is at least part of the reason.[/color]
>
> I disagree. I believe *BSD gets less volunteer development because of
> some legal wrangling in the early 90s that didn't affect Linux.[/color]

That was over a decade ago, and the BSD licence was vindicated by the
courts -- why has there been such limited volunteer development, and
practically zero commercial development, for BSD?

The BSDs are about 15 years older than Linux, and the legal wrangling they
went through were no worse than the SCO nonsense going on now. With a 15
year head start, and 10 years since the legal problems, why has BSD never
attracted 1% the commercial interest of Linux?

You can often tell something of a thing by those who oppose it. Microsoft
is perhaps the epitome of the closed-source mentality: on the rare
occasions they release their source code at all, they do so only
grudgingly, never the entire tool chain, at very high cost, and with
exceedingly restrictive conditions. (Yes, I'm aware I'm generalising --
but it is a valid generalisation, one or two minor exceptions doesn't
invalidate the overall picture of Microsoft's desire to keep their source
code locked up tight.)

Microsoft is spending a lot of time and effort trying to fight the GPL,
but have said that BSD licences are acceptable to them. In fact they
*love* BSD licences -- for others, just not for themselves.

And no wonder: Windows only has an TCP/IP stack because they could grab
the BSD source code and use it. Has Microsoft show any gratitude to the
BSDs? Have they returned any code to BSDs, or given money to BSD coders?
In a pig's ear they have.

Microsoft stands for closed source software: they absolutely hate the
GPL. But they like the BSD licence, because it lets them freeload
off the labour of idealistic programmers for free, without so much as a
thank you.



--
Steven.

[Steven D'Aprano]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 20:54:55 -0500, Mike Meyer wrote:
[color=blue]
> Steven D'Aprano <steve@REMOVETH IScyber.com.au> writes:[color=green]
>> On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 16:00:29 -0500, Mike Meyer wrote:
>> The GPL doesn't restrict distribution. I don't understand where
>> people get this bizarre view of the GPL from.>[/color]
>
> It happens because people say things like:
>[color=green]
>> If you don't like that clause, you have two very simple options: don't
>> redistribute the GPLed software. Or use some other software provided under
>> a different licence.[/color][/color]

If you don't want to redistribute the GPLed software, then don't. Nobody
can force you to. I use lots of GPL software which I don't redistribute.

But if you *do* redistribute it, then you must live up to conditions in
the licence. If you aren't willing to do that, use software with a
different licence.

You are free to redistribute it for free, or charge a bazillion dollars.
You can choose to only redistribute to people with green hair. The only
restriction is that you can't give those people fewer, weaker rights than
you got: having got the software from you, you can't prevent those green
haired people from distributing it to anyone they like, even baldies or
brunettes.

Unlike proprietary licences, the GPL doesn't prohibit you from
redistributing the software, nor does it make you count licences. It
doesn't prohibit you from distributing the software to people who haven't
paid a licence fee, or to people with eleven fingers.

I would still like to find out what sense of "restrictin g distribution"
you think the GPL does. As near as I can tell, the only sense that the GPL
restricts distribution is that if you redistribute GPLed code you must not
take away the rights you were granted from those you distribute too.


--
Steven.

[Mike Meyer]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

Steven D'Aprano <steve@REMOVETH IScyber.com.au> writes:[color=blue]
> But if you *do* redistribute it, then you must live up to conditions in
> the licence. If you aren't willing to do that, use software with a
> different licence.[/color]

That's a restriction on redistribution.
[color=blue]
> The only restriction is that you can't give those people fewer,
> weaker rights than you got[/color]

That's a restriction on redistribution.
[color=blue]
> I would still like to find out what sense of "restrictin g distribution"
> you think the GPL does.[/color]

You named the restrictions yourself.

<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.or g> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.

[Martin P. Hellwig]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

Steven D'Aprano wrote:[color=blue]
> On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 23:26:38 +0100, Martin P. Hellwig wrote:
>[color=green]
>> BSD/MIT style license is a
>> good substitute of no license at all.[/color]
>
> But that's not true: "no licence at all" means that nobody has the right
> to use or copy or even *see* your work. You can, of course, choose to
> show them your work without a licence, but unless you give them a licence
> they can't legally do anything with it.
>
> Perhaps you are thinking of the public domain, which does not require a
> licence, but that is because it is not owned by anyone -- not even you,
> the creator.
>
> If you want to release your work with no restrictions whatsoever, then
> just put the work in the public domain. Is attribution really that
> important to you -- especially when that attribution may be buried deep in
> the source code of software which nobody will ever see?
>
>[/color]

Well I don't know how it's legally outside (most of) the EU, but here if
your are actioned in publishing information of any kind (including
source code) without restricting it, you can not refer to any copyrights
or protected IP thereafter, but you still are responsible for the
consequences of your action if the results are related to a more or less
unmodified version of your publishing. Of course you still have the
right to claim to be the original author and accuse anybody else who
falsely claim that as plagiarist.

--
mph

[Martin P. Hellwig]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

Steven D'Aprano wrote:[color=blue]
> On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 17:43:22 +0100, Martin P. Hellwig wrote:
>[color=green]
>> if I owned a company
>> making profit on software sales (sale =! support) you sign a death wish
>> for using GPL[/color]
>
> Apart from Microsoft, and possibly Quark (makers of Quark Express desktop
> packaging software), and perhaps a few console game developers, is there
> any company making a profit on software sales?
>
>[/color]

Eehm, about hundreds of thousands customized software manufactures
around the whole globe?
Where not talking about off the shell software then of course, but for
software used in a particular corner of a sector.
Most prominent types are administration software, although most of them
have a common base, implementation differs on your type of: products,
customers, location, law, quality and quantity . Say about everything it
can differ, ie you don't want to use your high-school student
administration program for a pet shop or a cheese manufacture.

--
,ph

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

On 2005-11-26, Steven D'Aprano wrote:[color=blue]
>
> If you don't like that clause, you have two very simple options: don't
> redistribute the GPLed software. Or use some other software provided under
> a different licence.[/color]

There is a third option: persuade the owner of the copyright to
give you a different license.


--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author | <http://cfaj.freeshell. org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: | My code in this post, if any,
A Problem-Solution Approach | is released under the
2005, Apress | GNU General Public Licence

[Steven D'Aprano]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 11:26:30 +0100, Martin P. Hellwig wrote:
[color=blue]
> Steven D'Aprano wrote:[color=green]
>> On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 17:43:22 +0100, Martin P. Hellwig wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> if I owned a company
>>> making profit on software sales (sale =! support) you sign a death wish
>>> for using GPL[/color]
>>
>> Apart from Microsoft, and possibly Quark (makers of Quark Express desktop
>> packaging software), and perhaps a few console game developers, is there
>> any company making a profit on software sales?
>>
>>[/color]
>
> Eehm, about hundreds of thousands customized software manufactures
> around the whole globe?[/color]

They don't sell software, they sell services: their expertise in
developing software. The difference is analogous to going to a builder to
buy a house, and going to a builder and paying him to build you a house.

I should know what I'm talking about: I work for one of them.
[color=blue]
> Where not talking about off the shell software then of course, but for
> software used in a particular corner of a sector.[/color]

And that's not "off the shelf"?
[color=blue]
> Most prominent types
> are administration software, although most of them have a common base,
> implementation differs on your type of: products, customers, location,
> law, quality and quantity . Say about everything it can differ, ie you
> don't want to use your high-school student administration program for a
> pet shop or a cheese manufacture.[/color]


I think you are over-estimating both the numbers and profitability of such
niche software distributors, and misunderstandin g the business models of
them.

Let me give you an example: some years ago, I was involved in an IT
project where a small wholesaler changed accounting software. Without
mentioning names, they purchased some licences to a mid-level package from
a consultant. I later found out that the consultant in fact made little
money from the sale: perhaps a few tens of dollars out of multiple
thousands. Most of the initial sale price went to the software vendor. The
consultant made her money from services: installation and training mostly.

Of course the software vendor made *some* money from the sale, but in
fact the majority of their income came from yearly service fees,
upgrade fees, compulsory upgrades ("pay for this upgrade or we will no
longer support your system"), customizations and similar. But even if
they were making some money from sales, that doesn't guarantee
profitability.

"Being in the software business" can and will remain profitable into the
future, but I have serious reservations that "selling software" will be --
even today, few companies make money from selling software and rely more
on associated services for the bulk of their income.

Which is exactly what economics tells us to expect.



--
Steven.

[Steven D'Aprano]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 04:46:15 -0500, Mike Meyer wrote:
[color=blue]
> Steven D'Aprano <steve@REMOVETH IScyber.com.au> writes:[color=green]
>> But if you *do* redistribute it, then you must live up to conditions in
>> the licence. If you aren't willing to do that, use software with a
>> different licence.[/color]
>
> That's a restriction on redistribution.[/color]

ALL licences make that "restrictio n". There is no licence that allows you
to distribute the product in contradiction to the terms of the licence.
[color=blue][color=green]
>> The only restriction is that you can't give those people fewer, weaker
>> rights than you got[/color]
>
> That's a restriction on redistribution.[/color]

Well now we're getting somewhere.

Fine. If you want to take rights away from the people you redistribute
somebody else's software to, then the GPL is not for you.

That's a restriction that actually *increases* freedom, so I don't see it
as a restriction at all -- I see it as something that enables rather than
disables.

What you see as a restriction to the GPL is, in my opinion, not
restrictive at all. After all, there are plenty of other software written
under other licences if you prefer. But the GPL's technical restriction
actually increases freedom rather than decreases it, in much the same way
as the Constitution of the USA increases freedom by restricting the laws
which Congress can pass. The framers of the Constitution understood the
ways in which even well-meaning governments could destroy freedom, and
took steps to try to prevent that.

There is something seriously wrong with saying that "the Constitutional
right to free speech is a restrictive law", even if it is technically true
that the Constitution restricts the ability of the government to prohibit
freedom of speech. Describing the GPL as restrictive is much the same.



--
Steven.

[Fredrik Lundh]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
[color=blue]
> Fine. If you want to take rights away from the people you redistribute
> somebody else's software to, then the GPL is not for you.[/color]

the people you distribute somebody else's open source software to
still have the same rights to that software as you have. GPL or not
GPL doesn't change that a bit.

if someone grabs my stuff and hides it in a commercial application,
anyone can still get my stuff under the original license. (e.g. Adobe's
use of bits and pieces from Python's Unicode string implementation
doesn't seem to affect Python users the slightest...)

I find it a lot more annoying when people grab my stuff, make trivial
additions or bugfixes to it, and GPL the result instead of contributing
it back. exactly how that increases freedom is hard for me to tell,
but I guess there's freedom and then there's freedom...

</F>

[Alex Martelli]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

Steven D'Aprano <steve@REMOVETH IScyber.com.au> wrote:
...[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
> >> Apart from Microsoft, and possibly Quark (makers of Quark Express desktop
> >> packaging software), and perhaps a few console game developers, is there
> >> any company making a profit on software sales?[/color]
> >
> > I believe Oracle is doing fine (and they appear to be trying to buy up
> > most everybody else -- other companies which used to make profits from
> > software sales before they got gobbled up). I think SAP and Adobe
> > aren't doing badly, either, but I haven't checked up on them in a while.[/color]
>
> My understanding is that both Oracle and SAP make most of their money
> through consulting and customization rather than licencing or sales. I[/color]

Have you checked their quarterly statements recently? What I read about
Oracle (look for ORCL on Google, go to SEC filings, quarterly statement;
sorry, but the URL comes out way mangled this way...) is that their
software business is 79% of their revenues (on a 4-quarters-trainling
basis) and "our highest margin business" with a forecast to "continuall y
improve margins and profits"; while "Our services business consists of
consulting", "21% of our total revenues on a trailing 4-quarter basis,
has significantly lower margins than our software business" (further
broken down into Consulting, On Demand, and Education). Of course for
all I know they might be playing some accounting tricks, but I don't see
why they should.

SAP is a bit harder to fathom for the typical US investor since they
officially report under Handelsgesetzbu ch rules, but they've long been
voluntarily offering a US GAAP report side by side; you can study their
reports at http://www.sap.com/company/investor/reports/index.epx ,
though (at least for somebody most used to reading typical SEC filings
of US companies) it's not quite as immediate to read those for details,
partly because of US$ vs EUR exchange rate issues.

Nevertheless, it would appear that in SAP's case both statements are
correct; they DO make profits on software sales, and even more in
ancillary service business driven by those sales. "Software revenues
were ¤590 million for the third quarter of 2005", up 19% or 20% year
over year depending on currency used; "Total revenues for third quarter
of 2005 were ¤2.01 billion", up 12% or 13%. They don't distinguish
operating margins between their software and service business, though I
don't see why their margins structure should be substantially different
from Oracle's -- higher in software, lower in services. Anyway, they
make almost 1/3 of their revenue (probably more than 1/3 of their
profits, though that's just an educated guess) from software, with
(right now) faster growth, and more than that from services, though
currently with lower growth rates.

The assumed difference in operating margins is, I believe, why they show
software revenues separately: software, potentially, can have wider
operating margins than services, as it can ``scale'' -- you could sell
licenses for just the same bits over and over with just modest customer
acquisition costs, driving operating margins skywards, while in services
you're basically reselling some professionals' time at a markup... a
hefty markup, sure, but margins just can't be as stellar as they could
be in software sales if it all worked right (higher acquisition costs,
&c).
[color=blue]
> don't know anyone who has bought a SAP solution that didn't spend an awful
> lot of money having it customized -- and unless I'm very mistaken, you
> don't own the customizations you pay for.[/color]

I have acquaintances in Italy who make great consulting income helping
SAP customers implement their purchases -- but they do so as freelance
consultants, not as SAP employees (many of them USED to work for SAP,
then figured out they could keep that "hefty markup" to themselves). Do
not assume that SAP can capture all or even most of the ancillary
services their software generates demands for, even though their 2
billion euro total revenues shows they're doing pretty well in that
field (I believe the situation is even more extreme for Oracle, with way
more business going to independent consultants in that sector).

[color=blue]
> Adobe, I'm not sure -- I suspect their biggest source of income is
> royalties on Postscript for laser printers, but I could be wrong. I don't
> even know anyone who uses Pagemaker any more -- it seems to have been
> almost completely overshadowed by Quark Xpress.[/color]

Even if Pagemaker is not an earner any more, and maybe Framemaker
neither, aren't you forgetting Acrobat, Photoshop (probably the biggest
earner), Premiere, After Effects, Encore, Audition, Illustrator,
InDesign, GoLive, InCopy...? Not to mention Flash, Dreamweaver,
Coldfusion, Freehand, Director... (Adobe DOES own Macromedia, you know;
the acquisition was over a month ago).

Anyway, looking for ADBE and their latest quarterly report (before the
Macromedia acquisition), they claim 98% of their revenues come from
product sales and only 2% from services and support. OEM Postscript is
just 4% of that, down from 5% on the same quarter last year, while
"Creative Professional" is 42%, up from 37% (this segment does include
Photoshop, they say, though I don't see why that shouldn't be in the
"Digital Imaging and Video" sector instead -- ah well, no matter).

Judging from this, it appears to me that your evaluation of Adobe's
income is completely off-base -- "royalties on Postscript for laser
printers" are a blip on the bottom line, and of decreasing importance;
their many off-the-shelf products oriented to "creative professionals"
are increasingly coming to dominate their bottom line (with secondary
help from Imaging, Video, Intelligent Documents), and with the
acquisition of Macromedia one can only expect "more of the same".

Their "cost of revenues" (salaries and all) is TINY, about 4-5% of their
total revenues. This translates to operating margins to die for, as is
typical of software sales... almost every incoming dollar is margin!-)
They then do plough back 19-20% into R&D, of course -- some products may
be at the cash cow stage, but most are actively developed, with a
bazillion variations on each, and no doubt they're developing for the
future.

[color=blue][color=green]
> > I'd be surprised if there weren't many relative minnows that I didn't
> > think of, beyond the few "obvious" big fishes above listed.[/color]
>
> Yes, there are a few -- Quickbooks and MYOB, although arguably their main
> income comes from subscription/upgrades rather than sales. But still,[/color]

Subcriptions _are_ sales, by all standards of accounting and common
sense. If the subscription is subject to cancelling and partial refund,
as for magazines, you recognize the income gradually during the
subscription period, but I don't think even that is a consideration for
software subscriptions, normally prepaid and nonrefundable.
[color=blue]
> consider the sheer size of the software industry, and the fact that apart
> from the 800lb gorilla of Microsoft, almost nobody can make a profit from
> selling software.[/color]

I have spent considerable time researching and writing up this post
about just three well-known players for which financials are easily
available -- not a problem for ORCL or ADBE, since, while I don't
currently have either in my stock portfolio I'm not adverse to
potentially having a fling on them, so keeping an eye out on them is
something I need to do anyway, though I'll admit SAP proved a tad more
frustrating;-). I'm not going to spend unbounded amounts of time
researching minnows I'm not going to invest in anyway -- as a typical
amateur investor, I play mostly on blue chips and indices. But I hope
even this limited survey helps you see that your visibility on the SW
market is seriously distorted -- just think of your connecting ADBE to
old, dated products such as postscript licensing to OEMs and Pagemaker,
sunset/cashcows products accounting for a tiny and declining portion of
their income, and not even THINKING of the blockbusters, Photoshop et
all, that make up their present and their future... of thinking that
Oracle's profits are mostly from consulting, when that's 1/5 of their
income and with LOWER margins than the software that's 4/5ths...!

So, if I may summarize into a piece of advice: *don't short the SW-sales
sector*, you could really be taken to the cleaners. Your perceptions of
even the major players in the sector are clearly wrong, and appear to be
based on extremely poor research, or even at times no research at all.
I'm not saying that software sales have a bright mid-long term future,
but when you're talking about the present and short term future, it's
demonstrable that your perception of the market sector is way wrong; so
I earnestly advise you to NOT put your money where your mouth is, lest
you end up losing a large fraction of that money.


Alex

[Martin P. Hellwig]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
<cut>[color=blue]
>
>
> I think you are over-estimating both the numbers and profitability of such
> niche software distributors, and misunderstandin g the business models of
> them.[/color]

Coincidently, I worked at a software company making a "standard"
administration software for primary schools. Which concentrate on the
national market. Because this in the Netherlands, not such a big
country, the customer base is not that big.
So on a population of 17 million people there are about 7.500 thousands
primary schools, our market share was quit big we had 4.500 thousands
customers, there where "only" about 7 other competitive
products/companies in that market.

The software was sold in 3 separates modules requiring a yearly renewal,
the base module was required for all customers the other modules where
add on packages, the base module cost about 500 EUR, then there where
2000 clients for 350 EUR module and about 500 clients for the third 250
module.

They also sold administration software for the academic market with
about the same annual income as that of the primary schools.

So for a niche market on a small user base using non-consulting
software, they had a quite profitable steady income.

Perhaps not the billions of dollars you expect from a software company
but for me and the 40 other employees it was enough to say that we
didn't over-estimated both the numbers and profitability of such a niche
software distributor and we sure didn't misunderstood the business model
of that. Unfortunately the profitable company was merged by the VC's
with 8 non-profitables companies because they had that this would make
them all profitable.

--
mph

[Mike Meyer]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

Steven D'Aprano <steve@REMOVETH IScyber.com.au> writes:[color=blue]
> On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 04:46:15 -0500, Mike Meyer wrote:[color=green]
>> Steven D'Aprano <steve@REMOVETH IScyber.com.au> writes:[color=darkred]
>>> But if you *do* redistribute it, then you must live up to conditions in
>>> the licence. If you aren't willing to do that, use software with a
>>> different licence.[/color]
>> That's a restriction on redistribution.[/color]
> ALL licences make that "restrictio n". There is no licence that allows you
> to distribute the product in contradiction to the terms of the licence.[/color]

True. Some license have terms which don't place any restrictions on
redistribution. The GPL is *not* such a license - it places
restrictions on the redistribution. Which is what I said in the first
place.
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> The only restriction is that you can't give those people fewer, weaker
>>> rights than you got[/color]
>> That's a restriction on redistribution.[/color]
> Well now we're getting somewhere.
> That's a restriction[/color]

Which is exactly what I said in the first place that you disagreed
with.
[color=blue]
> that actually *increases* freedom so I don't see it as a restriction
> at all -- I see it as something that enables rather than disables.[/color]

So that's the basis of the disagreement. I'm using "restrictio n" with
the intent of communicating it's normal english meaning, and you're
using it with the intent of making a political statement. When you say
"restrictio n", you mean "restrictio n that I think of as bad". If
you're willing to do that, proprietary commercial software has no
restriction on redistribution.

<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.or g> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.

[Steven D'Aprano]

Re: wxPython Licence vs GPL

On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 18:18:44 -0500, Mike Meyer wrote:
[color=blue]
> The GPL is *not* such a license - it places
> restrictions on the redistribution. Which is what I said in the first
> place.[/color]

If you want me to agree that the GPL puts more conditions on distribution
than the MIT/BSD licence, then I'll happily agree. If you want me to
describe that as a "restrictiv e licence", then I refuse.

Look: would you agree that the BSD licence is a restrictive licence? You
can't get much more liberal than the BSD licence -- in fact some people
argue that if you are going to use a BSD licence, you might as well just
put the work in the public domain. I can respect the argument for putting
works in the public domain.

But *technically* the BSD licence does restrict the distributor, because
they must give attribution. But there is a difference between the
existence of a "restrictio n" and the licence being "restrictiv e". If you
can see that difference, you will understand why I do not agree to
describe the GPL as "restrictiv e" -- and if you can't see that difference,
then you must also describe the BSD licence as restrictive.

[snip]
[color=blue]
> So that's the basis of the disagreement. I'm using "restrictio n" with
> the intent of communicating it's normal english meaning,[/color]

Your meaning is about as far from the plain English sense of "restrictiv e"
as it is possible to get without actually contradicting the dictionary
meaning. And that's the reason for my vehement disagreement with the
suggestion that the GPL is "restrictiv e".

We've already had one suggestion that if you ask 100 ordinary people what
free software means, 99 will say "free of cost" rather than free like
speech. (Thanks to Ed for that thought-experiment.)

I suggest that you if told 100 ordinary people that there is software that
allowed you to make as many copies as you liked, to give them away for
free or sell them for as much money as you wanted, to install it on as
many computers you liked, and that they didn't have to pay a single cent
for that software if they didn't want to, and that to be allowed to do
that all you had to do was to pass those rights on to those you give
the software to, then asked them if those conditions were "restrictiv e", I
think all 100 of them would look at you like you came from another planet.

If you want to use "restrictiv e" in the hair-splitting, pedantic,
non-plain English sense of "containing any restriction no matter how
infinitesimal", then please have the honesty to describe the BSD licence
as restrictive too. Then we can all agree that all software licences are
restrictive and that moral rights are restrictive ("but what if I *want*
to plagiarise the author of this public domain work?").

I think that your usage of the word is about as useful as plutonium
underwear, but if you are going to use it in that way, at least be
consistent.


--
Steven.