27 Jan
2004
27 Jan
'04
4:54 a.m.
On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 06:01:25PM +0000, Daniel James wrote:
If the GPL was one
paragraph more people would have read it before using the software. I
would guess that a tiny minority of libre software users have read
the GPL from start to finish.
It's small fry compared with many commercial EULA's.
We need poets, not lawyers, writing licences.
That's fine until push comes to shove and the licence gets tested in
court.....
If the licence can't be
printed around the perimeter of a CD in a readable type size, then
it's too long.
If only...
You could drop all the clauses in the GPL about money, which are only
there because people are inclined to compare it with shareware licences that
say you are not allowed to sell the software. You could also have a
2-part GPL, with one (short) part about copying the software and a
second part which 99% of users don't need to read, about modifying the
software.
As for contacting copyright holders before commercial
use, that gives
me the option to say no to something like a bit of my music being
used in a TV advert, for example. I might not approve of the
association with the product
There you're way out of the domain of the GPL, which explicitly forbids
any discrimination about how the software is *used*, and is only about
copying.
--
Anahata
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