28 Jan
2004
28 Jan
'04
7:21 a.m.
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..... 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.
That's a good idea. Let's see what GPL v3 brings.
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.