Re: Corel's apt frontend

[Raul Miller <moth@debian.org>]

On Mon, Nov 01, 1999 at 02:39:57PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> (If this is the case, it might be a worthwhile service to separate main
> into `gpl' and `free', so that the things you can just willfully mix and
> match (the GPL stuff) is more clearly separated from the stuff you have
> to have a doctorate in laws to deal with (GPL and anything else, anything
> else and anything else). This is at least plausible with the advertising
> clause removed from the BSD stuff...)

It's not that simple.

Consider the mozilla license, for example, and imagine building a
program from mozilla and some other work with a mozilla-like license
which belongs to some other company.

[Or even consider the restrictions on QPL+Artistic license.  The new
QPL requires patches, and forbids non-source releases, while Artistic
requires renaming or severely restricted distribution -- so eventually
you wind up with a build process with files you shouldn't rename and an
executable which must be renamed.]

It's reasonable to partition the distribution into software which is
compatible with some particular license.  I don't think it's fair
to ask our people to render legal judgement on hypothetical future
license combinations: every distinct license imposes its own unique
set of restrictions and each combination of licenses must be considered
individually.

The best advice, if you want your life to be simple, is to pick a license
you like and develop your software to only require that pieces which use
that license.  [And, it's probably safe to add BSD and Public Domain and
X licensed software to just about any mix -- they can be used in MS Word
as easily as they can be used in emacs.]

-- 
Raul