On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 3:50 AM, graham <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On 02/17/11 19:48, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
>> Personally, I much prefer "non-viral" type open source licenses like
>> Apache or MIT for this reason. The GPL advocates argue that viral-type
>> licenses like GPL are "more free" because nobody can take GPL code and
>> turn it into a proprietary product.  I see what they're trying to do.
>> But from my perspective 'non-viral' open source licenses like Apache are
>> 'more free' because it gives the user the freedom to combine Apache code
>> with non-open-source code in a project. You can't do that with GPL,
>> which seems less free to me.
>
> This is a classic position which is now 20 years or so old; I don't
> think anyone on either side is likely to come up with a new argument -
> you take your pick, and then try to find the best way to live with the
> people you don't agree with, because neither side is going away in a hurry.

Quite true. It's a boring, old argument. Let's try to avoid the
brambles of whether copyleft licenses are more or less "free."