Subject: Re: Another reason to go GPL
From: Bruce A. Burdick, Jr. (bucky@interaccess.com)
Date: Tue Mar 27 2001 - 16:57:07 EST
I don't understand how that can work. The GPL, once adopted, establishes a
form of compulsion -- it does not allow what you've described. Suppose code
from another GPL project is incorporated: the presence of that code prevents
netatalk in its entirety from ever being used in a BSD-licensed context
without replacing that code. That's how the GPL works. In the long run, it
permanently prevents BSD-style freedoms such as using the code in a
proprietary release. The code would be balkanized into separate licenses.
The licenses don't coexist by covering the whole project.
A company who makes such a release would have quite a bit invested in its
relationship with the community that developed the base code. Observe Apple
and the FreeBSD crowd.
GPL effectively eliminates ownership through progressively entangling
obligations on the part of the coders. BSD provides a form of shared
ownership, in which the codebase may be forked freely as needed and
participating developers each retain full discretion regarding the
disposition of their work -- public or private.
I have not developed a stitch of netatalk. So this is not my decision. But
thank you for hearing me out.
-B...
> From: wes@umich.edu
> Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 16:24:23 -0500
> To: andrew morgan <morgan@orst.edu>
> Cc: netatalk-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, netatalk-admins@umich.edu
> Subject: Re: Another reason to go GPL
> Resent-From: netatalk-admins@umich.edu
> Resent-Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 16:31:45 -0500 (EST)
>
> It's no problem to release netatalk under a GPL license, so long as all of
> the previous licenses are kept. Presuming GPL will allow that, you should
> do as it suits the current developers.
>
> BTW, the volunteer from the sourceforge netatalk team on netatalk@umich.edu
> is now bouncing mail. Someone from that group should read
> netatalk@umich.edu
> since questions about 1.5 go there.
>
> :wes
>
> --On Tuesday, March 27, 2001 9:55 AM -0800 andrew morgan <morgan@orst.edu>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Here's another reason we should go GPL with netatalk. Samba has a piece
>> of code which does quotas on Veritas File Systems which I need to use at
>> our site. Same problem as the file locking code though. We can't take
>> GPL code and place it in netatalk without releasing netatalk as GPL.
>>
>> I may be able to get permission from the author of that particular piece
>> of code to include it in netatalk anyways, but the samba project itself
>> will not release the code for our use.
>>
>> GPL - just do it. :P
>>
>> Andy
>
>
>
>
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