[Zope-dev] ZPL and GPL licensing issues

[Gregor Hoffleit]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 11:47:49AM +0100, Toby Dickenson wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Jun 2001 16:50:33 +0200 (CEST), "Morten W. Petersen"
> <morten@thingamy.net> wrote:
> 
> >and the 'obnoxious advertising clause'
> >seemingly puts a stop to it..
> 
> I understand that 'obnoxious advertising clause' is the phrase used by
> the FSF to describe this type of license clause, however I wonder
> whether you (personally, or as an organisation) really find it to be
> 'obnoxious'?
> 
> Personally, I am *happy* to respect clause 4.



Please, don't try to critize the FSF just for the fun of it.


Have you read the FSF's comment about the original 'obnoxious advertising
clause' ? The problem is a practical one, and a real one: The old BSD
license said that, if you incorporated their code in your product, every
advertisement for your product had to carry this line:

     This product includes software developed by the University of
     California, Berkeley and its contributors.

As long as there was only this UCB license, this was no real problem. But
imagine you're preparing a *BSD distribution, and you're using material from
a dozen different sources. Would you like to include something like this in
every advertisement for a *BSD CD-ROM ?

     This product includes software developed by the University of
     Clifornia, Berkeley and its contributors.
     This product includes software developed by the University of
     Dalifornia, Derkeley and its contributors.
     This product includes software developed by the University of
     Edinburgh, UK and its contributors.
     This product includes software developed by the University of
     Frankfurt, Germany, and its contributors.     
     This product includes software developed by Gimian Inc., MA, 
     and its contributors.
     This product includes software developed by Himian Inc., MA,
     and its contributors.
     This product includes software developed by Kimian Inc., MA, 
     and its contributors.
     This product includes software developed by Limian Inc., MA, 
     and its contributors.
     This product includes software developed by Nimian Inc., MA, 
     and its contributors.
     This product includes software developed by Ximian Inc., MA, 
     and its contributors.
     This product includes software developed by Ximian Inc., MA, 
     and its contributors.
     This product includes software developed by Timian Inc., MA,
     and its contributors.
     This product includes software developed by Mark Red, NY,
     and other contributors.
     This product includes software developed by Mark Brown, OH,
     and other contributors.     
     This product includes software developed by Mark Green, IL,
     and other contributors.
     This product includes software developed by Mark Blue, IL,
     and other contributors.     
     This product includes software developed by the University of
     Taipeh, Taiwan and its contributors.     
     This product includes software developed by the University of
     Greenland and its contributors.     


This is why the FSF calls this clause obnoxious
(http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html).

I don't know about you, but IMHO they're right at this point.

    Gregor
    


PS: Please also note that the University of California, where this clause
originated, has removed it from their licenses. I don't think they did it
without a reason.