[Zope-dev] ZPL and GPL

[Paul Everitt]

With great trepidation, I add a post to this thread.  As Barry has 
mentioned, this has all been discussed a LOT.  I'll try to summarize and 
clarify a few points:

1) I wanted to specifically address something in Michael's post here. 
We fully expect people to profit from Zope, even if that means for-fee, 
intact redistributions.  They simply have to provide credit.  Others may 
have a different philosophy, but that's ours.  This is similar in some 
regards to Perl's and Apache, I believe.

2) We specifically expect to produce a packaged version of Zope.  It's 
clear that it's the only way to appeal to the mainstream market.  We 
hope others do the same.

3) Regarding other posts, our license is nearly identical to Apache's 
license, close enough legally to say it is the same.  Therefore, to say 
Zope isn't free enough is to say Apache isn't free enough.  Anybody that 
says that loses a fair amount of credibility, at least with me.  Apache 
is an example of a crossover success (open and commercial) that I think 
provides a fantastic role model.

4) Any changes in the license are likely to be more in the direction of 
an Apache-style license.

No approach pleases everyone, unfortunately.  We do the best we can.

--Paul

Michael R. Bernstein wrote:

> On 26 Jun 2001 10:29:39 +1000, Anthony Baxter wrote:
> 
>>>>>Michael "R." Bernstein wrote
>>>>>
>>>Unless I've misunderstood something (which is certainly possible), DC
>>>doesn't seem to have anything to lose by switching from a BSD style
>>>license to the GPL (or a GPL style license with an additional optional
>>>attribution clause), and quite a bit to gain.
>>>
>>They will probably lose developer mindshare. Given how important 
>>this is to Zope's growth (and to DC's growth, as a result), this 
>>is far far more important than the karma from switching to the 
>>far less flexible GPL
>>
> 
> You're right. I hadn't considered that the ZPL needs to be 'proprietary
> compatible' so far as add-on products are concerned. perhaps the LGPL
> would suffice, as that would permit creating proprietary Zope products.
> But I won't be entirely happy if the ZPL permits proprietary third-party
> redistributions of Zope itself.
> 
> 
>>Your argument seems to be that DC would want to control other companies
>>ability to make distributions derived from Zope - unless they've been 
>>hiding this nefarious plan from the community, this doesn't seem to
>>be an objective for them.
>>
> 
> Heh. I guess I shouldn't have stuck that in there. An argument I've
> occasionally heard for BSD-style licenses is that the original (usually
> corporate) author wants to be able to make proprietary releases based on
> other peoples contributions. The argument for NPL-style licenses is that
> they (the original author) want to be the *only* one with such a
> privileged position. DC has never indicated that either of these was
> important to them.
> 
> 
>>As far as a contributor to Zope wanting to keep their work free, then
>>if the ZPL is GPL compatible, they can make their components GPLd.
>>
> 
> True.
> 
> Michael Bernstein.
> 
> 
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