[Zope] STOP! Zope and the GPL poison pill

[Chris McDonough]

This is not the place to conduct a GPL-vs.-everything-else flamewar.  These
messages are beginning to have nothing whatsoever to do with Zope.
This is a list about Zope.  If the GPL stuff relates in a manner not so
tangetial to Zope, fine.  But this particular thread is beginning to turn
into a flamewar.  If you care to argue the issues underlying this, please
take it to an appropriate newsgroup.

----- Original Message -----
From: <jim@cosource.com>
To: <zope@zope.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2000 2:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Zope] Zope and the GPL poison pill


> Hey, Nils, I've got news for you. I've written 3 separate posts now which
> were long and thoughtful, which quoted from the GPL, and which explained
> to you and the rest of the community how you could deliver a proprietary
> solution to a client which relied on a GPL'd object in zope.
>
> But, I've deleted all three rather than send them. Why? Because, first, I
> don't want to be the person who posted a cook-book recipie for
> circumventing the intent of someone's license. Other people on this list
> have alluded to how to do it, that's already plenty. Second, I find the
> people who stand to benefit the most from such an explanation to be
> overwhelmingly rude and hostile towards any suggestion that each developer
> have the right to select their own distribution terms, and when given the
> choice between pissing off some developers who release GPL'd code to help
> some ingrates figure out workarounds OR letting the ingrates continue to
> believe their utterly outrageous misinterpretations of the GPL, I'll
> choose the second.
>
> But to answer your post specifically, fine, Guido wants you to take his
> code and turn it into commercial products. So do a number of other people.
>
> Now, you need to come up with a reason for me why that means EVERYONE
> should conduct themselves that way. That's what's being proposed here:
> that no one ever write zope products and release them under the GPL.
>
> Remember, no one is saying Zope should be GPL'd. Some are saying they'd
> like to distribute their modules and add-ons under the GPL. So, one side
> of the debate says "no, no one should use the GPL for any code that will
> run on a zope machine" and the other says "everyone should be free to
> select the license that they like best for the code that they distribute."
>
> Why does this debate even occupy anyone's time? It seems such a simple
> question. If someone posts a module that is GPL'd either a) use it and
> accept that that entails or b) don't use it, re-write it, whatever. I
> can't understand why there's a c) adopt as some sort of Zope-Community-Law
> that Thy Shalt Not Copyleft Things. Again, it only makes sense if you
> think people will STILL write the code but just release it under the more
> liberal license. I submit that that's not true.
>
> If I was advocating the complete and total re-licensing of everything on
> zope.org under the GPL, yes, you'd have a point, Guido and others clearly
> are happy to let their code become parts of commercial products. But what
> I advocate respects their wishes, and further respects other peoples'
> wishes too: people with a different viewpoint. Each consultant out there
> can pick and choose among the code available and if they want to shun
> GPL'd modules, great. That's a far better way to go then telling people
> not to write them in the first place, thank you very much.
>
> jim
>
> On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, Nils Kassube wrote:
>
> > Jim Hebert wrote:
> >
> > > Look, I'm the last person on earth to say the GPL is perfect, or is
the
> > > one true license, or anything else. I've heard a number of GOOD
arguments
> > > in a number of venues about why the GPL may not be the best choice in
that
> > > setting.
> >
> > From:
> >
> > http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-09-07-011-21-OS-CY-SW
> >
> > --cut--
> > LT: From your viewpoint, should the differences between your licenses
> > and the GPL attract or deter developers?
> >
> > GVR: Both. It may deter GPL hardliners (but there seem to be few of
> > these in the Python world). But it attracts developers from the
> > proprietary world like I mentioned above. Many of these "proprietary"
> > companies are major contributors to Python and other open source
> > products. For example the new Unicode support and regular expression
> > engine, as well as several existing core library modules, were
> > contributed by people who also develop proprietary Python software
> > --cut--
> >
> > > But this thread boils down to a bunch of people who want to sell a
> > > solution which includes work other than their own, receive all the
money
> > > from the sale, bar the client from getting other 3rd parties to help
> > > them improve what they paid for, and further have a legal monopoly on
> > > distributing that solution to any additional people.
> >
> > Looks like these people displaying "utter bald-faced greed and
> > ingratitude" by developing proprietary software based on open
> > source products are important to Guido van Rossum.
>
>
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