[copyleft-next] HBR cure 2013-02-18

Richard Fontana fontana at sharpeleven.org
Tue Feb 19 03:34:23 UTC 2013


On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 07:48:16PM -0500, Pamela Chestek wrote:
> I misspoke a bit - the perception is about what the penalty is if
> there has been an inadvertent "infection," not that the license itself
> causes the infection per se. But from my experience in the proprietary
> world (which was Progress Software, which may be part of the reason
> too), it's the accidental infection they're worried about, not the
> deliberate creation of a derivative work. And the reason it is
> accidental is because it's so bloody unclear when you've created a
> derivative work.

Sure, that's consistent with some of the GPL-phobia I've encountered
in some companies.

> So I guess what this means is, if you want to avoid the "infection"
> concern, but want strong copyleft, then you need to be very crisp and
> perhaps less expansive about what a "Derived Work" is. 

That seems related to some of the comments Ted Ts'o has sometimes made
on this list.

I have to admit I've thought about this -- not so much the 'less
expansive' part but the 'very crisp' part. I don't know how to do that
(yet), beyond what's already been done. Or without adding a *very*
long paragraph.

> But then we're
> back to trying to appease an audience that probably isn't going to
> adopt copyleft in the first place anyway.

Yes, especially today, where 'adopt' means 'for our new stuff that we
might open source'. Though even by early 2008 this should have been
clear, peculiar institution dual-licensors aside. If copyleft-next is
used at all (by someone other than the great Kuno Woudt [may he be
praised!]) it won't be corporations that lead the way. Nor indeed
would I want that to be so.

 - RF


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