On Thu, May 17, 2007 at 08:52:16AM +0200, Ulf Lamping wrote:
> > ...then why did we have the bit of text that was there before?
Because I added it when I changed the build process to build what is now
libwireshark. There have been a few programs that violated the Ethereal
license and I wanted to make sure that there was no place for
misunderstandings.
> Well, I was asking myself the same question.
>
> The problem with these extensions to the license is as follows:
>
> If you take licensing serious (otherwise the license text is of no
> interest), you'll need to read and understand every license of each and
> every program you want to use. I've often looked at larger programs
> license which have multiple licensing for multiple parts of the program
> (e.g. library x is licensed under MIT, lib y is licensed under Apache,
> ...), which makes it hard to get. In addition, seeing the "keyword" GPL
> in the license text is not enough - you need you to read the license
> text completely.
>
> So adding anything to the GPL text in effect just "unclarifies" the
> license IMO - there could be ugly details that you'll need to know.
If you are used to reading licenses, then you will be familiar with the
GPL anyway and recognize the GPL which starts after the few lines of
introduction.
> When I remember the topic correct, this was due to the time when
> companies started to see Wireshark / Ethereal as a dissection library
> for their proprietary sniffer products. Either because they just don't
> cared about the license text at all or the GPL restrictions in special -
> so clarifying the text won't help. Or they know the GPL license and
> simply ignored it - in which case clarifying the GPL text won't help
> either. Keep in mind, at that time the GPL violations court decisions
> wasn't there.
>
> Stopping a company from breaking the GPL rules by adding some extensions
> to the license text is probably even a bit naive ;-)
You forget about the cases where people take licensing "semi"serious. To
me, it looks like the number of licensing questions/violations has gone
down.
Ciao
Joerg
--
Joerg Mayer <jmayer@xxxxxxxxx>
We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that
works. Some say that should read Microsoft instead of technology.
