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From: buzzard@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: Question on Open Source IF
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Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2002 01:07:39 GMT
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Daniel Barkalow  <iabervon@iabervon.org> wrote:
>Of course, after all of this, I have come up with a brief description of a
>license I would like to see libraries released under:
>
>"You may use this library in any way if you do not release source
>code..."

Here's my solution to the library license problem, which I
will almost certainly apply to any libraries I write in the
future:

/* This source code was place in the public domain
 * on ---date--- by its author, Sean Barrett. It is
 * not copyrighted. If you use it, acknowledgement in
 * credits sections is appreciated.
 */

Because, as we know, malicious "users" will freely modify
and use libraries in violation of their license anyway.
"Good" users will probably honor the credits request.
The possibility for derived works is maximized, at least
for the first order. (Systems like GPL restrict initial
and subsequent derivations in an attempt to make sure that
the initial derivations don't prevent further derivations.
Given the size of many IF libraries compared to the size of
the GPL, the complexity isn't worth it to me.)

However, my willingness to use this "license" is limited to
this community, and I don't have much problem with other
people who want to constrain derivatives more, or who wish
to maintain copyright for whatever reason. But I don't see
that it's worth a big debate.

SeanB
