[Axiom-developer] Re: [Aldor-l] Distributing Aldor

[root]

Pippijn

>> The other package consists of Rona and all makefiles, scripts and other
>> files that form the build system. The scripts and makefiles are
>> distributed under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License
>> version 3. This archive can be distributed commercially, the Aldor
>> Software Organisation has no royalty-free licence to do anything beyond
>> the terms of this license with any part of this archive.
>
>The headers and sources are AGPLv3 licenced, but they allow linking with
>differently licenced works. I do not like this exception at all, so I am
>seriously considering to make an exception only for Aldor. Any ideas on
>this issue? I am not sure what to do here.

I wish you would consider simply adopting the Modified BSD license. It
would make it much easier to integrate your work (albeit not Aldor
itself) directly with Axiom. Adding yet-other-licenses to the pile is
only going to make Aldor yet-more-difficult to use.



Consider the practical side of choosing a license.

Adding a license means you would be willing to go to court to enforce
your copyright. If the GPL is violated then, since you are the copyright
holder, it would be up to you to force the issue (assuming you don't
assign the copyright to FSF).

As the license lawyer told me, there are only 2 reasons to go to court
over copyright/trademark/secret (so-called "intellectual property"). 
The first reason is to "make a point", like keeping your copyright.
The second reason is money. Both are very expensive to enforce.

NAG has the potential to make money on their license because you would
only violate it by making money. Their lawyer is smart enough to
figure out that NAG would profit when they took you to court. Of
course, their lawyer has virtually no interest in seeing the language
survive, but if it does then NAG get paid. (Someone actually took his
advice that they strangle the compiler provided they can make money on
the cadaver.  What a horrible waste.)

I don't see any possible scenerio where you'll take someone to court.
So why make a claim you're unwilling to defend? And if you're unwilling
to defend it, then why strangle your work by making it more difficult
to integrate with the only other systems that care? And if you do want
to strangle your work you might as well use the NAG license because you
could let NAG fight in court and then you can claim a percentage of the 
profits (your pound of flesh, so to speak).


Tim