revOnline and Open Source

[Dr. Hawkins]

On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 7:31 AM, Richard Gaskin
<ambassador at fourthworld.com> wrote:
> Dr. Hawkins wrote:

> FWIW, the inventor of the GPL prefers "inherit" rather than "infect", since
> the GPL is a choice authors can make and "infect" has negative connotations
> that make that choice sound like an accident.

An inheritance an also be disclaimed . . .

As the author of the seminal Economic paper on the subject, I chose
"viral" and "public"
quite deliberately.


> But this discussion raises a peripheral question:
>
> How does the GPL3 used by the Community Edition affect libraries?

Compiled standalone stacks, or uncompiled?

A standalone (or any executable) has code of the virally licensed
compiler, and thus is bound by that license.

As a lawyer, I don't *think* that the source would be necessarily
bound if distributed as such.  If you distributed just scripts that
were tested in livecode, I don't think they would.  If, OTOH, you
distributed a .livecode file, I think you're probably back to a
derivative work.  I wouldn't bet my car for or against either of
these, though.let alone my house (wait a minute; I like my car better
than my house!).

I also wouldn't release or contribute any code to anything under GPL3
(I have under GP2).  The patent gotchas are just to risky.  If I come
up with any brilliant ideas for livecode, I'll either ship them off
under MIT or public domain, and let someone else slap that license
onto it.

I know what the FSF says about licensing.  I've also read the GPL in a
couple of versions, and I'm not sure what the actual legal
consequences are--I'm just sure they're *not* all what the FSF would
like them to be and claims they are.

I also don't use 6.x, and won't until it's stable enough; business
need to depend upon what I'm writing.


-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462