License

My software is usually licensed under the following terms and conditions. You should also refer to the documentation of each package to know the terms and conditions for all the components of the packages you're interested in.

The "Simplified" BSD License

Copyright (c) 2009, Charles McGarvey 
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
   this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
   notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
   documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Why not the GPL?

I don't personally care for the GPL for a number of reasons which I will outline. If you're not interested in this discussion, at least be aware that the GPL is compatible with the above license. I'm disappointed that the topic of free software licensing has degraded into ground zero for a holy war over the past several years; it actually is an issue with real implications on the software industry, especially the free software "community." Since I think it's important, I'll list some of the reasons why I dislike the GPL while at the same time acknowledging the existence of other valid viewpoints surrounding the topic.

First, the FSF goes to great lengths to try to differentiate the term "free software" from "open source." Yet, the FSF claims that any "program is free software if users have all these freedoms," referring to the four essential freedoms:

All of these things are good for users, but it should be obvious to you that these freedoms are also guaranteed by any other open source license. I point this out because it is often assumed that the GPL protects user interests better than other licenses. This assertion is repeated enough to have reached proverbial status, but is it accurate? Not if user interests are enshrined in the four freedoms which are guaranteed by any open source license. While it's fine to prefer the made-up term "free software" (as does the FSF) since it can emphasize freedom, it should also be made clear that "free software" and "open source" are fundamentally the same, despite attempts to associate the term "free software" only with copyleft-licensed software (more on this later). Therefore, the old "proverb" is inaccurate and unfair in its implication that non-GPL licenses somehow fail to protect users' "freedoms." Assurance of user freedom is not a unique feature of the GPL but is built-in to all open source licenses which are themselves built on common copyright law.

Along those same lines, it is sometimes claimed by GPL proponents that corporations can close up non-GPL code and make it proprietary. In response, I would make two points: First, GPL code can also be made "proprietary" in the sense that corporations can use and modify the code internally without giving anything back. Second, the claim is not at all accurate because making code licensed under any free and open source license to be proprietary would be a change of license, and that is something only the copyright holder can do, and only in such a way that does not affect current licensees (which would be like pulling the rug out from underneath them). A corporation may use such code under the terms of the license (like any other user), but that doesn't change the license which will always ensure the code is free forever. This is true for any free and open source license.

Second, I disagree philosophically with copyleft, the idea that modifications of free software should forcedly be free. I don't particularly like it because I don't believe it accomplishes anything useful in practice. The most likely scenario is that either a corporation is going to release their product open source or they're not. It's already decided beforehand. If they're not, they're not. They will just design something in-house or use non-copyleft code. For example, I don't believe the existence of a useful copyleft library will often convince managers to bite the bullet and release the whole product open source, which is what the GPL would require without tricks.

Furthermore, we just don't need copyleft because free software already has so many advantages over proprietary software that we shouldn't need to force back code changes from corporations in order to maintain competitive open source solutions. If we, as a free software community, cannot create and maintain software that surpasses the quality of proprietary offerings, that is a failing of the community that is unlikely to be mitigated by copyleft. We should be able to compete on merit, even giving corporations the use of the code we write. If they can take what we've done and make something even better, I say good for them. If they don't give back their changes, I say they better keep improving what they've done because I'm going to make something even better and beat them. That healthy mentality can be lost in a GPL project.

My last point on the topic of copyleft is to question the effectiveness of the GPL versus other licenses at getting corporations to license source code for general public use, which can be viewed as the major purpose of copyleft. I haven't bothered to collect any hard statistics, but I have noticed that many companies including Apple, Google, Sun, and others tend give back their changes and even release their own code (often under non-GPL licenses), even if they are under no legal obligation to do so. They may do this only to retain good karma in the development communities they are trying to support or cater to, but their motivations are highly irrelevant. Is the incentive of copyleft even useful? Not if companies are already incentivized by the free market.

Third, I have doubts concerning another common assumption regarding the success of certain free software projects in connection with the GPL. In particular, it is often said that the GPL is largely responsible for the success of Linux or MySQL. Yet, it doesn't seem like we can jump to that conclusion given the plethora of other successful free software projects which do not use the GPL or any other copyleft license. For example, only half of the "LAMP stack" includes GPL softare (Linux and MySQL) while the other half (Apache and PHP/Perl) includes non-GPL code. Postfix isn't GPL. Neither is memcached or PostgreSQL. The point is, it's not likely that the GPL had as much influence on the success of Linux as people want to believe. In fact, that shortchanges Linux, which is simply a quality kernel regardless of how it is licensed.

Fourth and finally, I believe the GPL is not only irrelevant in the face of other simpler licenses which have been shown to provide the same user freedoms and protections, but the GPL can also be destructive. The nature of the GPL causes it to be incompatible with other common licenses such as the Apache licenses and others. The license which I use is compatible with all versions of the GPL to avoid the headaches and frustration that can ensue because of incompatible licenses, but a lot of software is still licensed such that they are incompatible with the GPL. Even the various GPL licenses are incompatible amongst themselves, requiring you to use a table in order to figure the mess out. In my estimation, these incompatibilities introduce unneeded complexity and hinder progress within the free software community by creating the need for redundant work when we should really all be on the same side.

These are the reasons why I choose to license my free software under a BSD-style license. I also love the fact that anyone can read it and understand their acceptable use and redistribution of my software without first obtaining a law degree. In contrast, the GPL can get quite technical. In summary, we don't need the GPL to guarantee freedom for users, nor do we need "copyleft" to encourage corporations to participate in the free software exchange. Free software can and does succeed fantastically without the GPL, and the incompatibilities just don't do any good for anybody. As such, I cannot really recommend the GPL to anyone. Fortunately, there is a plethora of free non-GPL licenses, which do not have the same restrictions and incompatibilities, from which to choose if you are thinking about licensing your own stuff freely.

Charles McGarvey <onefriedrice 4t brokenzipper d0t com> (PGP Key)