Licenses etc. (was: Re: [antlr-interest] Re: Antlr Studio is cool.)

[Paul Johnson]

Anthony Youngman wrote:
> The thing with the GPL is that it does NOT prevent an author selling his
> own work. If Prashant wants to sell Antlr Studio, that is his moral
> right.
> 
> What the GPL does (and is intended to do) is stop *you* selling *my*
> work (and cutting me out of the loop).

Not quite - you can charge whatever you want for GPL'ed work, whoever 
wrote it. The GPL has nothing to do with money. Two quotes:

> When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price.

> You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
> you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a
> fee.

Note that the second quote refers to any GPL'ed software - not, for 
example, your own work or your derivative of a GPL'ed work. There is no 
definition of what a fee is, and no statement that it should be 
'reasonable'.

The GPL has many problems, not the least of which is the definition of a 
'derivative' work. It's not clear at what point you become obliged to 
distribute a copy of your own source code if you include any GPL'ed 
source in your code. That's why real-world commercial organisations 
don't like it. A second issue is that, if you do charge a lot of money 
to distribute your own (or someone else's) work, then there's nothing to 
stop a third party also distributing that work for gratis.

IMHO, the GPL is simply a religious manifesto, and is a pile of crock. 
Ter has cut right through this with his own licence, which is a model of 
simplicity and clarity. I would love to know what happened in that phone 
conversation with Richard Stallman...