From: Austin Ziegler <austin@...>
Date: 2004-01-01T13:14:45+09:00
Subject: Re: [OT] Good article on Open Source, GPL, copyright, etc.

On Thu, 1 Jan 2004 12:23:45 +0900, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> By looking at the definitions, I can see that they are not the same.  But
> I'm having trouble figuring out how one could write a license that fits
> the OSI definition but not  the FSF definition?
>
> Mark says that the difference lies in license compatibility, but I don't
> quite see it.
>
> Can anyone think of a license condition that would be ok for OSI but not
> for FSF?

Attribution. The original BSD licence would be OSI compatible (it required 
visible attribution to the original copyright holders) but not acceptable 
for the FSF. The FSF tends to consider licences on free and copyleft. Free 
simply means "compatible with the GNU GPL" -- which means that there are "no 
additional restrictions" -- and copyleft is similar to the Creative Commons 
Share-Alike in that it has specific restrictions that ensure that the source 
is available to recipients of original and modified versions of the code.

The original BSD is non-free, non-copyleft. The LGPL is free, weak copyleft 
(it separates on the API). The MPL is non-free, weak copyleft. The modified 
BSD or MIT is free, non-copyleft.

-austin
--
austin ziegler    * austin@halostatue.ca * Toronto, ON, Canada
software designer * pragmatic programmer * 2003.12.31
                                         * 23.06.16