Re: [tlug] GPL non-sense

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Shawn Brown writes:

 > I release.  They change.  I change their changes.  I release.  They
 > change their release.  I want to make use of what's been built on
 > my code and how many times will I have to go through it?

As often as you want to use their improvements.  Or until you change
your own license to GPLv2 (but not later), which doesn't allow those
optional clauses.  (You probably can't do this retroactively, though.)

But really, I don't see what your problem is.  The GPL is the most
proprietary possible free software license (to a first approximation,
but the FSF strives diligently to improve the approximation), but it's
not a proprietary software license.  Using it is a generous act on
your part, which benefits the whole world, but there's no guarantee it
will do any good for you.

And it was deliberately written with no intent that it do any good for
you, except via your membership in the world.  You should know that
there are other, well-written, copyleft licenses such as the Open
Software License.  The OSL has a *mandatory* clause that explicitly
prohibits use of trademarks and other IP without a separate agreement
(except that an explicit limited grant of patent license is
mandatory).  I just don't think you can hope for relief from this
problem without going to a proprietary license for your own code.

(Maybe the Creative Commons licenses lack this clause, I'm not
familiar with them in detail.)