[sword-devel] GPL 3 licencing issues

[jonathon]

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Peter von Kaehne wrote:

>"GPL v2 or later" is good as it allows widest use.
>Both got very excited when they saw the freedom the GPL offered them -
it was news to them that such a licence even existed

a) There are a slew of similar licences.  The downside of GPL style
licences is that there is no revenue stream from distribution of the
software.  (For GPL 3.0 in particular, the revenue stream is from
providing support services.)

b) Point them to other programs that use GPL style licences. (OOo, for
example, is available for more minority languages than MSO is. The same
thing applies to Linux in comparison to Windows.)

c) Work with those publishers to show how they can use FLOSS to help
their customers.(Here is a Bible study program. Here is an office suite.
Here are tools that will copy material from the Bible Study program into
the office suit, so you can print out your sermon notes.)

>E-sword for example can only be distributed from esword's website -
making it useless if you have net censorship difficulties.

You can redistribute e-Sword provided:
* You do not do so within a commercial context;
* You do not distribute it over the internet;

IOW, you are free to distribute it via CD to third parties. (This is how
 it is distributed in a dozen countries in the 10-40 belt.)

I'll also point out that you can negotiate with Rick Meyers on
redistribution of e-Sword within a commercial context. (This is why
Sovereign Press KJV Bibles used to include e-Sword.)

> of making the FFS copyright holders - not sure whether this is something
Stallman would be happy about (given that he is AFAIk atheist) but they
seem to have a track record of bring GPL abusers to the book.

I suspect that Stallman would be more than happy about suing licence
violators of a Bible Study Program. (I can see him quoting Exodus
20:15 and Deuteronomy 5:18 during the proceedings.)

xan

jonathon

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