[sword-devel] GPL vs. other licencies

[Jason Galyon]

There is always the possibility of dual licensing.  A company could 
obtain special permission to use a less restrictive license given that 
certain requirements are met.

I personally have long been a supporter of the "ransom" model.  When a 
certain amount of time or income has been met the source is then made 
available under an Open Source license.

Plus there are many non GPL products out there that have plenty of 
contributions made from companies.  My company contributes code and 
other components (not our main product though).

Jason

Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Jul 2007, keith preston wrote:
> 
>> Speaking of licensing issues, I've always wondered why Sword was licensed
>> under the GPL license.
> 
> Personally I also like less restrictive licencies. However, I understand
> that there are different situations which call different licencies.
> 
> If Sword were published under LGPL it would soon be adopted into
> freeware and commercial programs. It's highly probable that we wouldn't
> get anything from that. It would be useful if they gave back some
> code contributions or helped us with module licencing issues, but I
> think that would not happen.
> 
> Commercial developers already have enough resources without our library.
> And if someone wants to code software to spread the Word of God it's
> already possible with Free Software. It's even possible to ask donations
> and thereby get some money out of the software.
> 
> Using GPL is kind of a fair trade: you can use our code, we can use
> yours. I don't see why Bible software should be closed source or why we
> should help others make closed source Bible software.
> 
> Therefore, though I prefer LGPL or even BSD and could have decided to
> use them if I had started this project, GPL is enough for me here and
> now.
> 
>   Yours,
> 	Eeli Kaikkonen (Mr.), Oulu, Finland
> 	e-mail: eekaikko at mailx.studentx.oulux.fix (with no x)
> 
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