[Cc-bizcom] Knowledge Public License
Rob Myers
robmyers at mac.com
Thu May 12 06:54:49 EDT 2005
Yet another attempt at a more "business-friendly" Open Source license:
http://news.com.com/India+eyes+own+open-source+license/2100-7344_3-5701861.html?tag=nefd.lede
"Deepak Phatak of the Indian Institute of Technology has begun an effort to create an open-source license that will let programmers share ideas while also letting them retain the rights to their own software modifications."
The problems being:
1. In programming, ideas *are* code. Not having to reimplement ideas in new code is part of what makes Free Software so successful for business.
2. Trying to keep value from others means others will keep value from you. You lose the benefits of Free Software by trying to exploit them.
Licenses like Shared Source, CDDL and this one probably look great to CFOs but by trying to unimaginatively extract or protect value you actually get less back.
- Rob.
More information about the Cc-bizcom
mailing list