On 2002.07.17 18:08 Peter Seebach wrote:
> In message <20020717181850.K1079@mofo.meme.com>, "Karl O . Pinc" writes:
> >I recommend you find a nice person to pick you a license, like the new
> BSD
> >or X11 license, that will keep a lawyer from showing up at your door
> >and taking away from you everything you own.
> 
> This sounds like FUD to me.  All of the free licenses are fine for most
> peoples' purposes; if they aren't fine for yours, you probably already
> know
> why.

Hardly FUD.  You'll recall this was in response to "I find the
discussion fruitless. I write code, I give it away."  Give it away by
putting it in the public domain, or by using no license at all opens
coders up to all kinds of problems.  The dude sounds like he thinks
licenses are irrelevant.  They are not.  In case you don't happen to
know, you can be held responsible for damage caused by your software
unless you use a license which prevents this.  You sound like you only
care about a license's relevance to a software author, not a software
user.  Fine.

Me, for all the software I write, I'm primarily a software user.  I
happen to be interested in informing software users of the
consequences of various forms of licensing.  I believe there are
significant differences between the various non-proprietary licenses,
especially to a software user, and that substantial harm could arise
from an ill-informed choice of license.  I won't be able to convince
you if this is not already obvious to you.  You'll just have to take
it on faith that licenses make a real-world difference to some people
and so, are worth discussing.

Karl <kop@meme.com>