[Haskell-cafe] Re: Utility functions

[John Goerzen]

On Thu, Dec 30, 2004 at 12:02:58AM +0000, Philippa Cowderoy wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Dec 2004, John Goerzen wrote:
> 
> >In which case, it will fall under the default (GPL) license of the
> >library (and may later be given to fptools to be part of the "standard"
> >library).
> >
> 
> I would've thought the GPL was incompatible with being part of a standard 
> library intended for use in potentially-commercial applications?

The pedant in me says: the GPL is orthogonal to commercial use.

It is not orthogonal to proprietary use.  I am not somebody's code
slave, writing code for them to use in a most likely for-profit
closed-source program for nothing.  If they want to use my code in
such a project, they can negotiate with me for a license to my code
for that purpose (and with the authors of the other GPL'd code in
MissingH, should they require it also).

If they want to sell their program and bundle the source and the
rights inherent with the GPL, that is fine by me.  We can all benefit
from that.

So yes, I know what the ramifications are, and the choice was quite
intentional.

But like I've said, I am willing to negotiate with people that require
code under a license that lets them use it without releasing the code.
I have also stated that I will put any part of the code I've written
under the fptools license if that code will be added to fptools.  (I
perceive that as a greater good than license pragmatism in this
instance.)  Similar offers could be made to other Free Software
projects if necessary.  I am not the inflexible and oft-inscrutable
object that is RMS :-)

-- John