RE: Apple Sauce

Robert S. Thau (rst@ai.mit.edu)
Wed, 24 Mar 1999 15:21:02 -0500 (EST)


> But the point is, it's better to have 5+b$ companies that don't try at
> all than 5+b$ companies that try, but don't get it. It's one thing to
> have almost-free software being passed off as free by some bozo in high
> school; it's much more dangerous to have almost-free software being
> passed off as free by 5+b$ companies.

Does this mean you prefer Sun's SCSL (clearly not even almost-free)?
FWIW, I don't --- the APSL (and the IBM Jikes license, etc.) have
their problems, but those companies seem to be approaching the matter
with a lot more sincerity and good will.

There was problematic stuff in the initial drafts of the NPL and MPL
too, and the Mozilla folks are still fine-tuning those licenses, but I
don't think it would be fair to that crowd to hold those first-draft
problems against them. On the other hand, the explicit public
consultation process that helped straighten out some of those bugs ---
and which the Trolls used as well for their QPL --- might be a good
model for the Apples of the world, precisely to avoid this sort of
fracas when what should have been a late public draft license is
instead slapped onto an actual release.

(And when's the last time you saw Troll Technology cited as a role
model for corporate open source? There's something weird about this,
and yet here I am doing it...).

rst