Re: PSPP brings an industry standard statistical tool to Linux
Posted by: Anonymous
[ip: 10.241.128.10]
on October 17, 2008 05:33 PM
To take things slightly offtopic (but prob appropriate for Linux.com), yet again I gasp in disbelief at the FSF attitude towards copyright:
"Many of these other programs have numerous authors, each holding copyright on their respective parts. By contrast, the copyright in PSPP is help by one entity (the Free Software Foundation), which makes for easier copyright tracking and enforcement. Merging with another program would mean losing this advantage, or needing to ask scores of authors to re-assign their copyright. This would be neither practical nor polite."
R (and gretl) are released under the _GPL_, for pity's sake - the very licence the FSF have devised to absorb such problems. There is no need or requirement to reassign copyright but the FSF continue to insist on this for contributions to their projects. Thus they could (however fanciful it may seem) close the project in the future or relicense under a scheme which would not be acceptable to the original authors.
Sorry for the rant. i take the other points on board.
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Re: PSPP brings an industry standard statistical tool to Linux
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 10.241.128.10] on October 17, 2008 05:33 PM"Many of these other programs have numerous authors, each holding copyright on their respective parts. By contrast, the copyright in PSPP is help by one entity (the Free Software Foundation), which makes for easier copyright tracking and enforcement. Merging with another program would mean losing this advantage, or needing to ask scores of authors to re-assign their copyright. This would be neither practical nor polite."
R (and gretl) are released under the _GPL_, for pity's sake - the very licence the FSF have devised to absorb such problems. There is no need or requirement to reassign copyright but the FSF continue to insist on this for contributions to their projects. Thus they could (however fanciful it may seem) close the project in the future or relicense under a scheme which would not be acceptable to the original authors.
Sorry for the rant. i take the other points on board.
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