"Sun today announced that Java Platform, Standard Edition 5 is now available for redistribution by GNU/Linux and OpenSolaris operating system distributors under the new Operating System Distributor's License for Java (also known as the 'Distro License for Java' or DLJ). Developed in consultation with, and for use by, the various GNU/Linux communities, the new license allows distributors to ship Sun's Java SE 5.0 Java Development Kit and Java Runtime Environment as installable packages for their operating systems." At the same time, Sun also promised to open-source Java.
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Member since:2006-04-21
Member since:2005-07-06
Because the GPL is, afaik, the only one which *requires* you to make your changes available. AFAIK all the others are more relaxed on this point.
It isn't the *only* one. LGPL, CDDL, MPL, etc. Unless you mean *all* changes, even ones that some might consider "derivative works."
If you mean *all* changes, there are many licenses that have the same basic requirements of the GPL for modifications:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/rpl.php
or the QPL used by Qt:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/qtpl.php
the nethack license:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/nethack.php
the Jabber Open Source license:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/jabberpl.php
I could list more, but the point is that there are a lot of licenses that require *all* changes to be made available under the original license. The GPL just happens to be the best known.
Member since:
2005-07-06
I didn't say it would prevent forking, any more than DRM will prevent illegal copying.
Actually, you did:
Secondly, what is clear is that choosing the GPL is the best way to prevent forks.
At the very least you implied that it would "prevent forks."
I already addressed this in my post. Distros are *collections* of OSS, and as such they can differ in their choice of what goes into the collection. Yes, I know many distros do submit patches to GPL'ed programs and such (Gentoo and SuSE being two of them which I use), but since they must be open-sourced, they can't be "taken away" from the community in the way that, say, you can take FreeBSD, make changes to support your proprietary architecture, and keep the changes to yourself, such that (say) only your GUI can run on top of your architecture. Anyone who does so is in violation of the GPL.
So then, wouldn't *any* open source license with roughly the same terms as the GPL be just as good at "preventing forking" as you said earlier? Why the GPL? What makes it better than other OSI approved licenses with similar terms?