🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ZOO.92Jan31152727@lynx.spa.umn.edu> zoo@aps1.spa.umn.edu (david d 'zoo' zuhn) writes:
>
>   How could I imprison non-GPL public domain software?
>
>   The GPL doesn't give any freedom to software which it wouldn't have
>   anyway if it were in the public domain.
>
>Yes it does.  I can take something that is PD, modify it, and
>copyright and restrict redistribution of my product.  

The next question is can you take something which is in the Public
domain, modify it and then GPL it in such a way that it can no longer
be incorporated into proprietary code?

Personally, I think that we need something that combines features of
the GPL, proprietary source code licenses and public domain
software(I don't know if anyone has used this name before, but we'll
call it copymid, halfway between copyright and copyleft).

It might go something like this:

This program is copyright 19xx of XXX non-profit corporation.
Any changes or extensions you make to this program become the 
property of XXX. You may freely distribute this program and it 
source as long as you provide the XXX non-profit corp a copy of 
your changes and make these changes available to your users. 
If you wish to restrict access to changes which you have made,
(through applying either trade secret or copyright law)
you must pay the XXX corporation a fee equivalent to what it would
cost to purchase a source license of equivalent and competitive
commercial proprietary programs.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I think it would be wise to place some specfic restrictions on what the 
XXX non-profit corporation could do with these funds. These might include 
grants and awards given to the producers of software which comes under the 
copymid license (chosen by some kind of board, which might include 
past awardees). This would be equivalent to increasing the number of 
people who have the same benefits RMS has enjoyed from the MacAuthur
Foundation.  I personally think it would be a _wonderful_ thing if we
could _dramatically_ increase the number of people working on programs
with freely redistibutable source code(whether this source code was 
PD or GPL or copymid). 

Some of the funds might be allocated for some unrelated
charitable purpose like supporting development of technologies 
appropriate for third world development or educational technologies which
would improve the retraining of people whose skills have been make obsolete
by technical progress.  The important thing is that the 
money not be distributed in direct relation to the royalty
income to the XXX corporation from each piece of software or that 
people be lead to think deserved compensation when the funds allocation
process didn't award them funds.

I'm a little unclear how the tax code concerning non-profits would 
relate to royalty funds from freely distributable software.
Still, my guess is this can be worked with.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
>If the original
>source were GPL'd, I couldn't do that.  The source code of GPL'd
>programs is free, as is any program derived from the GPL'd source
>code.  It gives the source a lifetime of freedom, rather than freedom
>in the current version only.
>

It also can produce needless duplication of effort if there is a 
market demand for commericial proprietary programs. One major point
of freeing software is to elmininate duplications of effort. If after, a
free product is produced and it mature, there still exist proprietary
versions of the same program, this indicates there may be some problem
with the licensing conditions of the free product(or in its basic design),
or an absence of good mechanisms for funding development of free software.