Richard Stallman can suck my ass! I don't like the GPL. Why? I don't like the fact that it will make my code GPL'd if I incorporate some GPL'd bits into it. I have been working on an app to do some encryption, and I had thought that rather than start from scratch I could 'port' some Java objects that do what I want to Objective-C/Cocoa, which is really easy to do. But the Java source is GPL'd, which would be no big deal for a little freeware app, I have no problem releasing my changes and the source to the freeware app. What bugs me is that I have thought up some really nifty uses for the crypto code that could come in handy in some commercial apps I have in mind, but if I use that code in those apps it would make all the rest of the code GPL'd. Who the fuck is going to by my app when they can just download the source and build it for free? So now, for the commercial use I have in mind, I will have to implement the algorithms from scratch (which isn't all bad, really, as the Java implementation isn't the most efficient). The really silly thing is that my 'home grown' version is going to be something I can see other people wanting to use, so I will release it as Open Source, but under a BSD style license that will allow anyone to do what they will with it, including keep it to themselves. I find it really stupid that a small bit of code can essentially poison the rest of an applications code base with it's license.
Posted at 22:55 # G