From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 14:24:51 +0800
To: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
Subject: Re: propose: `cypherpunks license' (Re: Wanted: Twofish source code)
In-Reply-To: <199810080430.AAA01120@snark.thyrsus.com>
Message-ID: <199810080556.BAA02511@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




"Eric S. Raymond" writes:
> With respect, Perry, I think you may actually have confused *three*
> different agendas.  RMS's advocacy of the GPL should not be taken to 
> represent the entire open-source community, and GPL is not the only
> license conforming to the Open Source Definition.  

As a NetBSD developer, I'm quite familiar with other available
licenses, and in fact BSD license most of my source code because I
don't particularly mind if people use my code commercially -- I see
open source as a personal choice, and *my* source will remain open
regardless of whether or not others writing against my libraries keep
their source open.

I suppose my comments were a slight simplification of the situation,
but only slight. The open source community's goals and those of the
cypherpunk community, although not diametrically opposed, are not
identical, and it is important to keep that in mind when discussing
this matter. See below.

> Accordingly, I urge you not to encourage an artificial split between 
> the cypherpunks and the open-source community.  Your licensing argument
> is not with the open-source community as a whole, it is very
> specifically with the partisans of the GPL.

Understood -- my point was more that, to an open source person, GPL
and BSD licenses are both compatible with their goals, whereas to a
cyhpherpunk, the GPL is not compatible with their goals (or at least,
not always compatible with them.) This is because their goals are not
identical to those of an open source developer (although, once again,
they are not necessarily conflicting, either -- just different, which
leads to some open source licenses being inappropriate).

BTW, on the question of RMS's argument about whether the name "open
source" is appropriate, I think Shakespeare said it better than I can.

	JULIET	'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
		Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
		What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
		Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
		Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
		What's in a name? that which we call a rose
		By any other name would smell as sweet;
		So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
		Retain that dear perfection which he owes
		Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
		And for that name which is no part of thee
		Take all myself.

Perry