Organisation for enforcement of GPL3 licensing

jyqvklioo at googlemail.com jyqvklioo at googlemail.com
Thu Sep 17 22:47:43 UTC 2009


Thank you for writing a list of other parties which might be suitable, as I had 
solicited in my first post.

The FSF I had already looked into.  It looks like they only accept projects as 
part of GNU.  This project does not fit in, but some other GNU projects also 
seem to me not to be a typical part of a unix. Being part of GNU is unacceptable 
and undesirable for a few reasons:

 - (simplified) FSF insists on a disclaimer from the employer or school of the 
contributor.
"we also need a signed disclaimer from your employer or school. This disclaimer 
should be signed by a vice president or general manager of the company."
This, to me and I think many others, is an unacceptable impediment to 
contribution. Think Lucid/Xemacs fork.

 - FSF insists on either assignment of copyright or disclaimer of interest. 1 is 
sometimes impossible.  Both are undesirable.

 - I would rather not be confined to their system and coding Standards.  You can 
read my recent plea for an adjustment of 1 standard on the Emacs-devel mailing 
list recently.  I expect that if one tries to improve other GNU standards they 
would usually or always not be altered and responses will include some version 
of, "We won't change it because that is how we do it and we do it that way 
because that is how we do it." What I know of Debian Policy however is less 
intrusive and fine.


SFLC has the Software Freedom Conservancy, which looked like a good match in 
principle though they sound a bit picky about projects they participate with, so 
I wrote them on September 16th.  I have not yet received a reply.


gpl-violations.org has not done this sort of thing, but it looks consistent with 
their goals, so maybe they will be interested in this new variation. Thank you 
for this idea I had not come upon.  I was acquainted with them but falsely 
presumed that they & SFLC were 1.



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