On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 10:22:24AM -0700, Roy Tennant wrote:

> What I'm finding too restrictive is the religious nature of the 
> license. That is, it isn't enough that this specific application be 
> open source, it must force every other application with which it comes 
> into contact be open source as well. Frankly, I'd prefer that we create 
> software that enables a lot of great things to happen, of all different 
> stripes. But then, I've never been very religious so maybe it's just me.

Ignorance is bliss.  I've never been 100% clear on that requirement.  The GPL says "work 
based on the Program" which I find vague.  If you have a proprietary program but you want to 
provide a search engine for your included HTML documentation does that mean everything in 
that package has to be open source?  Seem like a big gray area.

To compare, search engines similar to swish-e are htdig and mnoGoSearch and both are GPL.

I have two desires: If someone is using swish-e then I think it should be easy to find out
that fact.  Doesn't mean there needs to be a logo showing Swish-e, but in the docs or README
or someplace not too hard to find.

Second, I do want to promote Open Source.  But in a reasonable way.  

I'm not religious either and I've seen RMS at a few conferences and talks and I'm happy for
what he has done, but he's a bit extreme for my tastes.

> > How much money is left in the Swish-e.com legal budget, Roy?
> 
> We have just as much left in that budget as we began with, you crazy nut...<grin> Roy

Oh, then who paid for that trip to Hawaii?  Anyway, that's good so we can continue to pursue
our license infringement suits.

-- 
Bill Moseley moseley@hank.org