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> If I ever had to defend my intellectual property, I could do so myself, and the case would be over quick. That is more important to me, as a developer without

> If I ever had to defend my intellectual property, I could do so myself, and the case would be over quick. That is more important to me, as a developer without access to lawyers, than ideological battles. The case would be over quickly, but you may not be happy with the result. If you are not well-trained in copyright law (specifically as it applies to software), you are not going to be able to enforce the BSD license any better than you will be able to enforce the GPL, without a lawyer. There are just so many other ways that a well-funded legal team can give you the run-around.

nzp 13y ago
The whole point of BSD-style licenses is that there is hardly anything to enforce at all. With such a license you are simply stating that you allow the receiver to do whatever they want with it. This statement is just necessary because by default under the copyright law no rights (with some exceptions such as fair use etc., it depends on jurisdiction) are granted to entities receiving the work.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  Well, yes, obviously it's "easier" to litigate when you give yourself less legal standing to file suit, but that's a rather meaningless comparison. By that logic CC0, is the easiest to litigate, because you've given up all your rights as the license holder. That only makes sense if you place literally zero value on the rights that the license provides. It's only relevant to compare how easily enforceable two licenses are when the rights they provide are comparable (e.g., GPL and MPL, or 3-clause BSD and MIT). The whole point of choosing the GPL over BSD/MIT is choosing a copyleft license. If all you care about is ensuring that the recipient is legally granted the rights provided by the BSD/MIT license, then the question of how "easy" it is for the license holder to litigate isn't relevant. OP's argument was that it would be too much mental effort to enforce the GPL, though that's not really an argument for not choosing the GPL, because simply holding the license doesn't mean he has to enforce it. If OP actually doesn't want the copyleft provisions, then obviously he shouldn't choose the GPL. But if that's something that he does care about, there's not really any downside to selecting the GPL, and no upside to selecting a non-copyleft license.

nzp 13y ago

The whole point of BSD-style licenses is that there is hardly anything to enforce at all. With such a license you are simply stating that you allow the receiver to do whatever they want with it. This statement is just necessary because by default under the copyright law no rights (with some exceptions such as fair use etc., it depends on jurisdiction) are granted to entities receiving the work.

chimeracoder 13y ago
Well, yes, obviously it's "easier" to litigate when you give yourself less legal standing to file suit, but that's a rather meaningless comparison. By that logic CC0, is the easiest to litigate, because you've given up all your rights as the license holder. That only makes sense if you place literally zero value on the rights that the license provides. It's only relevant to compare how easily enforceable two licenses are when the rights they provide are comparable (e.g., GPL and MPL, or 3-clause BSD and MIT). The whole point of choosing the GPL over BSD/MIT is choosing a copyleft license. If all you care about is ensuring that the recipient is legally granted the rights provided by the BSD/MIT license, then the question of how "easy" it is for the license holder to litigate isn't relevant. OP's argument was that it would be too much mental effort to enforce the GPL, though that's not really an argument for not choosing the GPL, because simply holding the license doesn't mean he has to enforce it. If OP actually doesn't want the copyleft provisions, then obviously he shouldn't choose the GPL. But if that's something that he does care about, there's not really any downside to selecting the GPL, and no upside to selecting a non-copyleft license.