Re: [gentoo-dev] license?

[Daniel Robbins <drobbins@gentoo.org>]

On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 11:00:12AM -0700, Matt.Wilkie wrote:
> Hi Daniel,
> 
> Just ran into Gentoo because of your Developer Works article.
> Nice clean site and I like the idea of Ports on linux. I don't
> have personal experience with BSD but a friend who hosts 
> websites raves about it, specifically because of the ports 
> approach.
> 
> Anyway, I like what I see so far but couldn't find a any 
> reference to what license model you work under on your website.

I need to make this more clear as well as add a FAQ entry to answer this
question.  All of our work is released under the GPL by default.  

However, Gentoo Linux proper contains a number of packages with non-GPL
licences.  But anything *we* do is GPL-based.  

The only exceptions to this rule are special projects for paying clients, in
which case we work out an arrangement that is acceptable for both parties.  In
these situations, we generally recommend that a good portion of the project (as
much as possible) is released under the GPL and incorporated into our public
CVS tree, and any proprietary parts are stored on a company's internal cvs
server.  

This helps both the free software community and our partners.  First, our
public CVS tree benefits from new improvements.  Second, the company benefits
from public maintenance and testing of their extensions to Gentoo Linux.  And
third, even though part of the project remains proprietary, at least the
company is using free software as a base for its project rather than some
proprietary OS.  This is at least a partial win for free software, and I'd
rather have a partial win than no win at all.

That being said, we really do prefer the GPL and think that this license offers
the greatest benefit to the community _as well as_ commercial enterprise.
Otherwise we wouldn't be using it ourselves.

Best Regards, 

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
President/CEO					http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.