[odc-discuss] input/output Licensing

Fri Nov 6 14:19:24 UTC 2009

Jordan,

Jordan S Hatcher wrote:
> The core point though is it sounds like the question you're asking is 
> around how to license your data, and the software is irrelevant. If 
> that's so, I'd encourage you to think about the following two questions:

As I understood Marco, it is not *his* data - he has written a program 
and now he wants to make sure that if a third party uses his program, 
this causes the third party to have to license *their* data in a certain 
way.

My hunch is that this would only work through something like an EULA, 
i.e. where Marco has users of his software sign a contract saying that 
they will only use the software for certain purposes (and only if the 
moon is shining and while they're on a boat wearing pyjamas etc., pardon 
if I digress).

Since EULAs and GPL are likely mutually exclusive, I think he can 
*either* have GPLed software *or* require the users of the software to 
do his bidding but not both. But it would perhaps not be impossible to 
draft a variant of the GPL (which would be GPL incompatible in both 
directions) that does this.

(Personally, I think that a software that makes such drastic demands of 
its users can hardly be called "free" any more - in terms of liberty, it 
would be worse than most commercial offerings.)

Bye
Frederik