On Sat, Jul 14, 2007 at 02:38:14PM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
quoted text
> I'm familiar with apsfilter and actually just got it to work with this
> printer on my debian box with debian's stock gs-gpl.
> 
> Part of my reason for asking on OBSD is that I'm exploring the larger
> issue of licensing.  I know that OBSD folk tend to prefer stuff with a
> BSD license rather than that GPL.

Only because they're in the business of making and distributing free
operating systems. GPL software makes it difficult to distribute compiled
binaries (because you must comply with GPL constraints on source
distribution), and in turn restricts people who are making and distributing
products derived from OpenBSD. BSD takes a very "free" definition of "free",
which includes "you are free to take this stuff and turn it into a product,
sell it, and not give your customers the source code". For example,
Microsoft took the Windows TCP/IP stack from BSD - they couldn't have used
the Linux one. So, the BSD licence is much more generous than GPL.

However, if you are an end-user, and don't intend packaging or selling your
own product which includes this functionality, then using GPL'd software is
fine. In some ways it's better for you, because if you got a binary
distribution and the original "vendor" goes bust, you should still have the
source and be able to maintain it yourself.

I agree that the apsfilter licence(*) is extremely unclear. However, it is
published on the Internet for anyone to download. Do you believe the author
would take you to court for not sending a postcard? Pragmatically, if the
software does want you want, I suggest you could take that (minimal) risk.

Or, just send the guy a postcard. He obviously likes them.

Regards,

Brian.

(*) http://www.apsfilter.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/src/apsfilter/LICENSE?rev=1.5.2.3&content-...