alt Hacker NewsThat indeed seems to rule out most open source licenses actually; one or another restriction, like including the license or not modify the license, will be in conflict. I’m pretty sure this sloppiness in phrasing is on purpose.
That indeed seems to rule out most open source licenses actually; one or another restriction, like including the license or not modify the license, will be in conflict. I’m pretty sure this sloppiness in phrasing is on purpose.
that's a very cynic take. it's the same as the tiring old argument that the GPL is not free, because true freedom should allow you to do whatever you want. but that's not true freedom, that's anarchy.
if you take the argument to the extreme then only public domain code would be exempt. clearly the lawmakers are aware of open source and free software licenses and would not make a stupid blunder to only allow public domain operating systems which nobody is using, if they even exist.
the license can't be modified anyways, that's a feature of copyright. a license may allow combination with code that has a different license, but the original code is still under the original license. so if i build a program that includes MIT or BSD code and GPL code, then the combined result is under the GPL, but the original MIT code is still MIT or BSD. both licenses require that the license notice may not be removed. i can rip out the GPL code and distribute the rest under MIT again. if it was possible to actually modify the license then i could not do that.