Fabrizio is tired of people taking GPL'd (or other open source) code, using it for online ("Web 2.0") services, and giving nothing back. No cash. No code. No credit. Nothing.
So he has come up with the "HPL" - the Honest Public License. Keep in mind that the "honesty" dig is not at the GPL, but rather the way Fabrizio feels people are misusing it.
I've been on the "dishonest" side of this fence before. However, I've always been a fan of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and concur with his feelings in "Self Reliance": "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." So, with that peremptory about-face, I'm now on Fabrizio's side, as should have been evident from my complaint a few weeks ago about Yahoo! and Google (re their stinginess in giving back to the open source world that helped to make them).
I'd prefer, of course, that the Free Software Foundation would expedite GPLv3 (and maybe soften it in the way Fabrizio describes - I, too, prefer persuasion over force). But that may take some time, so I like the HPL as an interim stop-gap.
P.S. Fabrizio, this has nothing to do with your football club's problem with honesty, does it? A little compensation? ;-)
Posted by Matt Asay on August 14, 2006 12:51 PM
