On Thu, 2 Oct 2008 10:10:22 -0500, "Dan Armbrust" <daniel.armbrust.list at gmail.com> said: > The Apache license gives you (the user) much more freedom than > anything GPL related, end of story. The tradeoff, of course, is less > control over the software by the developer. It is true that licenses such as the Apache and BSD licenses do impose less obligation on the developer. As to whether they are more free, I would disagree because in the GPL there is no restriction on how you can use the software and it ensures that those restrictions aren't added in as the software gets redistributed. > One really could make the argument that his views are very similar to > DRM, which I imagine most of us agree are bad. You can use these 1's > and 0's, but only if you do so in exactly the way that I tell you you > can.... While I do see the similarity you state, copyleft and DRM have no equivalency. DRM's purpose is restricting the user's ability to use software. Copyleft implies no such restriction.