Comment Copyrights, Licenses and Patents (Score 2, Insightful) 521
Rather than debate over the types of licences developers are allowed to choose for the software they write, we should instead look at whether it is OK to prevent developers from writing software.
As currently set up I can apply for a license [read Patent] that prevents others from using an idea. This is a much more fundamental issue that the debate over what rights a developer is willing to grant users in a software license. After all, there is nothing to prevent other software developers from producing a competing product providing we solve the patent issue.
At that point, if you do not like the fact that Eric releases some software with a proprietary license, anyone is free to create a competitive product and GPL it. Then the users can decide. Right now, with patents, creating a compatible clone can be impossible.
