[fpc-pascal] GPL advertising - was Scripting in FPC

[L505]

>
> The GPL only requires that you keep the credits in the sources, not
> that you advertise other people's work or products inside your own
> program, even if your program somehow uses that functionality.
> Imagine otherwise the credits list required for programs like the
> GIMP or so if each used library would have to be mentioned along with
> a link to some home page. You'd spend more time on maintaining that
> list than on actually adding new functionality.
>


In all my source files I at least like to give a web address so people can find out
where to find more information, such as essays, articles etc. I've written about the
source. If my website just so happens to contain some commercial product on it then
that is too bad, I was just trying to leave my web site address in the source files
so people could find more info about the unit. In fact a web address is usually more
reliable than an email address since email addresses go dead or change and the user
must visit the site to get the new email address. It also tracks how many users are
actually using the unit and you can focus attention on the units that more people are
using. What I don't agree with is having to say "this software was made in
California" when in fact it was not. I think that was purely a local issue with BSD
and they then changed it later,  because their license was no longer created only by
users in California, but spread worldwide. Maybe they just didn't expect the license
to make it out of California and thought it would be a local license in the
university.

I think in remobjects case all he was doing was pointing people to the website just
like how I point people to my website. There are articles on remobjects on how to use
the software, and useful info. No problem with giving web address according to human
instinct, but problem with giving it according to GPL. Hey look at me, we are wasting
all this time discussing whether it is "right" or not, this is the same problem as
wasting time deciding whether we should put the list of web addresses in or not. I
guess we are back at square one:
 * in gpl people waste time debating the license
 * in freebsd people waste time maintaining a list of URL's pointing to useful
websites

I guess you choose which one is more a waste of time. Personally I think wasting time
discussing a license is in fact more waste of time than just programming and adding
some URL's to the file. Spam me? Sure if it is related to the software. I love
targeted spam in source files.
As Michael says this is just a discussion though so don't take my comments too
negatively :-) It's all in good nature.