Re: [groff] Is it a problem if my TMAC is licensed under 4-clause BSD but relies on Groff?

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Stephanie,

Stephanie Bjoerk wrote on Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 02:15:31AM +0700:

> My TMAC relies on Groff (mostly the features, but it also works on
> Heirloom), which is licensed under GPL.  Will it wreak havoc if I
> license the TMAC under 4-clause BSD?

In choosing a license, the best way to avoid unnecessary license
incompatibility problems is to choose a license that both matches
your intentions and is as widespread as possible.  There is no
value in microoptimization of licenses; having many different ones
around is not helpful and may cause non-obvious inconvenience later.

Nobody uses 4-clause BSD nowadays.  It is a purely historical license
that was abandoned even by those who did use it a very long time ago.
Putting new code under 4-clause BSD today makes no sense whatsoever,
even if it would not cause immediate unsurmountable problems.

If you want Copyleft, use GPLv2.  If you want Copyleft plus nasty
added Patent Law traps, use GPLv3.  If you want BSD-style (=
unconditionally free) licensing, use a modern version of the BSD
license, preferably the ISC license because it has a very simple
and clear wording.  Example wordings:

  https://opensource.org/licenses/ISC
  
https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/share/misc/license.template?rev=HEAD

There is no value in looking further than that.  You would just
make matters more complicated than they need to be.

Yours,
  Ingo