I agree with you completely and since I try to stay (nor do I know everything about) the OpenACS/aD "thing" it might be time to consider erroring on the side of caution in looking on new ACS releases and it might be a good idea to make sure they were are following the GPL (which I have no doubt the about) and making sure while new contributions are looked. Those are where my comments where directed.
On there terms of licences, I generally don't look at software where the licences has been reviewed. GNU's web page usually gives a good overview of all the possible licences that are out there and points out where there are issues with it in (in their eyes).
With the increase in companies making their own "public licences" it
really becomes and issue. In the case of some companies, I can understand it (Netscape/Apple had previous issues that restricted them) while others appear to be self-serving copyright restrictions using the "Something"PL mindshare. I've seen (and heard) of a few projects running into problems with this and would hate to see this happen here (although I'm quite sure this is looked at by _current_ comtributers).
In terms of aD, I think OpenACS is firmly planted with a source base (in both 3.x and 4.x code) to continue moving forward, that depsite being treated as "scabs" if changes are needed, I don't see that as a concern.
