From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Aug 17 18:52:52 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.129.65]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7621B37BACD for ; Thu, 17 Aug 2000 18:50:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.hiwaay.net (fly.HiWAAY.net [208.147.154.56]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CA43E6E418B for ; Thu, 17 Aug 2000 16:38:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nospam.hiwaay.net (tnt6-216-180-4-41.dialup.HiWAAY.net [216.180.4.41]) by mail.hiwaay.net (8.11.0/8.11.0) with ESMTP id e7HNb8W29141 for ; Thu, 17 Aug 2000 18:37:09 -0500 (CDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by nospam.hiwaay.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA84418 for ; Thu, 17 Aug 2000 18:19:41 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from dkelly@nospam.hiwaay.net) Message-Id: <200008172319.SAA84418@nospam.hiwaay.net> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.1.1 10/15/1999 To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG From: David Kelly Subject: Re: Sun's web site In-reply-to: Message from "Thomas M. Sommers" of "Thu, 17 Aug 2000 14:07:27 EDT." <399C29DF.D78B117@mail.ptd.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 18:19:41 -0500 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org "Thomas M. Sommers" writes: > Companies probably prefer BSD (meaning the license) to GPL when they are > using other people's code, but when they are opening their own code, the > might well prefer GPL. Managment is probably worried that if they use > BSD on their code, some other company might make a profit from it, which > would get management in trouble with their stockholders for essentially > giving away a valuable asset. If they use GPL however, then they are > guaranteed that they will be able to use whatever modifications the > other company is using to make its profit. Notice under GPL you do not give up the copyright on the software. You still own it and control it. Presumably even the mods others (anonymous contributors who don't go to lengths to claim their own copyright on the revisions) put into it. What I'm saying is the copyright holder is still free at a later date to jump back in with a non-GPL version including developments during its GPL phase. YMMV, depends on how good your lawyers and public relations people are. /usr/src/gnu/COPYING plainly states if you wish to use GPL'ed code in a non-GPL'ed product to contact the copyright holder and ask permission. Clearly the copyright holder is not bound by the terms of GPL. Has this not happened a number of times already with Linux-derived device drivers in FreeBSD? -- David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@hiwaay.net ===================================================================== The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message