Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 21:39:51 +0200 (EET) From: Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee> To: "Thomas M. Sommers" <tms2@mail.ptd.net> Cc: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Sun's web site Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.1000817212738.68978J-100000@haldjas.folklore.ee> In-Reply-To: <399C29DF.D78B117@mail.ptd.net>
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On Thu, 17 Aug 2000, Thomas M. Sommers wrote: > Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > > > Take a look at www.sun.com today. The biggest thing on it is the GNOME > > footprint. > > > ... > > (3) It is yet another counterexample of corporates disliking GPL > > software. > > 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. > Huh! Gnome is not Sun's code, and Sun is not opening it up. Relevant to the discussion might be staroffice - see www.openoffice.org It is dual-licenced under SISL and GPL/LGPL. In the case it's a library like thingy, it's LGPL. As Sun is going to have (just like FSF) of all contributions be assigned to themselves, so supposedly all will be available under SISL is a funny licence that is part BSD, part SCSL and part GPL. It allows you to make (and sell) binary only version, with the gotcha being that if you do distribute source, you: * have to distribute it under the same licence, no additional strings * you have to follow all the standards, or * document your deviations and make reference code to these available If sun is any sign, companies actually like finetuned licences that do just what they want them to. All opinions strictly my own. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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