From owner-freebsd-advocacy Sat Mar 13 16:22:44 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from obie.softweyr.com (unknown [204.68.178.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0B17814F43 for ; Sat, 13 Mar 1999 16:22:34 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from softweyr.com (wes@zaphod.softweyr.com [204.68.178.35]) by obie.softweyr.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA07907; Sat, 13 Mar 1999 17:22:06 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Message-ID: <36EB012E.B78B91E1@softweyr.com> Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999 17:22:06 -0700 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr llc X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 3.1-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Stefanos Kiakas Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: GPLvsBSD madness References: <199903132205.RAA13733@dns1.e-scape.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Stefanos Kiakas wrote: > > I've been reading the messages posted here about GPL and BSD > licensing issues and I have only one thing to say: Get over it! > > Whether you write one paper or a thousand papers on the subject > it will not make a difference to the average user whether they should > use FreeBSD or Linux. Most people do not care, nor will they care any > differently after reading your paper, unless they are in the minority > of people with specific needs. This small minority will make a decision > which will compliment their goals. > > Both the GPL and BSD licenses are tools and will be used as > required. Both are tools, but neither are "used as required." Most developers who release code under any license don't understand the ramifications of the license, and generally don't spend much time thinking about the license, they make an emotional decision based on their perceptions of projects like FreeBSD, Linux, and Apache. A widely disseminated, well-written article that discusses the relative merits and weaknesses of each would a great service to developers everywhere. A good starting point would the article about why you SHOULD consider using the LGPL for your next library in the current issue of Linux Gazette. Interestingly enough, the writer of that article works for a healthcare consortium that releases their code under a Berkeley license. He raises the "advertising" issue that Terry deflected so well. I've NEVER in a nearly 20-year UNIX career seen an advertisement that mentioned "the Regents of the University of California at Berkeley," and have wondered several times what all the hullabaloo is about. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message