Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 17:30:48 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eugene M. Kim" <gene@nttlabs.com> To: FreeBSD Chat Mailing List <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Subject: Re: GPL kills KDE distribution Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9810081713020.24707-100000@seera.nttlabs.com> In-Reply-To: <4.1.19981008173746.0429fc30@mail.lariat.org>
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I strongly second his opinion; one reason FreeBSD had been selected for the company project I work on was that FreeBSD does not have such restrictive licensing terms. GPL-protected platfomrs were not suitable, because they would demand the product to be ``wide open'' (pronounced ``vulnerable to other companies' reverse engineering''). A Berkeley-style license recommends the software be shared. The GPL urges the software be shared. I like the first idea, which doesn't so choke my throat that I would starve to death. :-) (Hmm... Another catch-phrase? ``FreeBSD: the corporate-friendly operating system'' Well never mind *^^*) Eugene On Thu, 8 Oct 1998, Brett Glass wrote: | Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 17:40:54 -0600 | From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> | To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG, chat@FreeBSD.ORG | Subject: Re: GPL kills KDE distribution | | Well, I can't help thinking that if the KDE people had used a Berkeley-esque | license, they'd be fine. | | Maybe we should recommend this. | | Incidentally, the GPL has a chilling effect on the development of drivers | for hardware for the same reason it runs into problems with KDE. Suppose | a hardware vendor is willing to supply a driver in object code form, but | doesn't want to open the source because it reveals hardware trade | secrets or gives it an "edge" over other companies using similar | chips. The Berkeley license doesn't preclude linking in someone's closed | source driver; the GPL does. We have an edge here that perhaps we should | be exploiting. | | --Brett | | At 03:46 PM 10/8/98 -0700, Sean Eric Fagan wrote: | | >In article <199810082114.OAA00692.kithrup.freebsd.chat@dingo.cdrom.com> you | >write: | >>Chalk one up to the GPL really screwing things up. 8( | > | >No, chalk it up to people using non-free licensing terms (e.g., Qt's license) | >and other people insisting that onl non-GPL licenses are truly free. | > | >You get what you deserve: you want software to be able to be non-free, you | >end up with software that is non-free. | > | | To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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