Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2001 15:11:16 -0700 From: David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com> To: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: BSD, .Net comments - any reponse to this reasoning? Message-ID: <3B40F184.E5284347@acuson.com> References: <20010630174743.A85268@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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j mckitrick wrote: > It seems the GPL became relevant more than ever with the advent of an > everyman's Unix in the face of a dominant, evil software empire. A radical > solution for an overwhelming problem. It is being contended that the BSD > license is too altruistic, ignoring market motivations and expecting the > best when we have seen that most companies do not operate that way. GPL: "Software should not be owned" Reality: "It is legally impractical, if not impossible, not to own software." BSD: "Here's the next best thing" Speaking of "market motivations", you are forgetting that every economic transaction has at least two participants acting of their own free will. Do not discount the motivations of the guy putting his software under the BSD license. It is every bit as economically valid and rational as those guys using the GPL, or EULA. If I were running a software company under intense competition from my rivals, and desired to go open source, I might choose the GPL. But I would not be so foolish or dishonest as to consider it "giving" or even "sharing" the software. It would be more like loaning the software with every expectation of receiving interest on it. So what is the BSD license good for, if it isn't good at being a stick to whack your competitors over the head with? It makes a great license for standard reference works. It's great for guys who just want to share their code. It's ideal for hobbyists, academics and anyone else not in commercial software development. The BSD license has every one of the benefits of Open Source, with next to none of the drawbacks. David To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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