Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 15:23:26 -0600 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: OSS, Sun, GPL, random ramblings Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20000821152013.05bb1e00@localhost> In-Reply-To: <20000821140419.B13975@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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At 07:04 AM 8/21/2000, j mckitrick wrote: >i've been reading and thinking lately (uh oh :) > >Once there are OSS versions of software available, >is it likely these will grow to dominate, and squash innovation? Sun is >releasing OSS applications like staroffice and others. what will be the >motivation to write a competing one from scratch? There is very little. It feels like (and is!) nothing but drudgery to reinvent the wheel from scratch when there's perfectly acceptable code out there already. This is why the KIND of freely available software out there makes a difference. If it's GPLed, one must spend endless hours recoding what's already been done if one hopes to be rewarded for one's efforts. If it's truly free open source software (that is, licensed under a programmer-friendly license such as the BSD license), reimplementation is unnecessary. One can be compensated for the incremental value one adds to the freely available code. That's why the GPL kills innovation and BSD-like licenses do not. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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