Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:46:13 +0100 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: FreeBSD-Questions@freebsd.org Cc: David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net>, prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com> Subject: Re: bsd vs gpl Message-ID: <20090311154613.0a90e64b.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20090311140247.GE86605@Grumpy.DynDNS.org> References: <20090311012018.2075c3d9@gom.home> <20090311140247.GE86605@Grumpy.DynDNS.org>
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On Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:02:47 -0500, David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net> wrote: > The source code is always free under BSD, contrary to what GPL > proponents claim. Terms like "enslavement of code" come into mind, "BSD thieves" and others... But this isn't only the case with BSDL. The MIT uses a similar license for X, as far as I know, and Apache does it as well. > Just that under BSD you are free to keep ownership of > your own work. The BSDL doesn't change anything related to copyright (which is on the side of the coders). > GPL states that if you make changes those changes must be made available > under the same terms as the original source code. Yet somehow darlings > of the GPL world such as Red Hat, MySQL, and others, skirt around that > onerous requirement. That's why the GPL is often called a "viral license". As far as I know, not only using GPL code, also linking against a GPL library would require to put the initial work under GPL. I'd like to make an addition: The freedom of the BSDL intentionally allows to close sources. This can be considered theft, if one would like to use this interpretation. When taking some BSDL code, there's no need to contribute anything back. One argument could be that the money or hardware given to the FreeBSD developers is "abused" by those who "silently" take advantage of their work. But finally, it's always the developer who decides what to do with his own work. If he intends to allow others to make money from his code without giving anything back, it's his choice to do so. If a supporter doesn't like this decision, he should think about his support. Closing code doesn't make the code disappear which it is based upon, so code doesn't get "unfree". I know, this can lead into an endless discussion. It has already taken place on other platforms, such as here: http://www.osnews.com/comments/20740 Forgive me my comment. :-) -- Polytropon >From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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