Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 09:47:14 EDT From: TM4525@aol.com To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL vs BSD Licence Message-ID: <1dd.2f054a5f.2eae5de2@aol.com>
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In a message dated 10/25/04 4:21:53 AM Eastern Daylight Time, amf@hobbit.neveragain.de writes: > > But equally important is the ability to join back forks, when/if some > > group finds the right solution to a problem. And that's where the > > GPL comes in: you can really think of the whole license as nothing > > more than a requirement to be able to re-join a forked project from > > either side. > > i don't really get what the gpl or bsd license has to do with rejoining > forks. why shouldn't bsd licensed projects be able to refork in case... Because Juniper, for example, are perfectly free to decide against making their changes to the (in this case) FreeBSD code available anyone at all. For them, that may be a positive thing, because they don't have to open their work for the competition. But this is exactly what the GPL is aiming to avoid. ------------------------------- The lack of foresight of the GPL is that, if Jupiter had no choice but to give away their work, then the work never would have been done, so even people willing to pay for it wouldn't have it. The GPL vs BSD issue is like liberal vs conservative. The liberal plaform sounds good and reasonable to those who don't understand the bigger picture. GPL is good if you're a programmer or hacker. But the companies that never put their corporate dollars into projects, because they can't make a profit from them, hurts the community in a different way. Products that would be available for sale aren't made available. People who can't spin their own don't get things that they need (which is why most companies use MS stuff). Most companies don't want source, they want stuff that works. FreeBSD is a perfect example of a thriving project with BSD licensing. Is FreeBSD a "dead end"? Is the community worse off because companies like Cayote Point and Emerging Technologies don't give the source to their products? No, because those products never would have been created if they were hindered by the GPL.
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