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On Mon, Jan 29, 2007 at 10:24:00AM +0000, Neil Williams wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:08:09 +0000
> james kilty <james@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 09:27 +0000, Neil Williams wrote:
> > > Such people view the GPL as
> > > *very* constrictive because they want to make free software
> > > proprietary
> > > - not caring that this makes it even more constricted.
>
> > You mean they want to take something which is a free gift, repackage
> > it and sell it with very little work on their part - parasitical.
>
> Exactly - this, IMHO, is the problem with code licenced under the BSD
> licence - it encourages the parasitic whilst impairing
> interoperability. Proprietary developers can simply tweak a few
> critical lines to change it to their interpretations and assumptions
> and release it under a EULA or even non-disclosure agreement. The
> changes are not published so those who use the original BSD code do not
> get the same results from the proprietary version of the same original
> code!
The OpenBSD project, at least, uses a BSD-type licence for this very
reason - they'd prefer that proprietary software used their code (which
is designed with an emphasis on security) rather than writing their own,
probably buggier, implementation of whatever.
If the proprietary developers had no choice but to use the OpenBSD code,
then the GPL would be useful - they'd be forced to release their code
under the GPL. As it is, the OpenBSD devs care more about everyone using
secure code (assuming the code *is* secure, of course) than about
everyone writing free software.
I think both licences have their merits; just use the most appropriate
one for any situation. At least BSD licences don't take much
understanding, whereas the GPL does.
bma
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