On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 1:49 PM, Rogelio Serrano <[email protected]> wrote: > i think we already see that in the bsd's when companies get bsd code > and dont give anything back.
You mean the operating systems? I think if they used GPL, then companies would just use something else instead. Maybe something proprietary, but probably Linux. To me this is a bit like the piracy arguments; they are not really stealing anything, whether they use the software and don't contribute, or don't use the software at all; the project is not affected negatively. And that's assuming that's true, which I don't think it's the case; companies do contribute--sure, not as much as if they were legally obliged to, but some, which is better than nothing. I believe if Linux was BSD licensed, companies would still contribute, because there are advantages to it: * Less maintenance costs * Free help from developer rock stars * Free widespread testing * Developers learn from the community * Etc. And in fact, these are exactly the arguments developers inside companies use (I've seen it in Nokia) to convince managers to contribute upstream, and it's the same arguments I've seen in embedded conferences to make companies better community members. Remember that for embedded Linux, many companies write proprietary drivers, and some others make thousands of changes, and just publish a huge patch which is useless for upstream. Even Android which has proper commits is difficult to merge upstream. And this is GPL. The problem is not the license, the problem is the attitude regarding open source, the community, and upstream. And that comes from within; the developers. > when you think that most significant software development will be the > reserve of closed proprietary companies then this is a problem. Licenses won't change that. I wish some software I love was BSD licensed, because I could convince my employee to ship it on products. And I would convince my managers that contributing back makes sense, when I get some free time... Cheers. -- Felipe Contreras _______________________________________________ busybox mailing list [email protected] http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox
