> Busybox is not going to change the license. (This is in fact not possible - > anyone who ever contributed to GPLv2 licensed code has a right > to demand that all future changes must be under GPLv2 too). > > But, we are not going to be deaf - we are listening to other peoples' > opinions and we might consider some changes to our license enforcement > process. It would be arrogant to think that we always do everything > in the best way possible.
Busybox provides executables, so it's a fairly independent piece of code. I don't think the GPL is preventing busybox from being used, at all: busybox was made to be used as is, it doesn't need to be linked against other stuff, and it's not a basis for derivative works. Every company I've worked for was OK to use busybox, despite *all* of them being totally paranoid about their IP and impervious to the idea of sharing a single line of their proprietary code. It doesn't cost anything to give a link to the unchanged busybox source, and it doesn't challenge their sacrosaint IP. GPL is basically a perfect license for a tool such as busybox. However, busybox is in a rather privileged place, because it practically never has to be patched by end users. When companies need to patch open source code to make it suit their peculiar needs, or when they need to link against some library, that's when licensing issues arise, and that's when companies will reject copylefted software. Unfortunately, that happens very often: I'd say about 80% of the open source software I'm using for professional products has to be patched sooner or later to accommodate the product's needs. Yes, the main reason for this huge ratio is that proprietary software authors don't know what Unix modularity is, and can't make their shit properly communicate with other software via Unix IPCs; nevertheless, I have to adapt and do what I can, and that often means patching existing open source software. (My own, hubris-based philosophy on this is: I'd rather have the end users of the product be happy with a good product, so I'd rather have companies use MY software rather than a crappy alternative, even if they don't give any source code back to the community; and since I'm the author, if they need support, they can hire ME, and give something back to ME. That's why I use permissive licenses for my software: I care more about the quality of the product for the end user than about the spreading of free software. But it's a personal choice and I'm not advocating it for anyone else.) Of course, all of this has nothing to do with the question of license enforcement whatsoever. Copyleft infringement should be fought, of course, at least as hard as copyright infringement is. -- Laurent _______________________________________________ busybox mailing list [email protected] http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox
