Joe writes: > The whole point of the GPL, of course, was that a Random Large > Software Company couldn't just buy up code and remove it from the > market. Even if all the copyright holders were paid enough to remove > their current code from an open source project, they could not remove > previous versions, and anyone who wished to do so was free to continue > development.
That is true of other Open Source licenses such as the BSD license. The point of the GPL is that if you extend a work distributed to you under the terms of the GPL you are obligated to distribute your extensions only under the terms of the GPL (though you are free to not distribute them at all). This is not true of the BSD license: you are free to distribute derivatives of BSD licensed software under any terms at all. This was routinely done: I paid $1000 for BSD-OS for my first 386-based computer. -- John Hasler [email protected] Elmwood, WI USA
