On Wed, 2005-09-21 at 12:26 -0700, Jim Self wrote: > Todd Berman wrote: > >The other thing that BSD code allows you to do that you are missing is > >it actually allowed greater *developer* freedom. > > Please explain. As I understand it, the only thing lost to developers in > using the GPL is > the freedom to hide the source code for the applications they distribute and > thereby to > prevent their users from carrying on with the development. We have seen many > great > products killed for various business reasons and we have faced a number of > difficult > transitions and seen many more due to organizations having become > operationally dependent > on software that is no longer supported and can't be updated.
Oh, absolutely the GPL prevents that *IF YOU DISTRIBUTE* the application binary. You can still have a GPL-using application that you never distribute except in an application-server model, that you would never have to give the source code for. But, that is neither here nor there. The reason BSD allows greater developer freedom is this: Lets use a typical BSD-style license, the MIT X11 as an example. If I am writing a program under a non-GPL compat license (and this does not mean commercial, there are plenty of popular OSI compat licenses that are not GPL compat, like the Apache License for example). I can not use a GPL library or application. However, if that code was under MIT X11, I would be able to use it regardless of the license I feel is appropriate for my application/project. This is giving me, the developer, greater freedom. The freedom to use code is as important to me, as a developer, as the other oft quoted 'freedoms'. This is a huge issue with GPL libraries. Not to mention the issues of the patent-bomb GPL/LGPL clause that prevents a GPL mp3 decoding library from ever being distributed legally, where-as a MIT X11 mp3 decoding library has none of these issues. --Todd ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: Tame your development challenges with Apache's Geronimo App Server. Download it for free - -and be entered to win a 42" plasma tv or your very own Sony(tm)PSP. Click here to play: http://sourceforge.net/geronimo.php _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
