David Johnson scripsit: > You've completely misunderstood the nature of the BSD license. First, > commercial parties cannot take source code away any more than they > could take water away from an ocean. It may look like they are, but if > you check, the free source code is still there and the ocean isn't any > smaller. Second, they can't take away their customer's freedom to use > improved versions, because the free source code is still there and the > ocean is still huge.
This is a verbal quibble. The BSD license does not take away the customer's freedom to use *any* improved version whatsoever, because someone may make an improved version and issue it as free software. It does take away the customer's freedom to use *every* improved version whatsoever, because someone may make an improved version and issue it as non-free software. The GPL is intended to favor end-users over developers: end-users always have freedom over all the versions that exist; developers cannot issue non-free versions. The BSD is intended to favor developers over end-users: end-users may or may not have freedom over improved versions; developers can issue improved versions with any terms they like. This is not to say that either license actually *disadvantages* either group, merely that when the interests of one group or another come into conflict, the two licenses favor one over the other. And of course the right to reimplement (sans patent protection) is absolute. > The point is, your [e&e] scenario has never occured. That's not clear. For example, Microsoft's command-line FTP client does incorporate BSD-licensed code; at least, a troll through ftp.exe with "strings" reveals the UCB copyright notice. It is entirely unfree. However, it dates from a day before the "passive" command was added to the source, and to this day you cannot use the client to make passive-mode FTP connections. In this case, Microsoft is effectively practicing "embrace and dumb down", and there is nothing users can do about it (except replace the program, since fortunately it is a userland utility). -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. --_The Hobbit_ -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
