On Friday 14 March 2003 03:25 am, John Cowan wrote: > 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.
Of course. But that was not the orginal poster's complaint about the BSD license. For many people, proprietary forks are not an issue, for others they are. But the complaint that "commercial parties can take the source away" is just not valid. I was merely trying to get the poster to think beyond the anti-BSD stereotypes that are so common. His claim was merely a restatement of the tired "BSD is a license to steal" argument. > > 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. But Microsoft has not "embraced and extended" ftp, which is what the scenario was describing, and which is what you admit as well. The scenario did, however, coincide rather nicely with the urban legend that Microsoft "stole" Kerberos. "Embrace and extend" is an issue that transcends mere licensing. No license is going to prevent it, and only a few could impede it with any significant result. -- David Johnson ___________________ http://www.usermode.org -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
