On Mon, Jan 05, 2004 at 06:48:24PM -0800, Ranga Nathan wrote: > Wrong. GPL protects the developers more than open source. > Open Source allows commercial exploitation by allowing it to co-exist with > proprietary and closed software.
This is too broad a brush. Not all non-GNU-"free" licenses allow this, and some that are GNU-"free" (the FSF considers the BSD license "free", for example) do. Further, even if someone picks up a piece of BSD-licensed software and incorporates it into their commercial progeam, that does not change the status of the original BSD-licensed code one whit. It is and will always remain freely available and modifiable under the original license. Any OSD-compliant license protects the developers. If they do not wish to have their code used commercially, that is their choice, and there are many other licenses besides the GPL that accomplish that goal - but, in so doing, saying that their code is "free" as the FSF does is a bald-faced lie, for it is not free for all to use and modify as they wish.
