This seems a little selfish to me. Why would you want to build a business on someone else's software without contributing something back?
If you don't want to contribute something back then don't use other peoples work. Note that all the software products that I know of that use open source other than GPL have not lasted. The dynamic nature of software gives a big advantage to those who contribute back since they will also receive updates to their own software from others. The advantage of starting with someone else's software then taking it proprietary is very small in the long run. -----Original Message----- From: Ryan Ware [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 8:22 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Anyone Nagios? (GPL discussion) That's what is nice about the BSD for commercial development. Yes you can use it in your closed product enhance it if you want and not contribute a damn thing back. Here's the key, so can ANYONE else. It's standing on the shoulders of giants so to speak, whereas the GPL is staning on the shoulders of giants and accepting that someone is allowed to stand on your shoulders whether or not you like it. -----Original Message----- From: Jay Maynard To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 1/5/04 8:55 PM Subject: Re: Anyone Nagios? (GPL discussion) 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.
