> Unfortunately, I prefer the free as in beer version, which provides a lot of > the extras you'll probably want for your project, Lori. Sometimes > practicality forces us F/OSS end users to compromise a little bit :-)
I prefer companies that don't do that (dual-license) and I prefer copy-left open source licenses which help prevent others from doing that in the future (Software-as-a-Service loopholes notwithstanding). Let's say free-beer Virtualbox has the ability to emulate parallel ports and free-speech Virtualbox doesn't. I could add the feature with my copy of the free-speech version, however, how easy is it for me to share it with others? The community allows Oracle/Sun to maintain both versions. Free Inebriated Speech software, bleh. Still better than free beer alone though (since you can fork the code if the current maintainers become insane or abusive), and I do use Virtualbox, being practical. :-) -- Jason Etheridge | VP, Tactical Development | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Evergreen Experts | phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) | email: [email protected] | web: http://www.esilibrary.com Please join us for the Evergreen 2010 International Conference! It is being held April 20 - 23, 2010 at the Amway Grand Hotel and Convention Center, Grand Rapids, Michigan. http://www.evergreen2010.org/
