I think it all depends on what kind of software it is.
For MTASC its good for it to be GPL. Its a standalone tool and Nicolas has put a lot of effort into and doesn't want others to profit from that work and wants to retain control. I see it like the other command line apps you get with Linux. For this type of app GPL makes perfect sense.
For a framework or utility which you want other people to use then BSD or Apache is best. If ARP was GPL I would guess there would be far fewer people using to build applications. If you have coded in java you will know that without Apache it would be much more work to build commercial applications.
Agreed, and the reason that is the reason that ActionStep is BSD. InfoEther (my company) decided to BSD license it specifically because we believe that a component framework should be free for everyone (commercial or non-commercial). If your company's competitive advantage is a specific component framework, its a tenuous advantage at best. I mean, there is a barrier to creation, but not that huge. An application built with a component framework that solves some valuable domain problem in a unique way...that's advantage. In addition...if you ever want to build a community around something you build on a framework like ActionStep (one that includes commercial and non-commercial folks), you want the barriers to entering that community to be minimal, and a BSD attribution-type license is pretty minimal.
InfoEther also employs Tom Copeland, the author of PMD, a Java source analysis system. ( http://pmd.sourceforge.net ) That framework is also BSD licensed. We did not see PMD as a software framework that provides a strategic advantage to our company. We wanted to build a community around since it would benefit us, our customers who were paying us to write it at the time (DARPA), and others who needed to use tools like PMD but wanted better control/could not afford $$ solutions like JTest. The community effect around PMD has been very strong, and several commercial entities have rolled it into their solutions.
But we don't feel stupid for choosing BSD over GPL ;-)
-rich
Personally I prefer BSD / Apache. I see open source code reuse in commercial software as a benefit for everyone.
Many great open source and commercial products wouldn't exist without it.
Choose a license based on what it is you are building, do you want people to 'use it' or 'build on it' ?
-- luke
On 7/8/05, Nicolas Cannasse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At Slashdot there is an interesting discussion going on about GPL and
> BSD style of licensing os software. In particular i found this article
> insightful: http://bsd.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=155207&cid=13011294
>
> I've never seen it that way. GPL gives the author great power and in
> contrast to my ancient believe, the possibility to make money of his
> work, because people "don't" want to gpl their derivative stuff.
>
> Do you know there any hidden reason for an author, not to use GPL?
Not which I know.
A GPL license give rights to the User of the software only, it says shortly
"you can use this software for free as long as your software is GPL". It
doesn't remove any right of the author(s) so they're open to relicense it
and then sell the code under another license to a company. Few years ago I
did GPL paid development : the company wanted to have GPL software so users
can use and extend it but they wanted to keep the "basic" version with
unrestricted licensing to include in their products.
That's why IMHO GPL is a good compromise if you want at the same time to
write great software and share it with community and preserve your rights to
live from the software you're writing. That doesn't means as the slashdot
post author says that people using BSD license are stupid, it's just that
they have different goals.
Nicolas
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