In my experience, commercial users either contribute or they don't. It doesn't matter whether or not they're "forced to". Commercial users that aren't interested in contributing code simply just won't use any source that has viral licenses except in extreme circumstances (e.g. GCC, few companies want to write a compiler) or for services and internal applications (which aren't restricted by GPL's distribution clause). In many cases there is a liberally licensed alternatives to a GPL product (e.g. PostgreSQL instead of MySQL, FreeBSD instead of Linux, libedit instead of readline, etc.). Commercial users that intend to change the code but not to contribute will simply use one of these instead. Personally I always choose the liberally licensed stuff over GPL when possible, unless the GPL product does something I need that the alternatives do not (gcc, screen, etc.). I still almost always contribute anything I do, and I have started plenty of OSS projects myself, but I like to have the option to release changes on my own schedule, or to combine open source libraries with commercial libraries to release a product, etc. Using GPL is just trading options for ideals. I don't believe in those ideals anyway -- people should share because they want to, not because they're compelled to do so. -bob On Mar 28, 2006, at 4:11 PM, Thomas wrote: Very interessting topic. |
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