From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <20030709033343.85503.qmail@web40402.mail.yahoo.com> From: "A. Baker" To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Subject: [9fans] The new ridiculous license Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 20:33:43 -0700 Topicbox-Message-UUID: efcf64bc-eacb-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 FYI http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-1023765.html?tag=fd_lede2_hed --------------8<-------------- (c|net's Stephen Shankland) Do you ever wish you'd opted for a BSD-style license instead of the General Public License (GPL)? (Unlike the GPL, BSD-style licenses such as those used for the Apache Software Foundation Web server and the FreeBSD Unix offshoot permit open-source code to be made proprietary.) (Linux's Linus Torvalds) Absolutely not. I personally think that the BSD license is a dead end for serious projects, since it inevitably results in forking with no way to re-join if it becomes commercially viable. (Editors' note: Forking is dividing a programming project into two different, overlapping projects.) Forking a project is in my opinion hugely important, since forks are how all real development gets done, and the ability to fork keeps everybody honest (i.e. if you don't do a good job and keep your users happy, they can always fork the project and go on their own). But equally important is the ability to join back forks, when/if some group finds the right solution to a problem. And that's where the GPL comes in: you can really think of the whole license as nothing more than a requirement to be able to re-join a forked project from either side. --------------8<-------------- Ouch! ===== Boojum __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com