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SubjectRe: Linus is on a powertrip..
Date
> For sure I wouldn't like to give up all the things in my daily
> toolchain that are under some University-grown copyright, Xerox PARC
> copyright and whatnot. You can't even mix Modzilla code and GPL
> code. How much worse can it get, given their similar intentions?

Its simply a question of intent. The GPL is intended to create software
guarded by a very strict set of protections designed to keep the software
"free" to a set of definitions it imposes. As part of that it brooks no
compromises. It draws a firm line and labels one side GPL compatible the
other side not.

The BSD style licenses are either

Take a copy, enjoy it, hope its useful but don't bug or blame me

or

Take a copy, enjoy it, hope its useful, don't bug or blame me but I wan't
crediting in all your documentation and advertising.


The latter bit is the problem with GPL compliance. The GPL license people
argue that its an additional restriction and that such advertising clauses
in bulk become unworkable. I've been involved on the sidelines of a netbsd
derived commercial project killed for that reason. (Equally the folks
concerned wouldnt have touched GPL code - the idea of giving something back
was kind of alien to them)

No one license is right or wrong. And you can dual license things too. Linux
and *BSD do share some things where the authors concerned really don't see
a problem with either license being used. For example the new syncppp
PPP layer support in Linux 2.1.x is BSD derived but from an author who
used an even freer license than the generic BSD ones that matches both.
Ted Tso's random driver is dual licensed.

I'd encourage people to look at both licenses when writing stuff and if
they simply want people to use their stuff, commercially, binary only,
whatever then to use a dual license. If they want to enforce source access
etc then the GPL is probably the right choice.

Alan


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