From owner-freebsd-advocacy Wed Feb 21 2:25:38 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from ohm.physics.purdue.edu (ohm.physics.purdue.edu [128.210.146.32]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2009B37B401 for ; Wed, 21 Feb 2001 02:25:35 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from will@physics.purdue.edu) Received: (from will@localhost) by ohm.physics.purdue.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA92851; Wed, 21 Feb 2001 05:25:30 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from will@physics.purdue.edu) X-Authentication-Warning: ohm.physics.purdue.edu: will set sender to will@physics.purdue.edu using -f Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 05:25:30 -0500 From: Will Andrews To: Ted Mittelstaedt Cc: Dennis Jun , freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: BSD licence vs GPL Message-ID: <20010221052530.H83214@ohm.physics.purdue.edu> Reply-To: Will Andrews References: <046d01c09bd0$1e8bdfc0$0300a8c0@wilma> <007101c09be9$04ff4f60$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-md5; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="JSVXQxoTSdH0Ya++" Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <007101c09be9$04ff4f60$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>; from tedm@toybox.placo.com on Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 01:31:07AM -0800 X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 4.1-RELEASE i386 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG --JSVXQxoTSdH0Ya++ Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 01:31:07AM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > The problem with forking off your own private copy of BSD code is that > now, every time that someone makes a refinement to the BSD code that > makes it better, if you want to take advantage of that refinement you > have to go back and re-implement it into your own code. This is pretty > easy to do initially, but the more divergence you yourself place into your > own private source, the harder it becomes. This is exactly why I never trusted how GPL advocates justified their restrictive license. Closing up one's source makes it impossible to keep your code competitive with the open source base. Keeping out commercial vendors only negatively impacts your development: people with money can fund full-time developers to bring more and better features to your code. They can choose to keep it to themselves for awhile, but as you say, over time this will only lead to problems. The other reason I like the BSD license is the same that Kris Kennaway already gave: It allows commercial vendors to implement code that was *properly* designed, not designed under market pressure. This makes the world a better place. --=20 wca --JSVXQxoTSdH0Ya++ Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.3 (FreeBSD) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE6k5eZF47idPgWcsURAtLqAJ9uLMaKfMT94l1ezoMV44OKBfFJCACfXgxb W0DJYi7iHkCmN9TGwesSrOE= =/dQY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --JSVXQxoTSdH0Ya++-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message