Date: Wed, 05 May 1999 08:33:16 +0900 From: "Daniel C. Sobral" <dcs@newsguy.com> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> Cc: Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai <asmodai@wxs.nl>, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, Kris Kennaway <kkennawa@physics.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Some thoughts on advocacy (was: Slashdot ftp.cdrom.com upgra Message-ID: <372F83BC.597F33F7@newsguy.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9905022333100.7536-100000@theory1.physics.iisc.ernet.in>
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Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > But to push this "my product is better than yours" thing to the > licensing is surely going a bit too far... There are a lot of people who choose BSD-license based OS because they prefer the BSD license. Heck, some people can't even *choose* a GPL license, because it would restrict them in ways that would make their business impossible. Are you asking us not to say that for some people the main (and sometimes *only*) reason for going FreeBSD instead of Linux is the license issue? > Historical note: the GPL was created by one Richard Stallman, who > believes that any restrictions on software For all I know Ricard Stallman could believe in Santa Claus. The person behind the license is irrelevant, what is relevant is what the license *IS*. Besides, that's not RMS belief. He believes in software that *CANNOT* (as in *restriction*) have it's source closed. > modification/redistribution is unethical. From that point of > view, the GPL is the best solution and a phenomenally successful > one. So to blast the GPL for being business-unfriendly just Eh? I don't follow your logic here. > doesn't make sense. Besides, businesses do make money from GPL'd > code -- Cygnus, Red Hat, etc, etc -- and Stallman himself is > certainly all for it. I see a lot of people making money selling other's people software. I also see a lot of hardware manufacturers making money by selling their hardware with Linux (which could have had _any_ license, as long as it got as much publicity as it have right now -- saying you support Linux is the easiest way to gain free advertisement nowadays). Would you mind filling in who are making money by selling _their own_ software GPLed? -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) dcs@newsguy.com dcs@freebsd.org "Proof of Trotsky's farsightedness if that _none_ of his predictions have come true yet." To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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