Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 19:08:52 +0100 From: Eivind Eklund <eivind@FreeBSD.ORG> To: Cliff Crawford <cjc26@cornell.edu> Cc: Dann Lunsford <dann@greycat.com>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD Quotation Message-ID: <19991113190852.B34741@bitbox.follo.net> In-Reply-To: <19991109151713.B32826@cornell.edu>; from cjc26@cornell.edu on Tue, Nov 09, 1999 at 03:17:13PM -0500 References: <38285F15.A656E35B@cstone.net> <000a01bf2ae1$08b6a920$021d85d1@youwant.to> <19991109120213.A7365@greycat.com> <19991109151713.B32826@cornell.edu>
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On Tue, Nov 09, 1999 at 03:17:13PM -0500, Cliff Crawford wrote:
> * Dann Lunsford <dann@greycat.com> menulis:
> > On Tue, Nov 09, 1999 at 10:34:19AM -0800, David Schwartz wrote:
> > > > system is distributed for free. Those that write enhancements to it are
> > > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > > > required to make those available to everyone. This has resulted in a
> > > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > > Sadly, he misses the whole point of BSD. The beauty of it is that you can
> > > make enhancements to it without anyone pointing a gun to your head.
> >
> > Hmm. I think that Frankenburg would be unlikely to make such a mistake, given
> > his history. Maybe the reporter dropped a "not" between the "are" and the
> > "required". Wouldn't be the first time something like that happened...
> > Anybody got Frankenburg's e-mail? Maybe we should ask him.
>
> The sentence following is "This has resulted in a significant amount of
> innovations and new capabilites", which wouldn't make sense in that
> context (him saying that those who write enhancements are NOT required
> to make them available to everyone).
No, that makes PERFECT sense. You are falling in the GPL trap of
thinking that the same development happens when you are forced to give
away the results of that development and when you are not.
Commerical developers write code to make money. If they can keep
strategic changes to themselves, that allows them to make a profit.
However, when a commercial developer is working on a sourcebase, he is
also likely to make a number of non-strategic improvements -
improvements that do not directly bring profit, but is just necessary
for utilitarian reasons - he needs the results of the changes, but
don't need to sell the changes themselves. It is rational to give
these changes back.
The developer actually PROFITS from giving these changes back, in the
following ways:
(1) He does not have to re-integrate them himself when a new version
of the sourcebase he is developing from comes along
(2) He gains sympathy in the development scene for that sourcebase
(3) He makes the sourcebase he is working from more attractive to
others, so it is more likely other people will use it (and thus do
development on it), so he'll be getting improvements (which could
possibly get him to not have to write things himself) "for free".
Conclusion: The BSD license is, in a world where people are behaving
rationally, better at producing free software than the GPL.
Of course, if you have to count in irrational kids that are afraid of
being 'exploited', the end result might be different.
Eivind.
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