Subject: Re: Another reason to go GPL
From: Paul Sander (paul@wakawaka.com)
Date: Wed Mar 28 2001 - 00:19:30 EST
I must agree with Bucky's statement below. As a developer of free software, I
have a strong distaste for the type of facism that the Gnu project markets
in the name of freedom to redistribute software in a cooperative community.
My experience with certain Gnu projects has also been that they tend to be
unresponsive about making much-needed changes, including bug fixes, even when
they're given patches to the latest public releases.
I've contributed to some Gnu code, but I prefer to I donate to the public
domain in hopes that my stuff will be useful to someone out there, regardless
of whether or not I'm credited or compensated; I've even turned down offers
of donations for my efforts. But BSD-style licensing is just as palatable to
me.
People who understand the locking protocols can reimplement the code as
needed; aside from laziness (which is indeed a compelling reason), there's
little to be gained from using someone else's code and living with their
license requirements. Gnu licenses are more restrictive than BSD; if the
Gnu people like BSD code, they can redistribute it with the proper credits.
--- Forwarded mail from bucky@interaccess.com
I don't understand how that can work. The GPL, once adopted, establishes a
form of compulsion -- it does not allow what you've described. Suppose code
from another GPL project is incorporated: the presence of that code prevents
netatalk in its entirety from ever being used in a BSD-licensed context
without replacing that code. That's how the GPL works. In the long run, it
permanently prevents BSD-style freedoms such as using the code in a
proprietary release. The code would be balkanized into separate licenses.
The licenses don't coexist by covering the whole project.
A company who makes such a release would have quite a bit invested in its
relationship with the community that developed the base code. Observe Apple
and the FreeBSD crowd.
GPL effectively eliminates ownership through progressively entangling
obligations on the part of the coders. BSD provides a form of shared
ownership, in which the codebase may be forked freely as needed and
participating developers each retain full discretion regarding the
disposition of their work -- public or private.
I have not developed a stitch of netatalk. So this is not my decision. But
thank you for hearing me out.
--- End of forwarded message from bucky@interaccess.com
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