[Ilugc] Understanding Free and Open source code licenses
- From: lawgon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Kenneth Gonsalves)
- Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2011 15:11:57 +0530
On Sat, 2011-01-29 at 18:55 -0800, Ashish Bhatia wrote:
looks to me that this is basically selling GPL - up to you.
Would you mind elaborating how I am biased towards GPL?
if you are not biased towards GPL, we can argue further - so can you
clarify whether you prefer GPL to other licenses? For the record I
release *all* my code under the BSD license and I am very happy with it
because it gives me unlimited freedom to do precisely what I want. I
*am* biased towards the BSD license and encourage anyone who wants to
release code to do so under this license.
But there are two glaring mistakes.
1. You state that most companies use BSD license.
Where did I said that?
I misunderstood you - I thought you were talking of software companies
that produce code. In this case about 90% of them release under the GPL,
and a good number of them are bogus in the sense that they release a
watered down version as bait for customers to use their proprietary
versions. Redhat is of course an honourable exception. I have yet to see
this watered down dual version stuff in the BSD license world.
The closest statement to this I can find is "BSD based code is heavily
used by major companies."
so what is the problem? it is a good thing that major companies use BSD
licensed code - better than using proprietary code.
And yes, I do stand by it. The reason being the GPL compliance is
tough for most companies to comply
yes right, like mysql, mono and the like do
[...]
2. You say: avoid BSD/MIT license - can you explain why many major
projects like python and postgresql are under the BSD license? Why
do
you want to avoid these two?
The complete statement is "Avoid BSD/MIT and use Apache instead (since
Apache is legally more explicit)."
IMHO, Apache is better than BSD/MIT because
1. Legally more elaborate
2. explicitly grants patent rights where necessary to operate, modify
and distribute the software.
this is an opinion. No one license is 'better' than another license.
When one chooses a license one makes the decision based on many factors
- the main factor is this: why am I open sourcing the code? And which
license makes it most convenient for me?
if I am open sourcing in order to get developers to participate and
build the project, then i have to look at the pool of available
developers - if I am working with apache and it's family of
applications, my pool of contributors is from others working on it - so
apache license. Likewise if I am working django or python or postgresql
I would use the BSD license. On the other hand in the perl world people
dual license GPL/artistic license.
if I am open sourcing in order to provide bait for people to use my
proprietary software, I would choose the most restrictive license - GPL.
I do not care to have developer participation in my project because I
will have to buy their copyright before accepting their contributions
(like mysql, mono and other projects do)
So no one license is 'better' than another.
(I have mentioned this reason already in the blog post)
As far as python and postgresql is concerned, its a free(as in
freedom) world, they have right to use whatever they want, but that
does not make BSD/MIT better than Apache.
better for their purposes - both projects are wildly successful in terms
of users and in terms of developers contributing. So what exactly is
your problem?
--
regards
KG
http://lawgon.livejournal.com
Coimbatore LUG rox
http://ilugcbe.techstud.org/
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