On Fri, Aug 05, 2005 at 10:22:12PM +0200, Andreas Aardal Hanssen wrote: > I'm looking for an appropriate license for Binc IMAP in the future. > If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to speak up. What's > important for Binc IMAP is: > > 1) It's open source, for all that means. > 2) I want to encourage everyone to send their patches back to the > community, so that others in the same position as you can make > use of your adaptations. > 3) I want the business world to feel good about using and modifying > Binc IMAP. > 4) I don't want the existing Binc IMAP community (yeah, you!) to > feel that any new license is of hindrance for them to make use > of Binc IMAP 1.4. > > GPL is a little strict on adding stuff (backends, extensions). > Maybe LGPL is an alternative?
I say stay with GPL. 1 and 2 are given by the fact that Binc is OSS to begin with. At least for me. :) 3 can be a problem with GPL, but only if the company wants to sell an IMAP server product (whether software or hardware) in which they have a modified version of Binc. Do you want them to be able to use Binc? GPL vs. BSD comes down to open source evolution vs. code (re)use. Businesses generally dislike open source evolution since it per definition devalves intellectual property which has always been a popular tool of competition. Call me an idealist, but I hope that the market for intellectual property is saturated sometime, so that we as a race can focus on creative application instead. Hence I like GPL, and will gladly use and improve GPL products in my business, naturally contributing back what improvements I make. Just my .02. //Peter
