On Monday, August 8 at 08:04 PM, quoth Bob Van Zant:
Assume a company that abides by license agreements. My feeling is that a company is more likely to incorporate software that uses a BSD-style license than the GPL because it is in -their- best interest to do so. Given that, I again feel that companies (more specifically, engineering departments) are inclined to give back -some- of their changes (particularly bug fixes). Whereas the GPL requires that they give back -all- of their changes, including those that may be trade secrets.
Ahh, I see. So, if I'm interpreting your point correctly (correct me if I'm wrong) essentially (for whatever reason), it is based on the assertion (backed up to some degree) that companies are more likely to use a BSD-licensed program than a GPL-licensed program. Then, when a company uses a program, sometimes it gives back a little something. The logical conclusion being: if you want companies to use (and possibly contribute) to an open-source project, you go with the license that doesn't give pointy-haired-people the willies. Fair enough so far?
As you're the only one putting up a reasonable (well, *any* argument, but as luck would have it, your argument is reasonable) argument for changing the license, let's examine this a little more closely (I'd contribute ideas for your side of the argument, but I don't have that sort of experience in the private sector).
It seems to me that there are two critical points here worth examining: first, that companies are more likely to use a BSD-licensed program than a GPL-licensed program, and second that corporate use and possible contribution is something that is desireable. Perhaps there are more key points that could be made?
So, the second point is easy to think about. Unless Andreas is more of a purist (for example, DJB or Theo DeRaadt) who simply wants to do his own, great project for the primary purpose of being his and being good and showing what he can do, then he probably wouldn't *mind* having lots of patches from all over the place. And corporate use may raise the visibility of Binc (maybe).
The first point is a little harder. You've explained that your experience has been that GPL'd software is something corporations explicitly avoid. I haven't had much experience in the private sector recently, but when I did (four years ago), we didn't pay much mind to the license. We were developing our own in-house software that happened to work with others (like MySQL, Linux, GTK+, OpenSSH, etc.). What mattered more to us was:
1. Does it do the job we need done? 2. Is it being actively maintained? 3. How secure is it? 4. How fast is it? 5. How expensive is it?At the time, we'd rather spend the money on better hardware. But we weren't altering the software, just using it, so... that may be a far less useful anecdote than your own experience. I would guess, though, that most companies don't do a lot of modifying of open-source software and are content simply to use it.
A final point I think is worthy of consideration...There's no question that the GPL is more restrictive than, say, the BSD (or Apache or Artistic) license. The real question to answer is: what does the BincIMAP project gain from that license? Does it have more to gain by changing the license?
I see three things in favor of the GPL rather than another OSS license: inertia, idealism, and a sense of "fair play". Inertia is obvious; I mean idealism in a Stallman-esque "all software should be free" sense; and by "fair play" I mean the sense that Andreas did all this work to get Binc where it is and somebody shouldn't be able to go and make a profit off of his work (regardless of the "risk" they may undergo to do it) (this last sense may just be a personal bias... I've written my own small OSS software where I'm the primary author, and I don't like the idea that anyone can just take it and sell it without so much as telling me). On the other hand, I see two major things in favor of BSD: a larger sense of openness, and the possibility of (greater?) corporate involvement.
Am I missing anything? ~Kyle --If A equals success, then the formula is A=X+Y+Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.
-- Albert Einstein
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