I'm missing something here. The big restriction that a GPL license imposes is copyleft. If you use GPL code *AND* you distribute your work then you have to make your source code available too. You can profit from your work and the work of others but you can't hide your changes.
In the case of an author making a change to GPLed work (and distributing it) that just means they need to make their changes available, usually as a patch. Presumably the author benefited from having the original work available and it is quite reasonable for them to continue the chain of generosity. Anything that propagates the "golden rule" is a good thing. Other licenses may be more free in that they have less restrictions, including the copyleft. Microsoft benefited when they picked up the BSD derived TCP/IP code and applications and didn't have to pass any changes along. That's great for them, but that's not the kind of commercial activity I want to support. If somebody uses open source code, they should be willing to show their changes for others to build on. I have been a user of open source code (GPL) for over 20 years now starting with early versions of gcc. Before I released my own code under the GPL v3 I was paid by a major corporation with three initials to write open source code, usually under GPL2. That same corporation was a major player in open source and spent a lot of time making sure they complied with the rules, including redistribution of changes. It works for them and it works for a lot of other people. I find it hard to imagine how something so simple gets twisted up in meta discussions. Show me where somebody was harmed by the copyleft provisions of GPL licenses .. and not just having their feelings hurt. Mike ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
