Sandip Bhattacharya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > While I respect the intention of GPL, I dislike BSD license being > criticized unfairly. > > PJ wrote: > > The GPL compatible licences are designed to preserve freedom for the users. > > The BSD style licences have helped Microsoft take away freedom from the > > users. > > You are using two different kind of statements here in such a way that > it makes BSD style licences to look unfairly bad. IMHO, the correct way > of comparing here would be: [snip]
I guess I was too stark. Perhaps I should have said: The BSD style licences, while intended to grant freedom to all, have been abused and have helped companies like Microsoft take away freedoms from the users. I too have respect for the intentions of the the BSD style licences, and the intentions of the developers behind it. But it is unwise to be blind to its inherent flaw because it helps the loss of freedom. > Criticizing BSD style licences is like criticizing public domain > licences. And they *should* be criticised if there are flaws in them. > Don't forget, unlike the last century and half, this was the > only way knowledge has been passed on from generation to generation in > human history. I don't know about you, but I am fairly proud about how > humans have fared in progress of knowledge in this time. Neither BSD nor public domain protect the freedom of the users nowadays. Times have changed. Free and public goods can and have been usurped and made proprietary to the detriment of users. The intellectual commons is being fenced off by companies and there is a Tragedy of The Commons playing out. It is essentially only in the last few generations of human history that knowledge has become so greatly locked-in and made proprietary. Most people don't even see it has been happening because it has been so slow and gradual. I think it is wise to safeguard the openness of human progress, and prevent proprietarization and lock-in. The BSD style and public domain licences fail us here nowadays, which is why I advocate turning to the GPL. PJ _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
