> So, my objection is to the throttling of the supply side, by keeping > the enhancements from the community. With the GPL, if the demand > goes high enough, others can come in to supply to same service, or > people can help themselves -- since the supply of the enhancement > code is not stifed.
I see a flaw in that theory. GPL allows for people to make changes to the code and keep it to themselves as long as they don't further distribute it. How is that completely different from a closed source company making enhancements in BSD and selling it further without disclosing the changes to the community? Before you jump on it, I am not disputing that the users who bought this software might have lost their freedom. I am only pointing out that in both cases, others have the freedom to still carry on from the point when the source is available and free to use for public. If you consider the closed source company and its customers to be one independent entity (practically, this customer is probably not open to open source software in any case), how do their actions impact the rest of the community around the BSD style licenced software? As you mentioned, if demand is high enough, people can still help themselves to the last version of the open source software. So you might ask, what is the incentive to keep enhancing the BSD software? It is more or less the same incentive that drives GPL software owners, minus the constant bitterness against the closed source community. :) - Sandip _______________________________________________ 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/
