Disclaimer: I'm an advocate of GPL. > Yes, GPL and AGPL are quasi-free software.
Interesting, I see it the other way round. ;-) With BSD the source-code can end up in corporate dungeons, whereas GPL code stays out in the open. > They impose constraints that source code must be included. Whom do you trust more? A company that supplies the source code for inspection or one that keeps it closed? A "kill switch" in my OS? Hell no! That would be the first thing to be disabled in a derivative OS: http://futureoftheinternet.org/the-iphone-kill-switch > This makes certain uses of the software impractical, including > most commercialization efforts. ?Sometimes, if you want your work > to have impact, you have to commercialize it. As the copyright holder you can release software under whatever license you want to. You can always supply companies that are interested in commercial licenses with such ones. Whether you require license fees or not, is up to you. But that would be the point of commercialization, making money, right? > Would you argue that > MacOS hasn't had impact? ?Would it have had the same impact if > Apple had to release the source code? IMHO, it would have had a bigger impact. Lots of people like tinkering with source code. A binary blob that doesn't allow poking around in the source code immediately cuts out those people. > Would Berkeley Unix have had > the same impact if Apple had not used it? BSD allows commercialization, > GPL (in effect) does not. Having more constraints makes it less free > than having fewer constraints, no? > Therefore, BSD is more free than GPL. It depends on the point of view: keeping the source code free (and accessible for everyone) or keeping a third-party (using your code) free of any constraints. GPL and BSD merely have a different view of *what* to keep free, IMHO. > For this reason, we keep Ptolemy II free of GPL and AGPL code. > So it will have more impact... What OS is had more impact on the server market? Apple-based or GNU/Linux-based? Anyway, the discussion about BSD vs GPL is like discussing religion and we will never reach a consensus. :-) But it's good to hear your reasoning behind why you chose the BSD license. Much appreciated. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174
