Hi, On Sun, May 04, 2008 at 03:38:13AM +0530, debian developer wrote: > 1. BSD license is completely free. No one needs to give back changes > forcibly(the GPL way), hence this is completely free. > If what i hear is correct, there are companies(Microsoft) which > take BSD code (network stack i hear) and made it proprietary by not > giving back anything. What i don't understand is are we not loosing > anything in this case?? I can understand that there are many more > companies which have used the code(Apple) and given back but there are > also opposite ends...
I'd certainly not want to live in a world where SSH and the BSD network stack would be reimplemented by proprietary software vendors again and again. BSD developers give away their code for (almost) nothing. GPL developers demand all kinds of things in return for theirs. Nobody loses anything when a company uses BSD code in a proprietary program. The original BSD code does not magically become proprietary when it is used in a proprietary product, it is just as free as it was before. > 2. I know many of you consider RMS a backstabber on the goals of > "freedom". What i don't understand is what is wrong in porting free > software to non-free platforms? Shouldn't people caged on non-free > platforms know about the power of free software?? When there is no one > to explain to them what free software is, does'nt this porting get > atleast a percent of them interested in a successful and superior free > software product(like firefox)? There is nothing wrong except that RMS himself mumbles about non-free software being unethical while helping others use non-free software with those ports being offered by the FSF. Also, none of the firefox using lusers I know have any idea about it being "free", except free as in beer, and they probably couldn't care less even if they did. They will use whatever software that gets their job done. The argument of "introducing people to free software" is rather weak, and the arguments against it, like the win32 port of gcc, have been discussed on this list before. -- Jussi Peltola
