On May 4, 2008, at 1:14 AM, Pieter Verberne wrote:
On Sun, May 04, 2008 at 03:38:13AM +0530, debian developer wrote:
["bsd vs. GPL"]
Sorry for 'stealing' this thread but I'm not sure if I should make
a new
thread for this.
I'm wondering what OpenBSD people think about BSD (-like) licenses
versus public domain.
As an admin public domain code could leave me in a bad place. Imagine
for a minute that I start building a project with it and the project
turns into something cool and I want to start selling my services
deploying it or similar things or selling boxes to do whatever it is
it does. Or even just build a box that does something cool for work
and they decide to have another business unit do the same thing.
With the current state of OpenBSD licensing I'm in a good spot. I can
do what I want and if any legal questions about the code arise I have
a clear and legally well defined argument for why a reasonable person
would think they could use the code in that way. And some very smart
people at my back since any questions about my right to do anything I
want with the code, short of denying those same very smart people
credit, are also questions about their license and their right to do
whatever they want with -their- code. Enlightened self interest is a
fucking wonderful thing.
By contrast with the GPL there are any number of hoops I need to jump
through before doing the same thing and history shows us that
relatively minor missteps result in them getting very ugly with you
since , in their minds, you doing whatever you want with the code
without meeting all of their conditions lessens their "freedom". I
think this also neatly disproves the idea that BSD/ISC style licenses
put the power in the hands of the coders and GPL puts it in the hand
of the users. BSD/ISC makes the coders and users partners based on
mutual self interest whereas GPL puts -all- the power in the hands of
the license holder.
Public domain leaves me in a very bad place indeed. If anybody
questions my right to use the code in question I have no real way to
build a strong case that a reasonable person would think they could
use the code in that way. Or at least it makes it a fuck of a lot
harder than simply pointing at the license. This is because public
domain is meant to be what happens to any work -after- the copyright
expires. In the case of works that have passed into the public domain
there is a clear and legally well defined trail of when it was in
copyright, when it passed into the public domain, and where it came
from. Which means that if, for example, I want to republish the
original Tarzan nobody can come after me because it's trivial to
prove that I have the right to do so. Not so with works placed
directly into the public domain because doing so means that there is
no legally well defined way to determine where it came from so
anybody who can modify the timestamp on a file can claim to be the
original author.
What does the ISC license actually do?
It buys the end user a legally well defined right to use the code
that places him in partnership with the original author if any legal
issues arise. As opposed to the lack of any legally well defined
right to use it that results from works placed directly into the
public domain or the mutually antagonistic relationship with the
original author the GPL creates. And that's a fuck of lot.
<snip>
