This thread is at risk of being hijacked again by Magic Banana, so how about
we calm down a little bit? aliasbody took the time to make this thread and is
passionate about it, so respect him.
The issue of software adoption comes down to not only how good it is, but how
much it can serve the greater good. Let's say you have this amazing and
innovative piece of software or video/audio codec that is the best of the
best. Wouldn't it be nice if a company like Apple or Microsoft, with their
marketshare on phones and computers, decided to use it? What if your open
software helped improve and facilitate open communication and digital
communication between others and both free and proprietary companies were NOT
afraid to use it due to a license? Pretty awesome!!
Do you want it to be used in free and proprietary software? Proprietary
software is going to be around no matter how much people complain. Some would
say it has grown with the "post-pc" smartphone and tablet market. Do you want
companies to use it and use their manpower to help you improve it? Do you
eventually want it be standardized? Be VERY careful in the license you
choose.
Do you like WebM and Ogg Theora videos in your web browser and Ogg Vorbis for
your audio? Guess what... it is under a BSD license and even Richard Stallman
endorsed using BSD over GPL so the codec can reach the widest adoption:
http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/icecast-dev/2001-February/000005.html
"In response to the change of license, Richard Stallman of the Free Software
Foundation says, 'I agree. It is wise to make some of the Ogg Vorbis code
available for use in proprietary software, so that commercial companies doing
proprietary software will use it, and help Vorbis succeed in competition with
other formats that would be restricted against our use.'"
This is EXACTLY why I originally advised alias to go with a permissive
license instead of the GPL. If the Ogg formats were under a GPL license, they
wouldn't be in Chrome or Opera and would be iffy in Firefox. Would YouTube
still select it as an option and would the W3C still consider it as a
standard? No, they would still be niche and we would all lose as a result.
** Here is a summary of some technology off the top of my head that benefit
**
Chromium web browser - BSD
WebM's VP8 video codec - BSD
WebM's Vorbis audio codec - BSD
Opus audio codec - BSD
Apache web server - Apache 2.0
nginx web server - BSD
Cassandra database - Apache 2.0
OpenStack cloud - Apache 2.0
Scala programming language - BSD
Mono programming language - MIT
Ruby on Rails framework - MIT
jQuery JavaScript framework - MIT
Cups printing driver - BSD
YUI framework and components - BSD
Bitcoin - MIT
There are many more and I just listed a few. aliasbody - don't let the people
here scare you from using a permissive license. It is your right to have
choice and don't let them bully you around.
