> While you and I may prefer BSD-ish licenses for various reasons (esp.
> since if a developer hates the GPL, they won't contribute at all,
> which seemingly defeats the point), the majority of enthusiasts by far
> prefer and use GPLv2, esp. here in FreeDOS (hi, Jim!). GPL isn't bad,
> per se, just annoying, too long, and I'm tired of reading endless
> arguments about its finer points (just code, damn it, screw the
> license, who cares? just make it public, free for all, it's not
> munitions, for freak's sake, lighten up, blah).
I'll just add that I do prefer the GNU GPL because it suits my needs.
It's established, and easy to apply to my programs.
Others may prefer different licenses, and that's fine. The BSD is a
good license, I just don't prefer it for my own work. Same with the
MIT license, or Artistic license. Go with what you are comfortable
with. I just ask that you choose a license that preserves the freedom
of the source code, so that everyone may use it and contribute to it.
Avoid licenses that limit the freedom of users, including licenses
that look free but exclude certain classes of users ("May not be used
by the military" or "For non-commercial use only".)
For example, the Caldera's DR-DOS/OpenDOS "open license" is an example
of a license that does nothing to preserve freedom. Caldera had no
interest in allowing others to contribute. Their license was basically
"look, but do not touch." I do not like this license.
http://www.freedos.org/technotes/press/opendos.txt
Having different licenses is a good thing, in that developers can
choose a license that suits their needs. However, these different
licenses does make it a bit difficult to share code between projects,
if they have different licenses. That's another reason why I prefer to
contribute only to programs under the GNU GPL, so I can easily re-use
code from one project to help out another.
As far as the version of the GNU GPL, I happen to prefer version 2 for
DOS programs because I think version 2 applies well to
statically-linked programs (typical in DOS.)
-jh
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