2010/9/23 Siju George <[email protected]>:
>
> Now Please Read this taken from
>
>
> http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=118861134304239&w=2
>
> ==============================================
>
> - If you wish for everyone to remain friends, you should give code back.
>
>  That means (at some ethical or friendliness level) you probably do
>  not want to put a GPL at the top of a BSD or ISC file, because you
>  would be telling the people who wrote the BSD or ISC file:
>
>     "Thanks for what you wrote, but this is a one-way street, you give
>     us code, and we take it, we give you you nothing back.  screw off."
>
> In either case, I think a valuable lessons has been taught us here in
> the BSD world -- there are many many GPL loving people who are going
> to try to find any way to not give back and share (I will mention one
> name: Luis Rodriguez has been a fanatic pushing us for dual licensed,
> and I feel he is to blame for this particular problem).  Many of those
> same people have been saying for years that BSD code can be stolen,
> and that is why people should GPL their code.
>
> Well, the lesson they have really taught us is that they consider the
> GPL their best tool to take from us!
>
> GPL fans said the great problem we would face is that companies would
> take our BSD code, modify it, and not give back.  Nope -- the great
> problem we face is that people would wrap the GPL around our code, and
> lock us out in the same way that these supposed companies would lock
> us out.  Just like the Linux community, we have many companies giving
> us code back, all the time.  But once the code is GPL'd, we cannot get
> it back.
>
> Ironic.
>
> I hope some people in the GPL community will give that some thought.
> Your license may benefit you, but you could lose friends you need.
> The GPL users have an opportunity to 'develop community', to keep an
> ethic of sharing alive.
>
> If the Linux developers wrap GPL's around things we worked very hard
> on, it will definately not be viewed as community development.
>
> Thank you for thinking about this.
>
> =============================================

And this too http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=118870806431189&w=2

Above was a different take on the issue. Proprietary companies not
giving source code when they include BSD licensed code in their
products, best example TCP/IP stack in Windows. Is that legal?

Anyway thanks for sharing this thread. I have not been thinking this angle.

> So GPL is ALL take and NO give back  which is exactly what Propreitry
> Licences do too. But at least Propreitry people write their own code
> and Don't Steal un lawfully from others!
>
> Think about it without being a slave to RMS.
>
> RMS is quite irrelevant and even contrary to Software Freedom these
> days. Quite impractical! Ask him why he does not use browser and gets
> websites through 'wget'!
>
> Disuse is not the solution for misuse!!!

I agree it is not ethical to wrap GPL around BSD code. I agree to
Theo's and Eben's views that it is not legal as well.

New BSD license says,

"* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution."

Does this condition require publishing of source code if you
distribute only binary?
-- 
പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍
You have to keep reminding your government that you don't get your
rights from them; you give them permission to rule, only so long as
they follow the rules: laws and constitution.

_______________________________________________
Indian Libre User Group Cochin Mailing List
http://www.ilug-cochin.org/mailing-list/
http://mail.ilug-cochin.org/mailman/listinfo/mailinglist_ilug-cochin.org
#[email protected]

Reply via email to