On Fri, Aug 19, 2005 at 09:59:51PM -0500, Shawn Walker wrote: > On 8/19/05, Simon Phipps <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Shawn Walker wrote: > > > > If opensolaris ever went GPL, I'd be gone in an > > > instant, and I suspect > > > > others would as well. Because at that point, it > > > would become useless > > > > > > Nobody was suggesting that Open Solaris go GPL, > > > merely that the license be > > > modified to be GPL compatible. > > > > But what would that mean? Richard has said that "compatible" means > > derivative works can be licensed under one of the two original licenses. > > But the GPL says that code combined to produce a binary has to be licensed > > under the GPL. Therefore, "GPL Compatible" actually means "replaceable with > > the GPL". The only change that would make a license GPL compatible is one > > that says the license can be discarded in favour of the GPL. > > > > That is exactly what one of my problems with becoming GPL compatible > is. Because in many cases the code will just end up being relicensed > GPL. I've seen several projects based off BSD code or other code > become this way. Then the people that made the most original > contributions can no longer benefit. It's a shame. I'm not saying the > original contributors expected to receive contributions back, but it's > the principle of the matter.
Did they qsk for the modification code to be back-ported to the BSD licence ? I bet most modificators of BSDed code would have no major problem in that, and for the others it is no worse than some prorietary code company takign BSDed code and giving nothing back, and you evidently have no problem with that, which is even worse. And using the GPL is the best protection against this behavior, and probably one of the most prominent reasons why the linux kernel and the GNU/Linux userland on toip of that have become so succesful. And anyone claiming otherwise is either embittered of the succes of GPLed project, or has some hidden code-stealing agendas themselves. Friendly, Sven Luther _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
