Someone finally put it into print...

The Hermit Hacker <scrappy@hub.org> writes:

GPL evil, BSD so-so...
http://www.daemonnews.org/199905/gpl.html

Talk about a one-sided, inflammatory presentation ... sheesh.

I happen to like BSD better myself, but calling GPL "Communistic"
is a few steps beyond reasonable discourse.

The real meat of the issue is this: if you give your free software away
under a BSD-style license, someone else can use it as a component of a
non-free, non-open-source product. If you give your software away under
a GPL-style license, it can only be used as a component of more free,
open-source software. Either of these might be a reasonable goal
depending on your purposes. I read Michael Maxwell's attack as saying
"it's not good enough for you to give code away for free, I demand that
you allow me to make money off your work".

regards, tom lane

On Thu, 13 May 1999, Tom Lane wrote:

The Hermit Hacker <scrappy@hub.org> writes:

GPL evil, BSD so-so...
http://www.daemonnews.org/199905/gpl.html

Talk about a one-sided, inflammatory presentation ... sheesh.

I happen to like BSD better myself, but calling GPL "Communistic"
is a few steps beyond reasonable discourse.

The real meat of the issue is this: if you give your free software away
under a BSD-style license, someone else can use it as a component of a
non-free, non-open-source product. If you give your software away under
a GPL-style license, it can only be used as a component of more free,
open-source software. Either of these might be a reasonable goal
depending on your purposes. I read Michael Maxwell's attack as saying
"it's not good enough for you to give code away for free, I demand that
you allow me to make money off your work".

My personal opinion on the two licensing schemes is that they both take
the 'far extreme' approach...neither of them is perfect and if one could
someone come up with a "middle ground" license, that would be great. Each
of them has their good points, but I still think the BSD one is the
"lesser of two evils"...

BSD gives too much freedom...GPL doesn't give enough...

Marc G. Fournier ICQ#7615664 IRC Nick: Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: scrappy@hub.org secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org

On Thu, 13 May 1999, The Hermit Hacker wrote:

GPL evil, BSD so-so...

http://www.daemonnews.org/199905/gpl.html

I refuse to argue about this one, because it inevitably ends up being a
big war with no-one clearly right. Please don't put flame-bait up like
this!

Also, this guy needs to do more research. There are specifically stated
exceptions for tools like flex/bison/yacc/gcc/etc.

Taral

The Hermit Hacker wrote:

My personal opinion on the two licensing schemes is that they both take
the 'far extreme' approach...neither of them is perfect and if one could
someone come up with a "middle ground" license, that would be great.

I'd love your feedback on a license / software ownership
model that I've been working on. It's very rough
schetch... http://distributedcopyright.org

Thanks!

Clark

P.S. There is a discussion list for this idea on
the web site, for those interested in talking
about it more.