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BWF89
November 12th, 2005, 01:38 PM
I don't get the philsophy that BSD programmers have. They work for hours and hours on their computers programming an operating system that anyone can change, study, and modify. But then after all their hard work they don't want to protect it. They publish it under a licence that would let anyone take the program, make a few changes, and than release it under a proprietary licence.

Some of BSDs try not to include GPL'd software because they feel the licence is too restrictive :???:.

Personally I think they should develop BSD under a tighter copyleft licence. Agree, disagree?

GeneralZod
November 12th, 2005, 01:53 PM
BSD'ers just want to create good code that anyone can benefit from, and the license is intended to reflect that. I imagine that most choose the BSD license precisely for this reason, so no, in my opinion it simply wouldn't make sense to even suggest that they develop it under a tighter license.

You should also define what you mean by "better" in the poll, as neither can really be said to be better than the other :)

DJ_Max
November 12th, 2005, 04:00 PM
I agree with GeneralZod. Both licenses serve different purposes. BSD gives you more freedom, as long as you don't take credit for it. GPL has something similar, but not on the same level called the LGPL.



Some of BSDs try not to include GPL'd software because they feel the licence is too restrictive :???:.

Not necessarily true. Sometimes in software these licenses will conflict with each other Making certain software illegal to build together. Under the GPL license, you are not allowed to ship a program in runnable form when the program is built from modules where one of them is licensed under the GPL and another is licensed under a license that has a requirement that isn't part of the GPL's requirements.

Kvark
November 12th, 2005, 04:32 PM
You ask on a Linux forum which is a place you'd expect to find lots of GPL fans in and while asking the question you argue very strongly that people should answer GPL. That is just like going into a feminist club, hold a flaming speach about that men are pigs and then ask which is the better gender. It will not give any meaningful poll results.

Anyway, I think BSD is better for developers because it allows them to make propriaroty additions to sell licences of. GPL on the other hand is better for users because it forces developers to let the users get all additions for free.

Lovechild
November 12th, 2005, 04:39 PM
If I wanted to work free for corporations, I'd use the BSD license.

I want my work to breed freedom, thus I select a GPL license.

BWF89
November 13th, 2005, 02:39 AM
Isn't there anyone on here who likes the BSD licence?

TravisNewman
November 13th, 2005, 02:47 AM
It's not a bad license, it's just not the right audience here.

xequence
November 13th, 2005, 03:31 AM
Isn't there anyone on here who likes the BSD licence?

I dont have anything against it. Infact they are equal to me - One is just better for some situations and software, while the other is better for other situations and software.

GPL is more pure open source in one way, that way is the fact anything made from it has to be open source. BSD is more pure open source in another way, it lets you do whatever you want with the program, even make a propriatory version.

DJ_Max
November 13th, 2005, 03:45 AM
Isn't there anyone on here who likes the BSD licence?
I do. (I thought you would get that impression from my post).

Sunnz
November 19th, 2006, 07:43 AM
I once has heard that BSD is very close of being public domain...

You can derive work from BSD licence software and apply whatever license you want...

So what kind of stuff you can't do under the BSD licence?

darkninja
November 19th, 2006, 08:26 AM
Well despite whatever the strongly anti-Linux BSD guys may say, I'd say that the GPL has worked out very well for the Linux operating system.

Nothing wrong with the BSD license or OSes, however the fact that Linux has dominated so much for the last few years is evidence that it's not the GPL holding Linux back.

Keep that in mind the next time someone tells you "OMG LINUX WILL NEVER WIN THE DESKTOP BECAUSE OF SMELLY HIPPIES LIKE RMS NOT EMBRACING NON-FREE DRM/PATENTS/CODECS/PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE". If accepting those things would make us successful, why isn't FreeBSD the top non-MS/Apple OS?

grte
November 19th, 2006, 08:29 AM
I once has heard that BSD is very close of being public domain...

You can derive work from BSD licence software and apply whatever license you want...

So what kind of stuff you can't do under the BSD licence?

Basically, you can't steal the credit. You have to give credit to the original programmers. Beyond that...Basically a free for all.

Sunnz
November 19th, 2006, 08:33 AM
why isn't FreeBSD the top non-MS/Apple OS?
From what I have heard, some large portion of codebase of BSD is actually Unix itself...

So when Open source version of BSD appears (FreeBSD), they have license problems and has gone a long way solving it.

Linux on the other hand is (GNU) Not Unix, so it did not have the problems that other BSD were facing and so was adopted more widely.

Sunnz
November 19th, 2006, 08:34 AM
How is it done though? Would having names buried deep in the documentations do?

Sluipvoet
November 19th, 2006, 08:49 AM
Basically, you can't steal the credit. You have to give credit to the original programmers. Beyond that...Basically a free for all.

Yes, but how many people pay attention to those credits?
Just look a Mac OS X.
How many of those Mac-users have ever heard about BSD.
It could be very frustrating for the original programmers.
Then again, you know this can happen when you make something under a BSD-licence.

Sunnz
November 19th, 2006, 09:17 AM
Yes, but how many people pay attention to those credits?
Just look a Mac OS X.
How many of those Mac-users have ever heard about BSD.
It could be very frustrating for the original programmers.
Then again, you know this can happen when you make something under a BSD-licence.
*Raises hand*!!!

mips
November 19th, 2006, 10:14 AM
Isn't there anyone on here who likes the BSD licence?


I like it.

Sunnz
November 19th, 2006, 10:19 AM
Basically, you can't steal the credit. You have to give credit to the original programmers. Beyond that...Basically a free for all.
So... you can take a BSD software and derive it into GPL, but not the other way around?

aspro
November 19th, 2006, 10:38 AM
Yeah, AFAIK, incorporating BSD code into GPL software is okay, but you can't do it the other way around.

I like the BSD license because while yes others can take the code, improve it and then release your code plus modifications under a proprietary license your original code is still out there. So in reality only the code which isn't yours is taken away from the community.

The problem is that this enables proprietary software to stay ahead of the open source world, by using the open code and building extensions on top of it. So it hampers the ability to get users on to free software and therefore the future developing power of free software.

But say for instance your only real aim is to have your code used, and you don't have any ideological aims to forward, the BSD enables any developer to use the code and therefore enables your code to end up being used by a larger possible userbase.

The GPL forces all further development to free software, whilst the BSD license is neutral and does not favour either free or unfree software.

So really, it all depends on what your aims are with the particular software.

frup
November 19th, 2006, 11:42 AM
but with the GPL, the individual programmer can release the same code under a different license can't he? meaning if one company wanted to make a proprietary version they just have to seek you're permission first... I could be wrong of course but that is how I have understood it..

Terracotta
November 19th, 2006, 01:03 PM
but with the GPL, the individual programmer can release the same code under a different license can't he? meaning if one company wanted to make a proprietary version they just have to seek you're permission first... I could be wrong of course but that is how I have understood it..
Of course, look at QT, it has a dual licence, one gpl, one proprietary. The author can decide what licence it takes, and for different use of the code there are different licences, if you want to create a closed source product with qt, you have to pay Trolltech, if you want to create a gpl product (KDE i.e.) you don't have to pay anything, but you can't do anything with it that Trolltech can't either, or won't be able to track down.

Blondie
November 19th, 2006, 01:51 PM
I think that the world is a better place for having both, and would be a worse place if one or the other didn't exist.

uNmentaLogic
November 19th, 2006, 02:14 PM
Me myself like the BSD license over the GPL, as many have said it gives more freedom to anyone who wants to use the code.

I view the GPL as less of a license and more of an ideology, not that I wish to degrade the wonderful work that the linux developers do I just feel it is not right for me or my way of thinking in regard to code.