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From: d87-mal@byse.nada.kth.se (Mats Lfkvist)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: Summary of Linux vs. 386BSD vs. Commercial Unixes
Message-ID: <D87-MAL.93Apr18165428@byse.nada.kth.se>
Date: 18 Apr 93 15:54:28 GMT
References: <1993Apr15.225354.18654@samba.oit.unc.edu>
<1993Apr17.161516.2794@serval.net.wsu.edu>
<1993Apr17.175431.25015@coe.montana.edu>
<1993Apr17.190517.4276@serval.net.wsu.edu>
<1993Apr17.205715.11278@coe.montana.edu>
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In-Reply-To: nate@cs.montana.edu's message of Sat, 17 Apr 1993 20:57:15 GMT
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In article <1993Apr17.205715.11278@coe.montana.edu> nate@cs.montana.edu (Nate Williams) writes:
No, I would not complain. I believe the work should be in the same vein
as it was distributed. COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY free. Not copylefted,
which places restrictions on its distribution.
If you REALLY want to ensure your code is distributed by others in the same
vein as when you distributed it, you HAVE to add restrictions to it demanding
that (funny, this is exactly what the GPL does...).
The original BSD copyright has been this way, but unfortunately a group of
people take the code, fix the code, and then place restrictions on it.
If you don't like this (the BSD copyright allows it on purpose as others
have commented), you probably like the GPL more than you think. The GPL
is the only license I've seen so far that ensures that a piece of
software stays free over its lifetime. Placing a piece of code in the
public domain or using a BSD-ish copyright ensures that anyone can
get the code as originally distributed, but nothing more.
I also don't understand why you think it's ok for a developer to
take the BSD code, add their own fixes to it without making them available,
and then sell the system binary only with the most restricting copyright
notice you can imagine,
but don't like it when another developer
takes the BSD code, add their own fixes to it and then makes them available
under the GPL.
_
Mats Lofkvist
d87-mal@nada.kth.se