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From: torvalds@cc.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: GPL (was Re: Linux vs FreeBSD)
Date: 22 Dec 1995 10:24:32 +0200
Organization: University of Helsinki
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References: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4b67mo$19l@dyson.iquest.net> <4bbs2d$bet@snowdon.elsevier.co.uk> <4bdde6$ht@pell.pell.chi.il.us>
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:31742 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:11294
In article <4bdde6$ht@pell.pell.chi.il.us>, Orc <orc@pell.chi.il.us> wrote:
>In article <4bbs2d$bet@snowdon.elsevier.co.uk>, Paul Richards <dpr> wrote:
>
>>I'm curious why the Linux advocates are so strongly against the BSD license,
Actually, I don't think any linux advocates are against the BSD license:
I certainly am not. What I _am_ against, is the stupid and continuing
war against the GPL that a lot of people wage.
I _like_ the BSD license: it makes sense. It's simple, it's clear, and
it does what lots of people want. I'd be ready to use that license for
my code, any day.
However, I'm also idealistic. Not the rabid, frothing at the mouth,
bomb-throwing crazy type idealist, but instead the type that thinks that
the software world is better off with easy and free access to sources.
Because that's what _I_ wanted to have when I started, and I couldn't
have it.
So having the choice between the BSD license and the GPL, I actually
think that the BSD license is a lot clearer and in some respects better,
and in a perfect world I'd use that instead. BUT! I also think that the
GPL is more conductive to making the world more like the place I would
prefer.
But that isn't really the point. What I then react _very_ badly to (I
don't like flaming, but I do it on a few issues, this being one), is
TOTAL JERKS who have the gall to question MY (conscious) choice of
copyright.
Sadly, in most cases, these total jerks then go on to extoll the virtues
of the BSD license, and when I flame them, people think I'm flaming the
BSD license. Not so.
In short, I happen to think that the GPL is the better license for _me_
under the circumstances. It provably is a very working license (nobody
can claim that linux or gcc aren't flourishing under it), and it does
what I want it to do.
Similarly, the BSD license is fine, and it provably works too (M$ people
_can_ claim that UNIX isn't flourishing, but we'll just try to prove
them wrong ;). And it does what lots of people want it to do.
("I love barney, and barney loves me", or how does it go? Our culture is
lacking here in Finland ;-)
Linus
PS, just because this is an advocacy group, here is a small non-barney
message to all those GPL whiners: SHUT THE F*CK UP. You are low-life
with no right to whine. It's very simple: don't USE it if you don't
like it. Nobody forces you to use GPL'd software as a coding base.