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Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!zombie.ncsc.mil!nntp.coast.net!torn!watserv3.uwaterloo.ca!undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca!vluu From: vluu@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Viet-Trung Luu) Subject: Re: GPL (was Re: Linux vs FreeBSD) Sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner) Message-ID: <DJzAnw.87x@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 08:09:32 GMT References: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4b2q7v$aht@kadath.zeitgeist.net> <4b67mo$19l@dyson.iquest.net> <4bbs2d$bet@snowdon.elsevier.co.uk> Nntp-Posting-Host: lagrange.uwaterloo.ca Organization: University of Waterloo Lines: 77 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:31737 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:11290 In article <4bbs2d$bet@snowdon.elsevier.co.uk>, Paul Richards <dpr> wrote: [...] >Interesting point. I wonder, if Berkeley hadn't used the license they did would >unix even be the OS it is today. The popularity of Unix is largely down to >Sun and other commercial companies who picked it up as a potentially saleable >OS. If this hadn't happened I strongly suspect it would have stayed as a >mainframe OS and ultimately gone the way of IBM's OS's and VMS. To a certain >extent, it had a new lease of life when client-server systems became the normal >mode of operation. I doubt very much that Sun would have picked a GPL'd src >base as their OS because it would have been commercially unacceptable to >give away their R&D budget to their competitors. True... the BSD license *does* make it easier for commercial companies. >In my experience, and why I use a BSD license, you gain virtually nothing >from imposing the restrictions on re-use that the GPL does. I've not >suffered in any way from the fact that anyone can use my code to do whatever >they want with. Well, that's you. Others don't mind giving software away (along with source code), but mind people selling their software without sources and them not getting any of the profits. Or perhaps they mind others improving their software, marketing it and making bundles of cash, and them never getting to see the code that improved their software. >I think people misunderstand the purpose of the GPL. It was not written to >protect authors from unscrupulous companies stealing their code, it was >deliberately designed to *PREVENT* companies from using the code unless they >gave away their own development sources. The agenda of the FSF was (and still >is >as far as I know) to try and prevent companies from keeping their sources >secret. i.e. they wanted companies like Sun to have to release the src to any >new innovative ideas they developed so that the rest of the industry would >also benefit. I personally think that basically well intentioned idea has >completely failed. What has happened instead is that for those products that >are widely used, like gcc, the FSF has had to considerably water down the >license and that infact, no company in it's right mind is simply going to give >away working product to its competitors. Sit down and think about it >rationally, if you're a software house and you release source code then how can >you possibly stay in business when all your competitors have to do is pick up >your sources and re-package them. Well, yes *and* no. The problem with the BSD license is that a dozen companies may use it, but if there's a bug in the software, then it must be fixed a dozen times in a dozen different ways. If there's an improvement to be made, it must be made a dozen times in a dozen different ways... after a while, the different companies have very different code (having different bugs), and this isn't very productive. I guess the idea is that it is in everyone's best interest to fix bugs only once, and to make improvements only once. That way, companies actually get to work on new features, instead of reimplementing the features that others have, but they don't. I guess not many companies bought into this philosophy. [...] >I'm curious why the Linux advocates are so strongly against the BSD license, >what do you think the GPL buys you above what a BSD license does unless you're >only concern is that company X can sell your code without giving you back any >enhancements they make. Well, I'm not... as far as I can see, it should be up to the programmer (which license to choose). What GPL prevents are companies taking the entirety of Linux, improving it here and there and not telling others what they did, and then selling it as a vastly different OS (even if 99% of the code remained the same and the changes were only cosmetic). What I'd like to see is a version of Linux that *is* cosmetically improved. From a technical standpoint, there's not much that's wrong with Linux, especially when compared to Doze95 or OS/2. However, it tends to scare many people, since everything isn't as easy as it could be. A system that's NeXTstep-ish would be very nice... and further, a company wouldn't necessarily have to make any changes to the kernel itself and thus could keep its code to itself. - Trung