GPL vs BSD Licence

[TM4525 at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/25/04 4:21:53 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
amf at hobbit.neveragain.de writes:
> > But equally important is the ability to join back forks, when/if some 
> > group finds the right solution to a problem. And that's where the 
> > GPL comes in: you can really think of the whole license as nothing 
> > more than a requirement to be able to re-join a forked project from 
> > either side.
> 
> i don't really get what the gpl or bsd license has to do with rejoining
> forks. why shouldn't bsd licensed projects be able to refork in case...

Because Juniper, for example, are perfectly free to decide against
making their changes to the (in this case) FreeBSD code available
anyone at all.

For them, that may be a positive thing, because they don't have to open
their work for the competition. But this is exactly what the GPL is
aiming to avoid.
-------------------------------

The lack of foresight of the GPL is that, if Jupiter  had no choice but to 
give away their work, then the work never would have been done, so even
people willing to pay for it wouldn't have it. 

The GPL vs BSD issue is like liberal vs conservative. The liberal plaform 
sounds
good and reasonable to those who don't understand the bigger picture. GPL is
good if you're a programmer or hacker. But the companies that never put their
corporate dollars into projects, because they can't make a profit from them, 
hurts
the community in a different way. Products that would be available for sale 
aren't 
made available. People who can't spin their own don't get things that they 
need 
(which is why most companies use MS stuff). Most companies don't want source,
they want stuff that works.

FreeBSD is a perfect example of a thriving project with BSD licensing. Is 
FreeBSD
a "dead end"? Is the community worse off because companies like Cayote Point 
and
Emerging Technologies don't give the source to their products? No, because 
those
products never would have been created if they were hindered by the GPL.