Greg Kroah-Hartman's announcement for free Linux driver development included the necesssary legal framework to honor NDAs when creating GPL'd drivers. This allowance was discussed on the OpenBSD -misc mailing list. In a public exchange with Greg KH, Stephan Rickauer said: "Now these companies have a great excuse to keep specs locked up tight under NDA, while pretending to be 'open'. The OpenBSD project has made clear more than once how this will hurt Free Software in the long run. Signing NDA's ensures that Linux gets a working driver, sure, but the internals are indistinguishable from magic. It is a source code version of a blob." OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt called the free driver effort a farce, "you are trying to make sure that maintainers of code - i.e. any random joe who wants to improve the code in the future - has less access to docs later on because someone signed an NDA to write it in the first place. You are making a very big mistake."
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Member since:2006-02-15
The users tend to benefit about the same from either license.
Only if you consider the actual licensed code, but *not* its potential derivatives. Once you factor in derivatives (and you *have* to, since that is after all what the licenses are about), then BSD does not promote the user's freedom quite as much though it offers developer more freedom. So while derivatives of GPLed code are guaranteed to remain free for users to redistribute, derivatives of BSD code are not.
But that guarentee is only half the issue on derivities. In practice, the people who make derivatives have incentives other than the GPL for making the derivative work available and they have incentives to not use GPLed code because of the risk.
(Peter Salus' formulation of an old saw applies: The difference between theory and practice is always larger in practice.)
Member since:2005-07-02
But that guarentee is only half the issue on derivities. In practice, the people who make derivatives have incentives other than the GPL for making the derivative work available and they have incentives to not use GPLed code because of the risk.
Indeed, but again this is from the point of view of the derivative's developer, not of the derivative's user. The developer has an incentive to release the derivative under a more restrictive license (to make a profit, or at least try to recoup the costs of development), so the BSD offers the freedom to do this. From the user of a closed-source derivative, however, that means a potential loss of freedom.
Again, both points of view are justifiable, which is why arguments as to "which is more free" are essentially fruitless. I myself have no problem with the two licenses coexisting. :-)
Member since:
2005-07-02
And that safe incorporation into proprietary code can lead companies, such as mine, to donate a lot of code back, as an act of good citizenship for not having to worry about gpl infection of our intellectual property.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not actually taking sides in the debate, just noting that both can be considered freer depending on the philosophical context, and therefore it's just simpler to say that they are both free, but differently.
It is difficult to quantify. But as someone who has contributed significant chunks of code into both worlds and who has had to justify the investement in doing that to corporate management, I'll come down on the "BSD is freer" side.
Of course, because you're considering this from the developer's point of view, therefore your perspective on freedom is different than someone who only sees it as a user.
The users tend to benefit about the same from either license.
Only if you consider the actual licensed code, but *not* its potential derivatives. Once you factor in derivatives (and you *have* to, since that is after all what the licenses are about), then BSD does not promote the user's freedom quite as much though it offers developer more freedom. So while derivatives of GPLed code are guaranteed to remain free for users to redistribute, derivatives of BSD code are not.
It's an interesting argument, anyway, and is reminescent of an interesting debate about the nature of democracy: do you allow for people to elect totalitarian parties, i.e. parties that will then abolish the democratic regime... If you don't, then it's not real democracy, because the will of the people is restricted in some way. And if you do...well, you end up with Nazi Germany, born out of the ultra-democratic Weimar republic.
Limiting freedom in order to guarantee it does sound Orwellian, but the argument in favor of it *can* be made. Anyway, I don't expect us to agree on this, but at least I didn't wonder if you were confused or stupid... ;-)
Edited 2007-02-17 06:07