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."
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-02-15
Indeed, but again this is from the point of view of the derivative's developer, not of the derivative's user.
It's from either view point. If GPL causes commercial developers to not use the GPLed code, there is no derivitive and users lose. If BSD license allows developers to convince management to use BSD licensed code and the code is released users win. If BSD licensed code is available to the user only in binary but provides them functionality they want. They win.
The only one who can lose from BSD licensed code is the user who wishes to develop further derived code that's not available. There is, in practice, very little such code.
Member since:2005-07-02
If GPL causes commercial developers to not use the GPLed code, there is no derivitive and users lose.
The users do not lose freedom, since in that example there is no program for them to lose freedom over in the first place.
If BSD licensed code is available to the user only in binary but provides them functionality they want. They win.
They "win" the opportunity to use the program, but they lose the freedom to redistribute it (among other things).
You're talking about two different things here: the availability of a particular piece of software, and what the users can do with it.
BTW, I understand your point completely, and I'm not saying that making closed source code from BSD code is bad - just that it can limit the freedom of users, while increasing the freedom of developers. Whether a developer chooses GPL or BSD for their work depends on what they value most: the freedom for other developers to produce closed-source derivatives, or the freedom of users from such closed-source derivatives. Both are justifiable from a philosophical/ethical point of view, therefore one cannot be said to be freer (or better) than the other, IMHO.
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. :-)