Linked by David Adams on Mon 7th Mar 2011 17:55 UTC
"How long have you been using FreeBSD. Months? Years? Decades? And you love using it because of whatever reason but at the same time you're feeling a bit guilty to use it all for free without giving anything back? Well now you'll have the chance to change that. We at FreeBSD are always in need of new people who are willing to spare some of their time and effort into FreeBSD development."
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Member since:2006-10-08
The BSDL has often be criticized as a "rape me license" as it explicitely allows exactly what you did describe. It's a developer's choice which license he applies. For example, if it's okay for me to provide my work for free to others who then can make the big money with it - fine. If this is not my intention, there are other licenses to choose from.
So basically, BSDL is more free than GPL as it allows you to do things with the licensed material than the GPL would allow. If this is always a good permission... this is debatable, I agree. But I would let guilt out of scope. Guilt has no place in business, in marketing, or in crime. It's about profit, after all.
Member since:2009-08-26
For example, if it's okay for me to provide my work for free to others who then can make the big money with it - fine.
The GPL allows this as well, just not in the form of derivative proprietary software.
Far more money has been made with GPL software than BSD. Corps have saved billions by not having to buy commerical Unix licenses.
Edited 2011-03-10 00:12 UTC
Member since:2006-07-15
>Well, no. I read the license, and it said nothing about a requirement to feel guilty for not giving back.
Yes this is true, the GPL doesn't say anything about "feeling guilty" too. It's about open source, community and such things. Even a license like the GPL doesn't guarantee anything, look for example at Ubuntu or many companies using the sources of Red Hat.
Btw. many companies like Juniper, Cisco, Nokia, Yahoo, Apple etc. contribute something back to BSD, but it's not about those big companies, it's about the single user ... you know _community_.
Finally, you're comparing apples and oranges.
Features
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
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Member since:
2006-05-05
Ever feel guilty for not giving back to a BSD project that you use so much?
Well, no. I read the license, and it said nothing about a requirement to feel guilty for not giving back. In fact, the license said I could do as I pleased with the code, including selling closed binaries for a large profit without owing anyone anything, least of all a feeling of guilt.
Whenever I hear that the BSD license is "more free" than the GPL, I think of this guilt crap that some of its advocates try to pull. My thought is: rename the BSD License to the Finger-waiving License or give it a rest.