Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 6th Jul 2005 18:44 UTC
OpenBSD De Raadt's team makes OpenBSD, an operating system, and OpenSSH, for secure communications. Here, he talks about why he does it, about industry use of open-source software, and about dedication to quality paying off.
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GPL and the perversion it allows
by on Thu 7th Jul 2005 18:37 UTC

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"yea but in 15 years you would think they would of become more popular, it has only taken linux a few years to really start rolling...but anyway "

Although this is not the main issue of my analysis, let me begin by this:
You don't think that has /anything/ to do with marketing and evangelizing (which the BSD hackers are very bad at, they just code and don't gloat)? When you see HP posters with "Linux" written on it, at airports, do you think this is gratuitous? Or do you think there's huge PR behind it?

Now for the main dish:
The GPL is being widely used by people who really want: free improvents done by others for their products and who want to sell you a proprietary license. This is why they throw GPL projects at the public with virtually non-existent documentation.

So, the GPL lends itself to this perversion: proprietary licences. As of now, you can take a GPLed product and develop it further in-house, without being obliged to "give back." So, really, in the end it ends up working like the BSD license. However, this will change in version 3.0.

When that change comes some consumers of the GPL products will realize that they have been scammed into acquiring a propretary license. This will either force them to avoid the GPL altogether, thereby either increasing adoption of their proprietary twins, or they will have to use the GPL, and that, in the end, will mean that they will be working for free for those vendors using the GPL to sell a propretary license. Another side effect is that some business will simply die, as people don't buy their licenses, prefering only the GPL product.

This means the GPL corners you into the following situation (again, this is after version 3.0): if you choose a product under the GPL that has a twin proprietary license, anything you develop will be used to enrich the software selling that license. This means you yourself will work for others. Your other choice is to but their license, which is a questionable attitude, since the code is GPL. So, you both lose. Unless, that is, you want to go along with that game. But let's be clear: it /is/ a game. It is /not/ about freedom.

The BSD license does /not/ lend itself to that perversion of working for free for others. No one can blackmail you into a proprietary license (for instance, releasing so little documentation you don't even know where to begin- JBoss, anyone?) The BSD is truly collaborative and tributary to the original hacker spirit that gave us so many things.

It is all PR in the Linux game. Linux zealots are keen to defend the GPL when, all the while, what their truly doing is working for free for big corporations.

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Sorry

s/software/software house/

s/but/buy

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