These are the first three parts of a multipart paper ‘BSD vs. GPL’: “The paper attempts to establish a framework for the social analysis that might help to clarify issues for developers of free/open source products as well as the relative merits of each license. This paper is written from the software developer point of view, not that of a lawyer. I would argue that such an approach makes sense because none of major open/free software licenses was ever tested in court. And as such they can be viewed as a social contract, a mechanism for attracting users and co-developers and ensuring cooperation.“
BSD vs. GPL: A Framework for the Social Analysis
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
And this is only Part 1?? Life is too short for this…
There are three parts there.
I read that too fast. The “first three parts.” That could be even worse! How many parts are there?
Well for something not written by a lawyer the web page through me at first. I didn’t make it to far reading before it was hurting my brain. Some how this seams to be a draft for someones term paper, though they need to trim 10000 words.
More like a lot of facts. At the end of each chapter, they should have a short conclusion, like “GPL sucks, live with it!”… making our lives so much more easier.
I think Both BSD and GPL exist because they are needed to serve their own specific purpose in the computer science world.
ciao
yc
Amateurs. Endless endless scrawl about the legal ramifications of the GNU GPL and the author doesn’t have any legal qualifications. Want my opinion as yet another non-laywer? The GNU GPL wins many battles for Free Software, most of them behind closed doors. BSD users ultimately have only carrots, but sometimes you need a stick.
Basically the author liked KDE and didn’t like Stallman’s insistence that one way or another the Qt licensing problem must be resolved, so over time (starting in 1998) he has written a HUGE rant about how BSD licenses are better, featuring a huge number of quotes from /. comments as supporting evidence (!)
Since the current version of KDE uses a GPL’d Qt and is one of the most popular pieces of Free Software ever it’s a bit LATE for this rant, but there you go.
“Since the current version of KDE uses a GPL’d Qt and is one of the most popular pieces of Free Software ever it’s a bit LATE for this rant, but there you go.”
Since the current version of MacOS used the BSD’d FreeBSD and is over 10 times more popular than Linux or KDE, it’s a bit LATE for this rant…
A lot more software inovation has come from stuff licensed uder the BSD license than the GPL license. There’s a very good reason for that…
Who cares about innovation? Most of the important innovations happened 20 years ago.
> Most of the important innovations happened 20 years ago.
Amen that, brother. Because since then, the “innovative” people have flocked around a GPLed Unix descendant, claiming it to be the end-all, be-all to all computing woes. (Yes, I know, I’m exagerating, but so is the other camp…)
GPL (and to a lesser extend BSD) have their weaknesses, but instead of admitting it and trying to do something to counter the effects (inconsistent and uncomfortable user interfaces to name only one), many actually consider it a “feature”…
Just to avoid (too much) flaming, the other camp doesn’t fare any better: trying to squeeze the utmost in profit out of the customer, while stiff-arming the “competition” and turning a blind eye towards the s***load of legacy that has build up in the process…
But when people step up trying to offer a *really* innovative, alternative approach, especially the Linux community cries rape and murder, why oh why don’t you join the Linux hype… as many an “alternative” OS visionaire can testify.
I could not believe the sincerity with which people approached me when I kicked lose my OS project, telling me “if your OS isn’t build on Unix, it will suck – Unix is so brilliant on everything”… so much for innovation…
Sorry I went a little bit OT in that post… but fact is, we will have a hard time in *our* project *because* of the popularity of the GPL. If we want to get anywhere anytime soon, we will have to “canibalize” other Open Source projects.
Due to the GPL, we must take utmost care so that we can export an interface that is *not* GPL, but LGPL / BSD – because, like it or not, to be a *real* success you need the companies’ support, and to attract them “GPL” is the wrongest thing you could say.
I think the GPL has done much to Open Source. But I also think that the GPL is a bad choice if you are working on a bigger scope than implementing yet another MP3 player. Even the LGPL has some tricky parts in it…
Does your OS ues object orientation networking and gui’s? what about threads? Those are the sort of innovations I’m talking about. The only thing I can think of that isn’t 20 years old is aspect oriented progrsming and the only implementation of that I know about is an (open sourced) version of java. Everything just seems to take the same few ideas and recombine them. Which is okay. But not innovation.
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_10/bezroukov/index.html
About the Author
Nikolai Bezroukov is a Senior Internet Security Analyst at BASF Corporation, Professor of Computer Science at Fairleigh Dickinson University (NJ) and
Webmaster of http://www.softpanorama.org — Open Source Software University – a volunteer technical site for the United Nations SDNP program that helps with
Internet connectivity and distributes Linux to developing countries. He authored one of the first classification system for computer viruses and an influential Russian language book on the subject — Computer Virology in 1991
(see also the author current views on the subject). Right now is more interested in e-commerce security, Perl and so called Orthodox File Managers
(Midnight commander, etc.).
E-mail: [email protected]
He must have covered 5000 points in the 3 articles. For what its worth, it all comes down to whether or not you or your company are going to use code written by someone else.
If you are not going to use someone elses code in one of your projects then it doesn’t matter whether you like BSD or GPL licenses. Same goes if you just use the software.
If on the other hand you or your company plan on using someone elses code in a commercial product then you have to make some choices. For all programmers that feel they could get rich if only Linux hadn’t shown up, its time to take a good hard look in the mirror. You will have to stick to stealing BSD code for your own private gain or hire programmers and make money the hard way. EARN IT.
Please do not let Microsoft turn this into a battle between open source licenses. What does the open source community care what microsoft thinks about its licenses? To hell with ’em. If Microsoft feels that $4,000,000,000 is not enough for R&D then maybe they should shake loose some of that wad of cash they have stored up but please do not whine about the difficulties of using GPL code in commercial products.
If you feel there are no innovations comming out of GPL code then you will not be inclined to use GPL code in a commercial product. Problem solved.
If you feel that software developed using federal funding(our tax dollars) should later be sold back to the public for a profit, then maybe you would not mind sending major commercial software companies a little stipend every year to save time instead of filling out tax forms. Maybe the IRS could add a little box on our tax forms right under ‘president fund’ or ‘plant a tree fund’. say for example the ‘buy Bill Gates a new wing on his house fund’ or ‘Send Larry Ellison on a round the world cruise fund’
The beauty of open source is that millions of people around the planet have the source code for thousands of projects in their hands. Sounds a little pie in the sky but due to this fact these projects will never die due to a bad business plan or a down economy or through obsolescence. The source code.is freely available. Even if 90% percent of the public can’t do anything with the source, the other 10% will be able to carry on.
Commercial software companies on the other hand seem to think that THEIR source code is worth millions ONLY if it is kept secret. As if all of its value would vanish like a puff of smoke if it was taken out of its vault and exposed to sunlight. rotfl
—- ps
Everybody chip in a dollar to save poor old SOLARs liittle OS project. He just can’t figure out whose code he is going to have to steal to make his project work.
Oh and don’t worry about the OS market. Its wide open.