[ILUG] BSD vs GPL licenses

[ollie at eillo.org]

 On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 15:43:15 +0100, David Pintor wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I know i might be starting a little war here, but i would like to 
> hear what
> advice you guys have about both GPL and BSD licenses: which one do 
> you
> prefer and why and so on.
>
> I know there are great products like Apache using permissive licenses 
> that
> are a success within the Open Source Community, but in my opinion 
> forcing
> people to share the code (as the GPL does) is a better practice to 
> improve
> innovation and progress...
>
> Any thoughts appreciated.
>
> Cheers,
>
> David


 I assume you understand the differences between the licences. .

 It's an ongoing discussion. I think some people attribute the success 
 of
 GNU/Linux to GPL - Id don’t agree. I think GNU/Linux would have been 
 equally
 successful with the BSD licence. At least initially.

 However I believe GPL came into its own once big business became 
 interested
 in Linux – with GPL its difficult
 for them to take open source software and add their own proprietary 
 bits to
 try and nail down parts of the market by refusing to share. Similar to 
 what
 happened to Unix.

 I consider the BSD licence to be truly free as in beer, whereas the the
 GPL is free as in beer as long as you share any changes made to said 
 beer.

 Both have their merits. I think GPL is generally more popular because 
 to me
 the BSD licence says “I don’t care, do what you want”  whereas the GPL 
 was
 made deliberately to support  movement or  philosophical point of view
 which made it easier for people to get behind and actively support.