[ILUG] BSD vs GPL licenses

[Mark McLoughlin]

Hi David,

On Tue, 2011-04-05 at 15:43 +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.

Random thoughts:

  - Figure out which side of the FSF's "four freedoms" and "moral 
    imperative" debate you fall. If you see proprietary software as
    immoral and you wish to ensure that the users of your software have
    those four freedoms, then the GPL is obviously what you want.

  - You might also decide to go with the GPL as it makes it harder for 
    people to use your code and not share their modifications with you. 
    But do note that isn't the GPL's primary purpose. The GPL only 
    requires people to share their modifications with whomever they 
    distribute the modified code to. And they are not required to 
    distribute to you.

  - Put some thought into licensing compatibility - if you want to 
    ensure your code can be used anywhere without any license 
    incompatibilities, you want a more permissive license.

  - If you go with the GPL, consider whether you want to include the 
    "version 2 or later" clause. If you're happy with v3, it may still 
    make sense to license as "v2 or later" to ensure license 
    compatibility with projects that are v2 only.

  - Stick to one of the most commonly used licenses. Some folks try and
    be clever and write their own, or use the "Do WTF you want" license
    or release under "Public Domain", etc. You just wind up making it
    more difficult for folks to use your code.

  - If you wish to ensure you have a healthy community of contributors 
    around your code, I wouldn't focus your thoughts on the license. 
    Whether a free software project is successful does not hinge on 
    whether it uses a copyleft license.

  - Pick one and get on with building a community! :-)

Good Luck,
Mark.