On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 5:42 PM, Matthew Saltzman <mjs(a)clemson.edu> wrote:
On Thu, 2008-06-19 at 17:04 -0400, Horst H. von Brand wrote:
> Matthew Saltzman <mjs(a)clemson.edu> wrote:
> > Plenty of companies that would be willing to release free software are
> > leery of releasing it as GPL
>
> Why?
You'd have to ask their lawyers. But it's a fact.
>
> > and of using GPL software.
>
> Now that is completely unwarranted.
You'd have to tell their lawyers. But it's a fact.
As much as I hate to drag on this clusterfsck of zelotry any longer, I can't
let this bullshit fly unopposed. Here, I'll stick to a concrete example:
Linden Lab is a small start-up, which may or may not even be pulling a
profit yet, running off venture capital. They developed a closed-source
virtual world, Second Life. A year ago they chose to release their client
open source. What license did they choose? They chose the GPLv2. Think about
it, if they had used a BSD-style license, some other company could take
their code, start up their own for-profit service, and profit off Linden
Lab's work without giving anything back, quite possibly putting Linden Lab
out of business. Their investors would have never let that happen.
Without a license like the GPL, which ensures that derived works remain
free, Linden Lab would have never open sourced the Second Life client. And
that's a fact.