Re: Again: list of advantages of the xGPL

"Roland" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Advantages of the xGPL in comparison with the BSDL:
> 
> 2) Prevent embrace and extend tactics. Imagine Linux being under X11. I 
> wouldn't feel comfortable thinking about the
> 
> possibility of M$ using this tactic. They certainly have the cash to afford 
> making their own fork, think about what happened
> 
> with the Kerberos protocol.

I also once thought Kerberos was a good example of an advantage of GPL.  But as
others have pointed out, all that would have done is prevent Microsoft from
using a GPL implementation of Kerberos.  Even if the MIT implementation was
GPL, Microsoft was still free to create their own implementation, including the
undocumented extensions.  

Remember, the GPL would cover just one particular implementation, not all
possible implementations.  To protect against what Microsoft did, you would
have needed something like a software patent on Kerberos authentication.
  
> 3) Code development will no longer be halted on the hope for future 
> releases of proprietary code. Think about DirectX.

On the flip side, code development would also not be accelerated by the release
of code that is part of an otherwise proprietary work.


=====
Sincerely,
Matt Seitz

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