Re: licensing

    I think the key difference between the BSD and GPL licenses is the 
concept of "future freedom."

    Is the future freedom of the software important to you, or just the 
immediate term?  I'm guessing, but with something developed at taxpayers' 
expense, the idea of future freedom would probably be important.

    The BSD license allows someone to take a work, modify it, and then keep 
those modifications secret, thus turning the work into a proprietary, 
black-box product.  The GPL forbids this.

    Under the GPL, if you take a work and modify it, those modifications are 
also licensed under the GPL and if you redistribute the software, you also 
have to redistribute the source to your modifications.  This ensures future 
freedom of the software, and allows others to then build on the 
modifications, making possible rapid improvements and developments, and 
ensuring that end-users have as much freedom as possible.

-- 
  Regards, | Why would anyone want to run an operating system that is free,
  .        | has open source code, and is developed worldwide by countless
  Randy    | thousands of programmers?
           | Find out why at <http://www.golgotha.net/linux-whatis.php>