Re: licensing

On Sun, 2003-10-19 at 16:10, Taran Rampersad wrote:
> I fail to understand how offering the same code under 2 licenses is 
> beneficial. In fact, it's confusing. I could use the GPL'd code to 
> create a proprietary application that way, citing that I was using the 
> BSD license.
> 
> If you're going to GPL the code, GPL the code. If you're going to use 
> the BSD license, use the BSD license. Please don't do both, it has the 
> potential to be a legal quagmire.

I'm not a lawyer, but Perl, a widely used language in web applications
and other things is available this way.  I don't believe that making my
code available under BSD would change the licensing of any code I used,
in fact I might not be able to make any extensions of GPL code available
under BSD.  I would not advocate breaking licenses by making GPL stuff
available under BSD.

The way I see it is that advocates of GPL want to avoid having code lost
into proprietary applications.  I don't see that as a great concern
because all proprietary applications end up being supplanted by open
source ones sooner or later.  Some of the proprietary apps may last a
long time but eventually they fall out of favour and are discarded. 
Some of that code then finds its way into openly shared resources.

Its good/essential that some code is made GPL now but other things would
never be developed if there was no proprietary interest.  Most of us
programmers write code for proprietary applications.  Unfortunately GPL
cannot be included in those applications.  BSD allows the freedom to use
the code in other ways.  I think both licenses are good/essential.

I can make my code available under either license if I wish.  I don't
plan to make anyone else's GPL code available under BSD or BSD under
GPL.  This may not be the best solution for everyone but I think it
makes it widely usable by diverse interests.  The government needs can
be met by including a requirement for attribution and having the work
done by local developers.  Thats how I see it at any rate.

Simon de Weerdt