Re: [circle] GPL Violation - no I wont

[Thomas Mangin]

Hi,

>Really how does the GPL help innovation more than say bsd which allows
use of code in almost any situation. The GPL does this for apparent good
reasons and that's to keep products free at the cost (in my opinion) of
innovation.

I disagree. You are free to read all the GPL code you want, learn from
it and write a totally closed software having saved lots of time.

The GPL is designed to protect the _initial_ innovators from people
taking without contributing to/helping the innovation the initial project.

No GPL code is not free. It took time (and often money) to write it and
it is logical that people who done it want to make sure that no one will
take advantage of their work creating a clone (with no initial cost) and
competiting with them without "giving back".

Sometime even the GPL is not enough to protect your investment (see the
Nessus decision to go closed source due to other firms just taking their
software and and competing with them without contributing).

BSD code often cames from Universities : the society paid for the work
and where it make sense to give it. The BSD licence allow to "close the
source". It fit well when you are Microsoft and want a good TCP Stack
(from BSD) but do not want to have to licence one. It allow wide
utilisation of an initial code base.

The GPL have a huge software library but it may simply not be the
licence for your project.

Thomas