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On Tue, 2004-02-03 at 21:15, Chris Gehlker wrote:
> It's really hard to say how willing companies are to contribute back.=20
I can buy this.
> If you read the Ruby list you will get the strong impression that there=20
> is a feeling among coders that our clients are less willing than they=20
> should be to open up the code. They seem to feel without evidence that=20
> revealing the code would reveal too much about their business methods=20
> or simply that having more developed code gives them a competitive=20
It is funny that few of them have problems using shared code. Kind of
ironic.
> advantage. But of course coders are biased toward openness simply=20
> because we want to show off.
I don't think this is the case often. I know lots of coders who avoid
opening code because they don't want to be criticized. In fact, the
best programmer on my team hates to work with Free Software as he is
afraid his work is never "polished" enough to commit.
> OK, it could have been Hans and Derek.
I could be guilty.
> Yes when I say 'community' I pretty much mean the coders themselves. If=20
> you press me I will admit that users are part of the 'community' but=20
> only in the sense that the audience is part of the play.
The audience certainly can be a significant part of a play, if they so
choose. If you have ever been to a Rocky Horror Production this would
be evident. ;)
> I'm about to put forward a line of argument that is totally untestable=20
> but which I nonetheless tend to believe. Consider it an exercise in=20
> pure speculation if you will. It goes like this:
>=20
> The TCP/IP stack was developed as part of BSD and released under the=20
> BSD license. Other networking systems were being developed by DEC,=20
> Novell, Banyan and others. Because the TCP/IP stack was under a BSD=20
> license, it became the fundamental standard of the internet. Everybody=20
> could jump on board including Sun, governments and educational=20
> institutions around the world and, belatedly, Microsoft.
>=20
> Now imagine that TCP/IP had been developed under the GPL as part of=20
> Linux. Sun, IBM, Microsoft and everybody else would have been scared=20
> off. As the concept of networking was extended to something global=20
> rather than something just for the office, a battle of proprietary=20
> technologies would have ensued. Microsoft would have used the good tech=20
> that they acquired by hiring the smart refugees from DEC and their=20
> desktop monopoly to win the competition and what we have as the=20
> Internet today would be Windows Networking version 4.2. Linux would=20
> have been an interesting student project.
>=20
> So yeah, there is always a trade off and choosing a license that=20
> prevents your code from being embraced and extended may only mean that=20
> it gets bypassed and ignored. Actually, most of the stuff I do these=20
> days that is in any sense Open Source is released under the AFL which=20
> is a very BSD/MIT style license. This is partly because of the very=20
> concern that you raise.
Well even the FSF understands this. For example early on all their
libraries were under the LGPL. They did this because they wanted people
to adopt them. They knew if doing them under the GPL it would prevent
early adoption. Now that they have been successful they try not to do
that as they feel they can be successful convincing people to use the
GPL. Which they have been. For example KDE/Qt and Mozilla have started
dual licensing.
The downside of the BSD is the "embrace and extend" which is VERY
rampant. For example Foomatic Soft could create a new filesystem
standard. Everyone would love it. Adopt it. However, it is BSD.=20
Microsoft incorporates it and starts their "embrace and extend". Pretty
soon they have just obsoleted the standard. I believe their browser is
a darn good example of this. :)
I think you might have a harder time getting a GPL standard than a BSD
one, but I can guarantee you would have a lot easier time KEEPING a GPL
one than a BSD one. :)
--=20
Derek Neighbors
GNU Enterprise
http://www.gnuenterprise.org
derek@gnue.org
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