OpenBSD 2.7 is out

Kevin Buettner kev@primenet.com
Thu, 15 Jun 2000 17:34:59 -0700


On Jun 15,  3:44pm, Bill Warner wrote:

> also I would say the GPL is there to protect the freedom of the Code while
> the BSD style licenses are they to protect the Coder.

And again it depends upon which Coder you're referring to.  The
original authors of GPL'd code still hold the copyright and may use it
for whatever purpose they choose.  (E.g, the GPL'd version of
ghostscript trails the commercial version by a couple of releases. 
That's because the author wants to make money by selling licenses for
the cutting edge versions of the code.)

The BSD style license is beneficial to folks who want to take the
code, perhaps make a few changes to it, and then sell licenses to use
the code with few restrictions.  I.e, the BSD style license gives
others the freedom to exploit someone else's work.  It does nothing
however to protect the original author of the work.

Having said that, there've been many times when I've been grateful
to someone for having used a BSD license for their work, because I
was able to use it in some larger product that I was working on for
my employer at the time.

Kevin