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What is also interesting (or is that scary?) is that some people reading HN can't tell a BSD license from a custom proprietary copyright notice.
by nakkiel 16y ago
What is also interesting (or is that scary?) is that some people reading HN can't tell a BSD license from a custom proprietary copyright notice.
- nodata 16y agoI think the problem is the "proprietary" conflicting with the notion of a BSD license.
- nakkiel 16y agoBelieve it or not but BSD or GPL licensed code remains the copyright holder's property. If it didn't no licensing terms would be applicable and it would be called Public Domain. Proprietary Software as coined by the FSF is merely a language abuse.
- geoffw8 16y agoI'm not a techie. I couldn't tell you what a BSD licence is exactly, but I'm aware of the differences, and reasons for choosing between them.
- bad_user 16y agoWhat's also interesting is that some people reading HN cannot tell the difference between << public domain >> and << BSD licensed >>. It's as if just because it's BSD we are talking about, you can break those 3 conditions at will. Not surprising actually, since some Linux kernel devs have also been doing it.
- nakkiel 16y agoWell, you wouldn't want to release anything into the public domain and I don't believe any sane developer ever has. As far as license violations are concerned, this is not a problem solely limited to the BSD as there are oh so many cases for the GPL as well for example. In my experience, I'm much more keen to include a notice about the folk who wrote that piece of software than complying with the GPL (although I always do). For example, let's say you want to strip down an ERP web-client so that mobile devices can actually use it. That's a quick and dirty 1 hour patch to render the software minimal. If the software is under the GPL, you must publish your changes. Knowing that your dirty patch will be obsolete in a 2 weeks time and that nobody will ever actually look for it. Well, I'm all for freedom.
- merijnv 16y ago> If the software is under the GPL, you must publish your changes. This is only true if you distribute a binary of the patched code. If your patching on the server side there is no requirement to publish your patch (hence why the Affero GPL was invented, it closes this loophole).
- mvalle 16y agoThis is an important point that I think a lot of people don't understand. Even respected people in the technology world don't recognize that the GPL is not a use license.
- nakkiel 16y agoIn our case, the 'changes' would be installed on a customer's server in their office. But you're actually totally right. There's an interesting lawsuit (still ongoing AFAIK) involving Free, a French DSL provider. They distribute a router (those are referred to as Box in marketing terms in France) with interesting features and based on Linux. They also include many other FOSS. It turns out they modified parts of those software (I have no idea which exactly) and are being prosecuted based on the fact that their devices, distributed to customers, include those modifications. They argue that they lend the Boxes to customers but those remain their property. While arguing about the lawsuit with a fellow, I realized he had no idea about what the GPL actually contained.
- randallsquared 16y agoWell, you wouldn't want to release anything into the public domain and I don't believe any sane developer ever has. D. Richard Hipp and everyone who has ever contributed to SQLite are insane, in your opinion? The public domain isn't a terrible choice when thinking about how and if to license your software, and is arguably the only incontestably ethical choice.
- dkersten 16y agoI disagree for the simple reason that some countries do not recognize the public domain, so people in those countries cannot use your code at all, without risking legal problems.