4 ms·
I don't subscribe to the entire GNU/GPL philosophy. But it does serve as a useful standard or benchmark of software freedom. GPL, Public domain, Creative Common
by reedlaw 13y ago
I don't subscribe to the entire GNU/GPL philosophy. But it does serve as a useful standard or benchmark of software freedom. GPL, Public domain, Creative Commons, MIT, and BSD-style licenses all serve their purpose and are all preferable to proprietary licenses or EULAs.
- brudgers 13y agoIn my opinion, two issues tend to be conflated - licensing and access to source code. That these are separate issues is obvious - on the one hand, by looking at the Creative Commons License where access to the original material is no different than it is with regard to a work published by Disney. On the other hand, a proprietary license may provide access to source code - this is less common today than several decades ago, and certainly less common in consumer facing applications than B2B software. GNU is an interesting philosophical position, and one I admire to a significant extent. But it is not a universal solution. Emacs is not for my mom. Word is simply a better option - for much the same reason that the factory manuals are a better option than Wikipedia when my mechanic tunes my Cooper.
- reedlaw 13y agoSo proprietary software can have open source code, even living on github? What kind of license is that? I know that GPL and other open source licenses are OK with charging money for distribution of binaries, but usually with the source code.
- brudgers 13y agoMySQL is dual licensed under GPL and a proprietary license. http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/oem/ http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/oem/
- reedlaw 13y agoAh yes, a dual license. But to dual license the project has to own all the rights to every part of the system, correct? That is, it can't incorporate other libraries that are incompatible with the proprietary license.