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I don't think that would make them likely to contribute back, they'd just use something else. He'd rather have selfish people using good software than choosing

I don't think that would make them likely to contribute back, they'd just use something else. He'd rather have selfish people using good software than choosing to use something inferior.

jkyle 12y ago
Maybe, maybe not. They'd all do the same sort of cost/benefit assessment and if they deemed the benefit to outweigh the cost of contributing back they would do it. There'd be some who would change their options and some that would become contributors. Hard to say how it would pan out. But, when you select a license like BSD (which I've done myself) you shouldn't complain when users don't contribute back. You selected a license that formally declares your intent and expectations; the user has formally agreed to them.
- clarry 12y ago
  Actually one's expectation can very well be that people be nice to you even if you're not using legalese to require that of them.
- s73v3r 12y ago
  I wonder how much of an actual analysis is done in these cases, and how much it's just a boss saying that he doesn't want people "wasting their time" working on something that isn't directly related to their stuff.
zanny 12y ago
Somehow Google, Samsung, and Intel are sticking the Linux kernel in everything despite it being GPL'd and them having to release their modifications. Might have something to do with how reengineering the Linux kernel would cost on the order of billions of dollars in engineer time.
- mschuster91 12y ago
  Just look at how many Android vendors actually honor the GPL. Even the major vendors tend to mess up their source code dumps, and lots of the Chinese (hi Mediatek) vendors don't even react on emails. Google should require in the vendor license terms for the Android brand and the Play Store that the sources be released on Github.