[kwlug-disc] Permissive vs copyleft licenses

[Mikalai Birukou]

>> The GNU project seems to have been a reaction to the BSD project. The
>> goal was not simply to create useful new free software like Emacs,
>> it was to create a complete replacement for BSD under a competing free
>> software licence. But the original BSD software that RMS was cloning
>> stills exists, and can be found in BSD distributions.
> Not sure what you mean by that.  From what I can tell, GNU was a
> reaction to proprietary licenses, not a reaction to a free BSD project.
>
> 	https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-history.html
> 	https://www.gnu.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html
> 	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution
> 	https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/bsdl-gpl/unix-license.html
> 	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_Laboratories,_Inc._v._Berkeley_Software_Design,_Inc.
>
> 	1971		- RMS begins at MIT in a free software world by default
> 	1976		- Bill Gates open letter to hobbyists
> 	1978		- BSD license
> 	1980's		- proprietary licenses claim parts of Unix systems...
> 			  to run a complete one, you had to agree to a
> 			  software license, as I understand it
> 	1983		- GNU project starts, to avoid such license agreements
> 	1985		- FSF starts
> 	Feb 1989	- GPLv1 license released
> 	Jun 1989	- Net/1 BSD
> 	Jun 1991	- Net/2 BSD
> 			- GPLv2 license released
> 	Jul 1991	- Linus's post to comp.os.minix
> 	1992		- Linux released under GPLv2
> 	early 1990's	- AT&T, BSDi, and University of California Berkeley
> 			  in court fighting over Unix / BSD
> 	mid 1990's	- Novell buys AT&T Unix, UCB terminates BSD support
>
> If there had never been proprietary licenses, there would likely have
> never been GNU or GPL.

Without proprietary licenses there would be a world that was before 
that: share as you like, and people expect(!) to get blueprints to their 
non-physical gadgets, all in a non-formalized setting.

> GNU and Linux have the dis/advantage of copyleft baggage, but the advantage
> that they were written in a free software world from the bottom up.

Let me correct

GNU and Linux come with an advantage of many people contributing to it. 
When you personally pay a person to write code, may be that person will 
not mind that her work is BSD licensed. But when you know that your code 
is used by those folks (subconsciousness uses Forbes' cover image to 
visualize), they get benefit and you get bug requests, then any internal 
drive for contributing evaporates.

Advantage of GPL is in a volume and diversity of code.

> There was never any dispute to its origins such as BSD had to extract
> itself from (and is now fully extracted from).

Let's repeat again for anyone who starts public projects. Use GPL and 
some anti-cloud clauses. Interested people will contribute back. If a 
big co comes by, they will have to negotiate, and cut a cheque. If you 
choose BSD style license be ready to be burned by regret from inside(!).

Situation of code release from some university under BSD is not 
comparable to someone labouring on kernel in their free time, not paid 
to do this. On one hand we have one set of conditions, on another we 
have other conditions. On one hand we see BSD, on another we have GPL, 
copyleft.

When we take into account details, it is all simple and clear. Hm-m, 
somehow this reminds of debugging flow.