Submitted by “A research firm serving the mobile phone industry has published an 18-page whitepaper about open source licensing. Entitled ‘GPLv2 vs. GPLv3’, the paper examines the meteoric rise of open source software, and the forces that shaped each license, before concluding with an extremely detailed point-by-point comparison.”
GPLv2 is GPLv3 with more freedom and less restrictions, as easy as that.
The GPLv3 is only “less free” if you’re a developer trying to exploit loopholes and circumvent the ideals of v2. Otherwise, the people who use your software are “more free” because you don’t poscess the same ability to screw them.
While the freedom aspect is debatable, it is certainly more restrictive.
The term freedom is never debatable. A golden cage is ‘freedom’ up to the borders.
>The term freedom is never debatable. A golden cage is ‘freedom’ up to the borders.
But there are natural borders which normally everyone accepts. This border is drawn at the point where the freedom of other persons began.
Nobody would really argue that people should have the power to restrict other people freedom. I say “power” because in my eyes this is the point where “freedom for myself” convert into “my power over other people”.
I’m all in favor of freedom for everyone but not in favor of power for everyone.
Edited 2007-09-29 23:09
>>But there are natural borders which normally everyone accepts. This border is drawn at the point where the freedom of other persons began.<<
In theory yes, in practive, try to go naked on the street and see how free you are..
About the article: there’s no way I’ll read a 16 page article on GPLv2 vs v3.
Never debatable? Uh.. are you being serious?
For once I agree with you: certain words, such as “freedom”, represent complex concepts that cannot be reduced to absolutes. Freedom is certainly debatable, and many people have debated the concept over human history.
The case can be made that GPL, while more restrictive, protects freedom of the code by making sure derivatives are also free. Others argue that BSD gives more freedom to developers. These apparently contradictory positions are, in fact, both true.
This is why internet discussions on such loaded terms often degenerate into flamewars.
Anarchy aside, all freedoms are based on limits and restrictions of others freedoms.
Your freedom to own property, for example, depends on restricting other people’s freedom to take that property from you.
Your freedom of speech is nothing more than a restriction on others “freedom” to suppress your speech.
And of course, you are free to choose whichever license best suits your project.
Of a more interesting subject of discussion, I remember there was an interesting point made over machine-specific code through encryption (tivoisation) used in the context of casino gaming, voter machines, etc. There may be cases in which the GPL3’s freedoms are not ideal, and one would want to restrict in what ways it can be used or redistributed by choosing a more restrictive OSS license.
Edited 2007-09-30 00:02
“I remember there was an interesting point made over machine-specific code through encryption (tivoisation) used in the context of casino gaming, voter machines, etc.”
Much as some would agree with what you are saying…although GPL3 covers this very use through a sentence I particularly object to.
In the context of casino gaming & voting machines I would rather the code be available by *law* not some copyright license by an organization. Although to be fair I would to know of any casino of voting machine software that uses GPL at all.
Edited 2007-09-30 01:05
Anarchy aside, all freedoms are based on limits and restrictions of others freedoms.
Even an anarchist would agree with that, where an anarchist would disagree is on the role of the state and corporations on defining and limiting those restrictions and freedoms.
Please dont generalize like that…
“More restrictive to commercial companies, but is more free to end users”
Thats how i see it
The license isn’t more free. The license places more restrictions. It’s the software which use the license which are “more free” according to some.
Oh, were you talking about license *terms* and not in its effect/meaning, in your above statement?
Well, thats not how i understood 🙁
I had to read only a few sentences to find the first bullshit (sorry for using this term):
“However where the OSI and the FSF diverge is
that the OSI also require that an OSI approved
open source license should not restrict
commercially important freedoms, such as the
ability to distribute open source and non open
source software together, and to not discriminate
against any persons, field of endeavour or
technology products. This last point is a
particular area of differentiation with the FSF,…”
That’s just wrong. That’s not where FSF and OSI diverge both are against restriction of any possible use and of course against commercially restriction.
I want to remember the the “Open Source Definition” is nothing more than the “Debian Free Software Guide” so there is absolutely no diverge between OSI and FSF based on their definition of “Open Source” and “Free Software”.
…GPLv3 contains wording which appears to
preclude use of GPLv3 covered code in specific
technology areas.
No, GPLv3 doesn’t preclude any use. You can use GPLv3 code in any technology areas. But you can’t deny your users freedom. That’s an important difference.
Edited 2007-09-29 22:54
“Of a more interesting subject of discussion, I remember there was an interesting point made over machine-specific code through encryption (tivoisation) used in the context of casino gaming, voter machines, etc. There may be cases in which the GPL3’s freedoms are not ideal, and one would want to restrict in what ways it can be used or redistributed by choosing a more restrictive OSS license.”
The prohibition against tivoisation only applies to “consumer devices.” Neither of those cases involve a consumer device as defined in Gpl3, and neither of them would invoke the anti-tivoisation language anyway. The GPL3 only provides that the *owner* of the device in question should have the freedom to modify it. Gamblers don’t own slot machines, nor do voters own voting machines. Supposed weakness like this one are produced in abundance by people who don’t bother to read and understand the license before commenting.
“Supposed weakness like this one are produced in abundance by people who don’t bother to read and understand the license before commenting.”
Yes, and I read it as a comment. I had not come to that conclusion myself. I apologize for repeating that misconception and I thank you for the clarification.
“The GPL3 only provides that the *owner* of the device in question should have the freedom to modify it. Gamblers don’t own slot machines, nor do voters own voting machines.”
The owner of slot would be the casino’s. As a gambler I would not want them to be able to control the code either, nor to modify it. Same with voting machines where the government owns them. Casino owners should *never* be allowed to modify code in a machine, nor should the government be allowed to modify code in voting machines. GPLv3 specifically provides this right, which would therefore make it illegal to be used in these contexts, due to other laws which do and have existed. In these contexts the “consumers” are the casino’s and governments. Consumer refers to whoever owns the equipment. A gambler or a voter are not “consumers” of those devices, just users. As I mentioned already, due to laws that already exist, GPLv3 licensed code is automatically and already shut out from these markets that you mentioned.
I thought it was the reverse? Dynamic linking is not a derivative work, but static linking is. isn’t it?
I don’t even know what the hell is GPL…
I think people who say that bsd license is a true freedom are hypocrites. If they’d cared for freedom they’d release their code in public domain and wouldn’t bitch if someone wouldn’t give them credit -> see recent Atheros debakle. This was off topic, I admit, but this issue gets raised every time in a gpl discussion. I think gpl was the desicive reason for open source success and also a reason why competitiors actually can stand to develop the same product (linux) together because they know they all will benefit from it. This is also a reason why companies don’t contribute back to bsd-licensed pojects, because their competitor can just snatch it away, add a pair of uniqire features and give it off as their own product and gain an unfair advantage. Like the bsd stack in windows. There are a lot of examples for that. I mean apart from “i dont care for my freedom untill a nazi-government knocks on my door” crowd a lot of people actually care about things like open source drivers an free software ( as in speech ). I am not a gpl fanboy, there are clearly other licenses that accomplish the same thing, they are just like a “police” that get’s sometimes annoyng, but without it you wont get the MOTIVATION of alot of people who want to see their “free” code in programs that benefit humanity and not used as a tool to enslave it (for example windows monopoly).
Edited 2007-09-30 08:22
BSD License = “Freedom TO”
GPL = “Freedom FROM”
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That’s a reasonable observation.
From another angle:
BSD: Barriers to sharing code are do more harm than good.
GPL: Barriers to code sharing are unfortunate, but do more good than harm.
I think that the availability of FOSS licenses which have different strengths and weaknesses, to suit a variety of projects and authors has been key to our success. Even RMS agrees that Xiph’s use of permissive licenses for their reference implementations for the ogg formats is preferable to copylefting them.
One should think very carefully when choosing an appropriate license… always keeping in mind that code reuse is *HARD*. Adding artificial barriers comes at a cost. Sometimes that cost might be outweighed by the advantages.
But in the end, the most important thing is that authors license their code in a way that really reflects their expectations as to what the responsibilities of the users of that code should be. If he expects the users of the code to give back, that should be in the license. Claiming to support permissive licenses and then moaning and whining when people don’t pay money back to one’s own project (as a certain well known leader of a permissively licensed project has done) does not help anyone.
Edited 2007-09-30 20:23
“BSD: Barriers to sharing code are do more harm than good.
GPL: Barriers to code sharing are unfortunate, but do more good than harm.
You got this backwards. The GPL is not a barrier to code sharing, it’s a mandater of it. The GPL prevents a distributer from refusing to share the code. A BSD license allows the distributer to refuse to share the code.
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Virtually no FOSS project which is not under GPL can use code from a GPL’d project. Even GPLv2 projects are prohibited from using GPLv3 code. That’s a huge barrier to code sharing. A one-way barrier, though, for the most part, since great care has been taken by the GPLvX authors to ensure what they term “compatibility” with other FOSS licenses. That means making sure that GPL projects can take from other projects as they please, without the donor projects receiving anything in return.
I’m willing to accept that situation as (possibly) being good for FOSS as a whole. But please do not just ignore the fact that copyleft licenses do erect barriers to code sharing in the FOSS world.
I would file your argument in the “sometimes the benefits outweigh the disadvantages” category.
Edited 2007-10-02 03:30
>That’s a huge barrier to code sharing. A one-way barrier, though, for the most part, since great care has been taken by the GPLvX authors to ensure what they term “compatibility” with other FOSS licenses.
GPL compatibility is not a special compatibility it’s the very normal compatibility we know from any other area.
Compatible means that you can mix code. You can mix BSDL and GPL code, you can mix Apache-License and GPLv3 code, etc.
There is absolutely no technical or legal barrier. Maybe there is a personal barrier if an author of BSD code don’t want to combine his code with GPL code. But than this is his personal decision and not a barrier of the GPL or any strange definition of compatibility.
What you mean is that you can’t relicense GPL code. But that’s relicensing and not compatibility.
Relicensing is not possible but compatibility (especially for GPLv3) is quite good.
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FSF doublespeak. For an organization which claims to take the moral high ground, they play the doublespeak game to a level which rivals the large multinationals.
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More doublespeak.
No. I mean that if you are a GPLv3 project you can take code from, say, an Apache project without changing your license. But if you are an Apache project, you cannot incorporate the GPL’d project’s changes to your code back into your code without changing your license. And if you try to argue that a project changing its license is no big deal, just consider a scenario in which GPL’d projects were required to change their license to use, say, BSD or MIT licensed code.
I really wish that some of the permissively licensed projects would temporarily add a “no copyleft” clause to their licenses just to make the point. Can you imagine the shock, horror, and outrage which would be elicited if permissively licensed projects ever decided that turnabout was fair play?
The cries of “It’s not fair!” would be deafening, and you know it.
Edit: I should probably clarify that I am generally favorable to copyleft licenses, including GPLv2 and even GPLv3. But to ignore the fact that restrictive licenses like GPLv[23] are not good team players with the greater FOSS community is deceptive and counterproductive. GPLv[23] are good licenses for many use cases *despite* their warts. But they do *have* the warts.
Edited 2007-10-02 17:42
the problem with permissive licences not being able to incorporate GPL licenced code is due to the basic rights that define the whole copyleft licence, which is to give rights to the recipient, for example the right to recieve the sourcecode.
since permissive licences does not require these rights to be given to the recipient, they cannot adopt GPL licenced code.
so please sbergman, explain to me how you can be favourable to copyleft and yet complain about the licence incompability that prevents permissive licences to use GPL licenced code? it is a direct consequence of the rights that GPL gives recipients, which in turn is what GPL was created for.
so sbergman, how would you solve this?
sbergman27 wrote:
“I really wish that some of the permissively licensed projects would temporarily add a “no copyleft” clause to their licenses just to make the point.”
and what point would that be? that we are NOT permissively licenced? that it is ok to use our code in closed source projects but not in open source projects that use GPL? I fail to see the logic other than to punish GPL as a competitor in the open source licence space.
I personally think that GPL-style licences are better suited for applications and that system oriented code such as drivers etc are better when permissively licenced so as to easily be incorporated into all open source kernels with a minimum of fuss, but that is my personal preference, and it is still at the discretion of the code author. whatever licence he/she chooses is up to them and I don’t see no reason why I should second guess their reasoning. but you on the other hand, try to blame FSF for what is ultimately the choice of said code author, again your anti-FSF fervor shines through.
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That’s pretty reasonable. I probably agree. I *definitely* agree that it is the satisfaction of the authors of code that is of utmost importance. To that end, I perceive that some authors who have used a permissive license have overestimated the good will of of some copylefted projects and would now like to see a bit more reciprocation. I don’t blame them. Copyleft is not the divinely revealed plan of God, after all; There are different kinds of freedom. And different views on if and where barriers should be placed that limit the sharing of code within the FOSS community. And I’ve always suspected that most of the people who hang out in forums and are adamant about users’ rights have never written a line of FOSS licensed code in their lives, either permissively or copyleft licensed.
Personally, I’ve never understood why the users of code should expect that they should be guaranteed certain rights on the fruits of other people’s hard work simply because they are warm and breathing. It’s just been asserted so many times now that it is accepted, by some, less critically than it should be.
You are making the mistake that some others here make in assuming that if I don’t adhere to the FSF party line I am anti-FOSS and/or anti-FSF. I’m neither. Until you see that, it is unlikely that we are going to avoid misunderstandings.
If authors of permissive software *did* decide to restrict their code a bit more, denying GPL projects access to it, I would understand, and even support such a move by them. Because, after all, it *is* their hard work they are licensing.
I appreciate when they *do* guarantee me rights. But I don’t hold them to it as a responsibility.
I *prefer* copylefted code. I greatly appreciate both the copylefted and permissively licensed code to which I have been granted access.
Unfortunately, some seem to feel that being given code is not enough. Before they are satisfied, the author must guarantee to them that anything anyone else does with the code should be granted to them, too. I find that attitude to be both ungrateful and distasteful in character.
One should be appreciative when granted rights to the fruits of someone else’s hard labors. They shouldn’t just use it as a springboard for demanding more.
Copyleft is often beneficial. But it is *not* a mandate. For some reason, that idea seems to upset some people.
Edited 2007-10-02 20:40
sbergman wrote:
–“Personally, I’ve never understood why the users of code should expect that they should be guaranteed certain rights on the fruits of other people’s hard work simply because they are warm and breathing. It’s just been asserted so many times now that it is accepted, by some, less critically than it should be.”
no, they are not guaranteed certain rights because they are warm and breathing, they are guaranteed certain rights because the author of the code chose to licence his code under a licence that guaranteed the users certain rights.
sbergman wrote:
-“If authors of permissive software *did* decide to restrict their code a bit more, denying GPL projects access to it, I would understand, and even support such a move by them. Because, after all, it *is* their hard work they are licensing.”
and I would not have any problem with them doing so either, since yes it is their code that they are licencing. I am however questioning the logic behind such a move, since they are a permissive licence. other than being subjectively punative, I can see no reason for not allowing GPL projects to use their code while allowing it to be used within closed source projects. You on the other hand, advocated such a move. again, by what logic I ask?
GPL’s copyleft mechanism which prevents it’s code to be used within permissively licenced projects was not there in order to punish permissively licenced projects, but to ensure rights to the recipient of GPL licenced code. it is these rights (which the author of the code obviously wants to pass on since he chose to licence his code under GPL) that prevents GPL code to be used within permissively licenced projects.
sbergman wrote:
–“Unfortunately, some seem to feel that being given code is not enough. Before they are satisfied, the author must guarantee to them that anything anyone else does with the code should be granted to them, too. I find that attitude to be both ungrateful and distasteful in character. “
what are you babbling about? it is the authors of the code that defines what guarantees the recipients shall recieve. they do this when they licence their code. it is the authors who ‘feel’ that ‘anything anyone else does with the code should be granted to them, too’, else they would choose a licence that did not make such requirements.
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Do you see how your response is completely orthogonal to my statement? I stated that I did not see why people should simply *expect* to be granted rights by the (original) author. Your response has no bearing on that. Of *course* if the author chooses to grant then such rights, they have them. That goes without saying.
My disagreement is with people who seem to believe that the author owes it to them to license their own code not just under a FOSS license, but under a *copyleft* license.
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And here we come to what I find to be ugly about the behavior of some FSF advocates. I was respectful when replying to you, even though we might not agree upon certain things. The above quoted line is an example of the lack of respect for others which I see too often in posts by overly-enthusiastic FSF supporters. Note that I am speaking of FSF followers. The FSF itself tends not to be guilty of this. The community could really benefit from Eben Moglen teaching classes on proper advocacy. Perhaps an online tutorial in ogg theora format would be in order.
sbergman wrote:
–“My disagreement is with people who seem to believe that the author owes it to them to license their own code not just under a FOSS license, but under a *copyleft* license.”
who are these people exactly? and how they are relevant to this discussion. I advocate the sole right of the code author to decide how to licence his code. I may not find their choice preferable, but I have no right to complain.
sbergman wrote:
–“And here we come to what I find to be ugly about the behavior of some FSF advocates. I was respectful when replying to you, even though we might not agree upon certain things. The above quoted line is an example of the lack of respect for others which I see too often in posts by overly-enthusiastic FSF supporters.”
‘babbling’ was merely a substitute for ‘talking’ which I thought in a better way highlighted what I think was a very illogical and faulty statement. if it came across as disrespectful I beg your forgiveness. my native language is Swedish, and I may not be perfectly clear on what words are more negatively ‘charged’ than others.
and no, I’m not particularly a FSF advocate. I’m an advocate of the code authors right to licence his code as he sees fit. arguments against this right does often come up in topics regarding GPL and FSF, hence I often end up in such discussions. I do however, prefer the GPL licence, but for purely practical reasons. I don’t agree with Stallman that propriety code is unethical (again I advocate the rights of the code authors to decide), but I respect his right to his views.
I also don’t agree with BSD advocates claming that GPL programmers are unethical when using BSD code without contributing back since that is actually what the BSD licence permits, but again I respect their right to their views.
I do however not understand how they can claim that it’s unethical of GPL projects to use their code and not contribute back due to licence incompability, while not thinking it’s unethical when it’s being used in closed source projects that does not contribute back. that logic is simply beyond me.
you advocated that permissive licences should add a ‘no copyleft’ clause to their conditions, again I ask what the logic is behind this proposal you made?
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Then we are in agreement.
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That’s cool. No offense taken. As a native English speaker, I am well aware that our language holds all sorts of traps for the unwary.
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Valhalla, I might have written exactly that, myself. Except that I would probably have to admit to a bit of pro-copyleft zeal that goes a bit beyond the purely practical.
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Again, we agree. Well, sort of. I do object to people ignoring the fact that a one-way barrier to the sharing of code has both costs and benefits. That does not mean that I do not think that the benefits can outweigh the costs. Copyleft has actually gotten us past all those endless agreements that the Unix companies used to sign… which never got anywhere since the backstabbing started up again before any progress could be made. We’re actually seeing real, long term, cooperation these days.
I advocate keeping our eyes open and recognizing the *costs* as well as the benefits. Unfortunately, that, plus my feeling that FSF employs a less than optimal strategy to promote the cause, makes some people think that I am a rabid anti-FSF ogre.
On the topic of BSD advocates. Well, first of all I should explicitly state that no community is of a piece. One cannot say “BSD advocates say this” or “BSD advocates say that”. However, there has been some grumbling going on. And as an advocate of FOSS, who happens to prefer copyleft, in general, I have to admit that it is understandable. That said, I think that part of what has happened is that there was an unspoken expectation among some authors of permissively licensed code that benefactors of that code, particularly those in the FOSS community, would give back. But copyleft is a one-way valve, locking away derivatives of permissively licensed works… but doing it in plain sight of the authors. It’s one thing if a proprietary company uses one’s code and the author never finds out about it. It’s quite another to have it dangled in front of one’s face. And, I would imagine, even more aggravating to see others, using more restrictive licenses, get actual public credit for it.
I think that it has gotten some people wondering if they should not have added a least a little more restrictiveness to their licenses.
I can understand the frustration.
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No, I didn’t. Look again. What I did say was this:
“I really wish that some of the permissively licensed projects would temporarily add a “no copyleft” clause to their licenses just to make the point.”
Note the phrase “I really wish” and the word “temporarily”. Copyleft advocates who are unwilling to consider the costs of copyleft, along with the advantages, are both irritating and counterproductive. (To be clear, I’m not including you in that category.) A temporary scare might have some positive effects in the long term. And, as I originally said, it might make a point.
The long-term goal being to lower barriers to code sharing and not erect new ones.
Does that seem reasonable?
Edited 2007-10-03 01:05
sbergman wrote:
–“On the topic of BSD advocates. Well, first of all I should explicitly state that no community is of a piece. One cannot say “BSD advocates say this” or “BSD advocates say that”.”
true, I should have emphasized that I were talking about the particular BSD advocates who complain about the unethical aspect of GPL projects using BSD code while not complaining about closed source projects doing the same. I personally think that providing their hard work code under permissive licences is an extremely generous gesture and I have huge respect for those willing to do so. my pet passion OS project (and the reason I first ended up here on OSNews) is Haiku, which is MIT licenced.
sbergman wrote:
“That said, I think that part of what has happened is that there was an unspoken expectation among some authors of permissively licensed code that benefactors of that code, particularly those in the FOSS community, would give back. But copyleft is a one-way valve, locking away derivatives of permissively licensed works… but doing it in plain sight of the authors. It’s one thing if a proprietary company uses one’s code and the author never finds out about it. It’s quite another to have it dangled in front of one’s face.”
I might agree to that if the incompability was due to malice, but it isn’t. the incompability is due to one licence guaranteeing rights to recipients that the other does not. as for dangling the source code in front of them, I find that to be 100% preferable in comparison to closed source given that reverse engineering from source code is a godsend compared to having nothing at all.
now, of course you could argue that code authors who modify BSD licenced code should be kind in return and place those changes under the original permissive licence. but that has nothing to do with FSF, GPL or Linux, that is the choice of that particular code author, it is he who chooses to licence his changes. blaming FSF or the GPL for his choice in not licencing his modifications under the original licence is totally illogical.
sbergman wrote:
–“A temporary scare might have some positive effects in the long term. And, as I originally said, it might make a point. “
I still don’t see what the positive effects of such a scare would be. the licence incompability remains, and that licence incompability is not there to prevent adoption by permissively licenced projects, it’s an unfortunate side effect of the rights that GPL bestow upon recipients. unless either licence would change so much as to lose their original purpose, the incompability will remain, scare or not.
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I still don’t see what the positive effects of such a scare would be. the licence incompability remains, and that licence incompability is not there to prevent adoption by permissively licenced projects, it’s an unfortunate side effect of the rights that GPL bestow upon recipients. unless either licence would change so much as to lose their original purpose, the incompability will remain, scare or not.
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If a copylefted project uses permissively licensed code, it it simply a matter of basic human decency to dual license changes to that code, and closely releated code back under the same license, when at all possible. Sometimes, we get so caught up in our copyleft jihad that we forget that. And sometimes I get the impression that some in the community are driven by “negative” motivations, more concerned about making sure that Microsoft can’t use the code than in being decent team players working aside those in the community who are not so driven. If you can think of a better way to get the attention of those people, I would be very interested in your solution. But I think that it would take a crisis in which they face the possibility of not being able to take from permissively licensed projects anymore. It is not unreasonable for permissively licensed projects to expect others in the FOSS community to act with more integrity than commercial companies selling closed source software.
And while I do believe that authors should state explicitly in their license what they *really* want to require from users of that code, leaving a certain amount to implicit understanding can yield some valuable flexibility. It there is some reason that a FOSS project, who has need of the code, cannot contribute back, or cannot contribute back right now, they can still use it. A little flexibility… a little give and take… can be a lot more efficient that spelling everything out legally.
Edited 2007-10-03 21:31
In some later post you write this:
>The above quoted line is an example of the lack of respect for others which I see too often in posts by overly-enthusiastic FSF supporters/
And i have to read things like “FSF doublespeak. For an organization which claims to take the moral high ground, they play the doublespeak game to a level which rivals the large multinationals.”
Sorry but such statements are disrespectful too. So please practice what you preach.
Now to the topic:
>No. I mean that if you are a GPLv3 project you can take code from, say, an Apache project without changing your license. But if you are an Apache project, you cannot incorporate the GPL’d project’s changes to your code back into your code without changing your license.
You don’t have to change your license only the license of the whole will be GPL.
But again whether you do it or not is neither a technical nor a legal barrier it’s i only a personal question.
Lets make it concrete (BSDL project wants to uses GPL code):
We agree that both licenses are Free Software licenses the basic difference is that GPL requests that the software stays free while the BSD says “do what you want”.
Now a BSDL project want to use a GPL module. They can use it. There is absolutely no technical or legal barrier which stops the project.
They can use the GPL module and their code can be BSDL. Sure the complete work would be GPL because you are using parts which say that it’s not only free but it also wants to stay free. But this has no effect on the BSDL code. Everyone who gets the program can use all the BSDL code under the terms of the BSDL.
The other way around is basically the same. If a GPL project wants to use a BSDL module the BSDL module will always be BSDL. So everyone who will get a copy of the program can use the BSDL part under the terms of the BSDL.
So what’s stops BSD code to use GPL code? It’s not the GPL who stops them and it’s not any legal or technical barrier. It’s is only the opinion of the author who wants a 100% BSDL program. So the only one who stops the BSD project is the BSD project by itself.
This is also exactly the same problem for authors of GPL projects who want a 100% GPL project. This author would probably refuse to use BSDL code. But than again this wouldn’t be a compatibility, legal or technical problem but only a personal problem/decision.
You can combine BSDL code with GPL code and you can combine GPL code with BSDL code and in both cases every code would keep its license.
The people who work on Apache, Perl, Python, X.org etc does not seem to lack motivation.
> In theory yes, in practive, try to go naked on the street and see how free you are..
I dunno, those guys in Battleboro Vermont don’t seem to have this problem.
for someone who just wants a no-fuss making available for any purpose their sourcecode, the GPL, is just too hard.
Thanks for modding me down. I forgot that by having a different opinion than yours and stating facts was against the rules.
Don’t worry. Sometimes, having certain kind of people as opponents is an indication that you are on the right track.