Strong vs weak free software licensing

Strong vs weak free software licensing

Posted Oct 3, 2005 17:50 UTC (Mon) by jstAusr (guest, #27224)
In reply to: Strong vs weak free software licensing by bignose
Parent article: What Is Free Software (O'ReillyNet)

> Those who want the code to appeal to the most people will choose a
> more-permissive license, saying that proprietary forks don't matter.

That statement *could* possibly be true in a world without software patents, but with software patents the proprietary fork could easily gain an unfair advantage. Can you even support the "appeal to the most people" statement.
I think it would mostly appeal to someone who wanted community help for a proprietary project. The GNU GPL gives the best chance for all participants to be treated equally and I beleive it appeals to the most people for that reason. The more-permissive license is just a get out of work free card for some propriety company.

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