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Crowding out OpenBSDCrowding out OpenBSDPosted Nov 14, 2012 20:50 UTC (Wed) by Richard_J_Neill (subscriber, #23093)In reply to: Crowding out OpenBSD by marcH Parent article: Crowding out OpenBSD
You're right that BSD code can be relicensed as GPL, and not vice-versa. But usually when a GPL-minded developer takes significant inspiration from a BSD program, he will either make the whole thing BSD-licensed, or push back his changes under dual-license.
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Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Nov 14, 2012 21:03 UTC (Wed) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
usually, but not always (and the BSD crowd really howl when it happens, they are fine with people taking their code and putting it in proprietary codebases, but release it under a GPL license, and just wait for the explosion)
Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Dec 5, 2012 1:16 UTC (Wed) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]
It's simply because commercial vendors using BSD often give something back, and GPL projects don't.
Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Dec 5, 2012 3:56 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
That's a gross over-generalization. There is some amount of hypocrisy about BSD licensed projects complaining about not giving back as well.
Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Dec 5, 2012 10:14 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Given that commercial vendors using GPL always give something back, not often, then I would say the GPL is better designed than BSD licenses. BSD is designed so GPL projects have the freedom not to give back, and they sometimes (not always) exercise it. Why complain?
Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Dec 5, 2012 10:44 UTC (Wed) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848) [Link]
> commercial vendors using GPL always give something back
Yes, but what they give is very frequently not useful. I'd argue that a culture of contribution to a common core is much more important than the legal requirement, overall. Also GPL is often sidestepped so that the actual useful stuff isn't shared anyway, even when it probably should be (c.f. kernel modules).
Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Dec 5, 2012 10:54 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] History says otherwise. A few notable examples:
Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Dec 5, 2012 12:38 UTC (Wed) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848) [Link]
True, the kernel is a pretty strong counterexample. And the requirement to contribute back probably can be a good way of getting good cultures set up, telling a manager "we have to make the code available anyway, we may as well work upstream" is probably helpful.
Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Dec 5, 2012 11:27 UTC (Wed) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]
Commercial vendors using GPL always give back, because if they don't want to give back, they don't use GPL software. So, with both BSD and GPL, commercial vendors give back only when they want to; the difference is that with BSD, they can still use the software.
And the complaint is because commercial vendors _do_ give back to BSD projects, either the code, or money, as donations or salaries. GPL projects reusing BSD code very rarely contribute anything back.
Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Dec 5, 2012 16:11 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Er, you can still use GPLed software without giving anything back. What you can't do is redistribute it.
Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Dec 5, 2012 22:45 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
> And the complaint is because commercial vendors _do_ give back to BSD projects, either the code, or money, as donations or salaries.
Sure some do. Most of them? [reference needed]
> GPL projects reusing BSD code very rarely contribute anything back.
... to the original, BSD-licensed project.
GPL projects "merely" contribute back to *any* person or company not allergic to the GPL, for free. Not as generous as the BSD license but much more generous than no contribution at all.
Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Dec 6, 2012 1:13 UTC (Thu) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]
>> GPL projects reusing BSD code very rarely contribute anything back.
>... to the original, BSD-licensed project.
That seems a little crazy. IIUC any patches to BSD licensed code in a GPL project can be distributed under the BSD license back to the BSD project by the original patch author. The author can always license code to different parties under any license they wish. What's stopping people from contributing code back to BSD projects?
Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Dec 6, 2012 1:51 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
Once the BSD code is part of a GPL project, any new patches are by default GPL (the default license of the project). It takes extra thought and effort to make the patches be BSD
In addition, many GPL people believe that it's a much better license than BSD, and so they _really_ want their work under the GPL.
If either of these are the case, then the patches don't get contributed back under BSD
Crowding out OpenBSD Posted Dec 6, 2012 2:39 UTC (Thu) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]
> Once the BSD code is part of a GPL project, any new patches are by default GPL (the default license of the project). It takes extra thought and effort to make the patches be BSD
I realize that, it seems like a poor reason. Maybe git needs an "export as bsd" option for ones own code 8-)
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