On Thu, 2008-06-19 at 17:04 -0400, Horst H. von Brand wrote:You'd have to ask their lawyers. But it's a fact.
> Matthew Saltzman <mjs@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Plenty of companies that would be willing to release free software are
> > leery of releasing it as GPL
>
> Why?
You'd have to tell their lawyers. But it's a fact.
>
> > and of using GPL software.
>
> Now that is completely unwarranted.
As much as I hate to drag on this clusterfsck of zelotry any longer, I can't let this bullshit fly unopposed. Here, I'll stick to a concrete example:
Linden Lab is a small start-up, which may or may not even be pulling a profit yet, running off venture capital. They developed a closed-source virtual world, Second Life. A year ago they chose to release their client open source. What license did they choose? They chose the GPLv2. Think about it, if they had used a BSD-style license, some other company could take their code, start up their own for-profit service, and profit off Linden Lab's work without giving anything back, quite possibly putting Linden Lab out of business. Their investors would have never let that happen.
Without a license like the GPL, which ensures that derived works remain free, Linden Lab would have never open sourced the Second Life client. And that's a fact.
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