[GLLUG] Burnbox Licensing

Clay Dowling clay at lazarusid.com
Sat Apr 28 11:48:10 EDT 2007


Wow, seem to have kicked up a bit of a shit storm about licensing.
That's all to the good I suppose, at least it means people care.  I had
been considering using the GPL, but this discussion has convinced me
that a BSD style license would be better.

If somebody can figure out how to make money with this software, I want
to encourage that.  If they make money when I wasn't it means they're
smarter than I am, and it provides me with an excellent opportunity to
learn.  Also, I can steal their idea, implement it my way, and try to
make even more money than they're making.

Second, if they're determined to make money and can't use my code base,
they'll just find another code base.  It's better for me and my ego to
have my code base used.  It makes me the one controlling the ideas, or
at least influencing them.  That is an excellent position to be in when
trying to make money.

Third, my obligations are less under a BSD style license.  With a GPL
license, where I have required them to contribute code back, it follows
that I have some obligation to do something with that, like give the
submitter access to my repository, or at least try to integrate the
patch into the code.  Under a BSD style license, I feel less of a moral
obligation to do anything with their submission if I don't want to,
since I wasn't compelling their submission.

Clay
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