[GLLUG] Burnbox Licensing

[Marshal Newrock]

If my understanding of the GPL and BSD licenses are correct...

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 11:48:10 -0400
Clay Dowling <clay at lazarusid.com> wrote:

> 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.

If they don't license the changes under a BSD license, you may not be
able to steal the changes back.  If they go with a proprietary license,
1) you may not have access to the source code, and 2) trying to use
their changes could be copyright infringement.  Other open-source
licenses may have their own restrictions which make them incompatible
with the BSD license.

> 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.

I have my doubts that someone could successfully market a proprietary
fork of something that's freely available as open source.  In this
case, it would be like someone were incorporating it as part of a
larger package.  Burn Box is a complete product.

> 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.

I don't think you have quite so much obligation as that.  The GPL
merely specifies that the resulting product must be GPL, and the source
code available.  You are free to use their changes, or not.  They are
free to submit changes back to you, or to fork and create a new product
based on your codebase.

-- 
Marshal Newrock
Ideal Solution, LLC - http://www.idealso.com