david@lang.hm wrote on Sun, Sep 16, 2007 at 04:40:38PM -0700:
Indeed, that argument is often paraphrased in a way that makes it
hard to understand. What i heard people say is not "If people make
derivative works based on BSD code, they should make them less free
instead of fully free", but it is: "If people caring nothing about
free software in the first place are building their own commercial
systems anyway, they should rather reuse BSD code than hacking up
their own bricolage of bug-ridden insecure stuff."
Granted, that's a different approach than taken by the GPL, which
essentially says "... anyway, they deserve to be on their own."
Be careful not to confuse "desires" with "legal requirements"... :-(
Given BSD code, BSD-licensed substantial improvements
make happier than restrictively licensed substantial improvements
make happier than derived non-free closed-source software
make happier than license violations.
Besides, the Linux communities neither qualify as "caring nothing
about free software" nor as "hacking up their own bricolage of
bug-ridden insecure stuff" (hopefully ;-). So that argument
simply doesn't apply to you. Probably, that's why Jacob talked
about "morally equivalent to a corporation".
Several people have already explained this nicely; the degree
of happiness may also depend on the level of cooperation and
understanding you expect from the people building on the code,
given their own intentions and goals. I may well be thankful
towards an enemy just for not killing me, but at the same time
sad about a friend leaving me out in the rain.
( This just being stated in general; i'm not sure what the state
of discussions in the various Linux communities is just now. )
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