Hi there,
On Apr 9, 2007, at 7:29 PM, Jeroen Massar wrote:

...
> GPL is good though if you want to force people to give back the

quoted text
> code to

> you so that you can use it in your own dual-licensed projects.

>

> For people wanting true freedom of their code use: BSD or ISC it ;)

The problem is the word "free". BSD people tend to interpret "free"

as "I can do whatever I want with that code! Hell, I can even make it

"unfree" again by turning it into a proprietary product!". In my

opinion, /code/ that is labeled "free" should always remain "free",

no matter what the possible actions are. This ain't the case with BSD

code. /You/ may do as you like with the code, but this doesn't make

the code "free", it just liberates your actions. BSD code is not

"free" code as such. It just implies "free" actions. It's just a

matter of perspective.
> Tip for coders: Start a lousy little project that many people will

quoted text
> like,

> then release it as GPL, then if lucky people will use it and give you

> patches, now you can sell it back to them ;) Okay, that stops at the

> moment you have other people's code in there which you can't

> dual-license though, and that is the fun of GPL: you cripple yourself.

You don't have to accept GPL contributions to your own codebase if

you want to dual license. Their code contributions, your choice. As

easy as that. It's all about respect. Respect their copyright or drop

it. Easy, simple, fair. In fact, GPL projects offer more incentives

of contributing that BSD projects. Someone wanting to contribute to a

BSD project has to give up all control of their contribution. Not

everybody is willing to follow down that road. The GPL at least makes

sure that nobody can legally exploit a contribution without making it

available to the users so that they can profit too. This is a much

more valuable incentive to participate.
If you /really/ want to include GPL contributions in your codebase in

dual licensing schemes, you'll have to ask for permission of the

copyright owner of that contribution. This is the most natural thing

in the world.
This whole bcw(4) discussion turned out to be a "Those GNU/Linux/GPL

fanatics don't allow us to be even more free than they claim to be!"

cryout. The funny thing is that it comes down to an OpenBSD

contributor who didn't respect the copyright of some other party by

redistributing GPL code without the GPL license through a public CVS

repository. It's amazing how a community that should actually take a

defensive position in a matter like this switches into attack mode

and makes the violated party the culprit. The majority of the posts

in this discussion, be it on undeadly, some other mailing list or

here on [misc], reflect the mental pattern of six-year olds who

cannot argue reasonably. I really have to admit that if these people

represent the majority of the OpenBSD community, I am disgusted and

most of all disappointed. But of course, it just may be so that

decent people choose not to take part in these threads at all.
regards,

Tobias