On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 23:06:17 +0100 (CET), Hubert Feyrer <hubert@feyrer.de> wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Feb 2005, Andy Ruhl wrote:
> >>   * In contrast, when you put new code under the GPL, or write code
> >>     based on a program released under the GPL, it is mandatory that you
> >>     release the full source of all your changes. Many big companies have
> >>     been bitten by this with Linux, see http://www.gpl-violations.org/ to
> >>     find that prominent companies like Siemens, ASUS, Sitecom, Gigabyte and
> >>     many others are affected of this (aparently?) difficult to follow
> >>     requirement of the GPL.
> ...
> > BUT, (big BUT), does this actually happen? Can anyone quantify this?
> > If I'm company A and I'm feeling generous and add to the BSD source,
> > does this mean company B pops up, uses "my" (my?) intellectual
> > contribution and use it against me? I don't think it does.
> 
> I do. Read the above URL!
> 
> (Really, I mean read it, before proceeding here!) The point is, that not
> even the GPL (which forces people to keep things public, or at least tries
> to do so) doesn't succeed. One could say that the GPL just doesn't work
> out, but that won't help to your argument that "people won't close-source
> BSD code".

Kinda sorta unrelated. I'm not claiming to be a clear and concise
writer so maybe I got that wrong.

I'm sure GPL violations exist, and it appears that there are people
that are motivated to point this out. This is fine.

When one "gets in bed" with GPL, this kind of thing is bound to happen
sooner or later.

The (round about) point I was trying to make is that if a company is
worried about contributing back, they just flat out don't need to do
it in BSD. But what I was wondering was, has some good natured (or
possibly foolish?) company released something into BSD land that some
other company decided was a good idea and then used to go into direct
competition with the good natured (foolish?) company? Is there
evidence of this?

Back to the point, the company can decide what part of it's (probably
forked) code they want to maintain, and what part they give to the
community to maintain. This is to their advantage. To make money, you
need to add real value. And instead of some license deciding what
added value is, the company can do it which I think is who should be
making this decision.

This way, the parts that make sense to be supported by the community
are (if BSD decides to incorporate them), and the parts that add value
to the company which may or may not be valuable to the community are
kept away, which also has it's own benefits to the community (whether
GPLers believe it or not).

Somewhere in here I'm making sense I think. I hope?

Andy