I agree. The best thing about the BSD license is that it dosen't have the
restrictions that the GPL has (being incompatible with most OSI
licenses--although GPL is most popular, and forced to show source).

BSD is a big plus for companies. Companies have been much more successful
selling BSD-licensed software than GPL. The main way companies make money
off of GPL is support services. For red hat they had to take the right of
copying their CDs and using it over and over to make money and frankly,
people don't like that. CentOS, Whitebox, etc. have popped up and are taking
serious marketshare away from RHEL so I assume the big profit surge of the
"forced upgrade" will be short-lived. But they may use their money to
acquire some profitable businesses to keep it on top. Red Hat has even moved
into applications to stem off profit loss of the RHEL division.. they dont
seem to be marketing it well though.

I like BSD because I can incorporate my commercial code with it and not have
to open the source of the application. BSD also has wonderful compatability
to all licenses--even GPL.

GPL vs. BSD is either a company thing or political thing in my opinion. Me,
I use both.

Peace,
tim hawkins
www.tjhawkins.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hubert Feyrer" <hubert@feyrer.de>
To: <netbsd-advocacy@NetBSD.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 2:38 PM
Subject: My reasons for BSD over GPL, for a company


>
> [maybe this is of interest to someone, maybe it's just the 2001st
>   GPL-vs-BSD thing. YMMV!]
>
>
> I was asked on how to convince some decision makers at a (mostly) hardware
> company to 1) use BSD-code instead of GPL-code for the start (i.e. use
> NetBSD over Linux) and 2) make them release the code to the public after
> making changes. Here are my thoughts:
>
>   * A general consequence when putting code under the BSD license or
>     releasing new code based on existing BSD-licensed code is
>     that the code can be kept closed. E.g. when shipping hardware, there
is
>     no need to add the source.
>
>   * 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.
>
>   * When using BSD-licensed code as a base, it's your own choice if you
>     want to keep your changes private, of if you want to contribute them
>     back to the community. Contributing the source has both benefits and
>     drawbacks, which have to be considered.
>
>   * Drawbacks of opening the source are that competitors will have access
>     to your intellectual property. When using BSD-licensed code as a base
>     for your work, you can choose to keep your changes. With GPL, you
>     have to open them up, if you want or not.
>
>   * Benefits of releasing source to the bright public may have various
>     benefits usually found when arguing for Open Source: people can use
the
>     code and base their works on it, the code can be audited by 3rd
parties
>     for e.g. security reasons, etc.
>
>   * A particular benefit of releasing a work based on BSD-licensed code
>     again not (only) to the bright public but especially to the original
>     project is that the contributions can be incorporated into the
project,
>     and get maintained by the project people.
>
>   * One of the goals of the NetBSD project is to offer a complete
operating
>     system kernel available under the BSD license only. To integrate code
>     into NetBSD, and the kernel in particular, it has to be BSD licensed.
>     Integration into NetBSD (which of course requires releasing
>     the source) will lead to benefits from the efforts of the NetBSD
>     project, its community as well as the vendors supporting it.
>
>
> If you want to point at various other vendors who have choosen NetBSD to
place
> their products on, see:
>
>   * Hardware designed for and with NetBSD:
>     http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/products.html
>
>   * Products based on NetBSD:
>     http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/hardware.html
>
>   * NetBSD-ready PowerPC toys: KuroBox and LinkStation:
>     http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/blog.html#20050114
>
>   * SGI produces NetBSD-based WebCam (Update):
>     http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/blog.html#20050112
>
>   * Embedded NetBSD on Technologic Systems' ARM boards:
>     http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/blog.html#20050108
>
>   * IBM built some NetBSD 1.3x based Network Computers (NSM V2R1):
>
>
http://www-1.ibm.com/servlet/support/manager?rt=0&rs=0&org=as400&doc=42A981C
C86BE333986256850006A7ECA
>     http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/pubs/pdfs/redbooks/sg245844.pdf
>   (pages 372, 594, 629, 691)
>
>   * Parts of Apple's MacOS X / Darwin are based on NetBSD
>
>
>   - Hubert
>
> --
> NetBSD - Free AND Open!      (And of course secure, portable, yadda yadda)
>
>