I do not see why a flamewar should be started over this topic again. Both
licenses advantages and disavantages and they have their points and places
in computing today.

Thanks

----- Original Message -----
From: "Julio M. Merino Vidal" <jmmv84@gmail.com>
To: <netbsd@sopwith.solgatos.com>
Cc: <netbsd-advocacy@netbsd.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: The BSD license vs the GPL


> On Wed, 2005-02-23 at 10:22 +0000, Dieter wrote:
> > I see everyone is missing the point of the GPL.
> >
> > Go read up on *why* RMS created the GPL.
> >
> > If I as a customer have a choice between a product
> > that provides documentation and source code vs
> > a product that does not provide documentation and
> > source code, guess which product I am going to buy?
> >
> > The reason to use NetBSD (or any *BSD) in a product
> > instead of Linux isn't the BSD license vs the GPL,
> > it is because *BSD is a better version of Unix
> > than Linux.  The BSD license may allow you to
> > keep your sources closed, but that is just going
> > to lose you customers.
> >
> > If you haven't noticed, there are a lot of commercial
> > products out there based on Linux, dispite the alleged
> > disadvantages of the GPL.
>
> And that's because Linux is fashionable, and they know that by
> mentioning Linux, they'll win a lot of customers.
>
> >   They list the source code
> > availability as a feature.  It is a selling point.
>
> Nothing stops them from using BSD and later distributing the sources.
> They can still use that "selling point".  Plus they can generally
> (with few exceptions) license their changes under the GPL (which is
> impossible the other way around).
>
> Sorry, but I don't see how the GPL is better in this sense.
>
> --
> Julio M. Merino Vidal <jmmv84@gmail.com>
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/jmmv/
> The NetBSD Project - http://www.NetBSD.org/
>
>
>