[ILUG-BOM] RMS in Mumbai

[Devdas Bhagat]

On 16/08/06 08:43 +0530, Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray wrote:
<snip>
> Thats what. Microsoft IS the place for you. By the way Microsoft took
> its TCP/IP stack code from a BSD-style license only.
> 
The goal of the BSD license is to promote the development of useful
software. How it is used and what benefits the end users gain (or
lose) are not relevant to the programmers who want to contribute code
under this license.

If I want to see my software widely used and don't care about the fact
that the end user may not be able to modify it, I would choose the BSD
license.

The GPL, OTOH, is intended to keep software modifiable by the end user.

If I want to keep software modifiable by the end user, even if most of
my users will never do that, I would use the GPL.

This is the primary philosophical difference between the two licenses.

BSD license fans were happy to see their code being reused by MSFT. They
point out that this is a strength of the BSD license. 
GPL license fans will point out that all of Microsoft's changes weren't
made available back to the BSD community and claim that this is a
weakness.

BSD is a gift to the programming community, GPL is a gift to the second
generation onwards of programmers and users.

You may notice that almost all the FOSS used on Windows is because it is 
free as in beer, not free as in speech. A lot of people care only about
getting work done now, since freedom of speech may mean financial
survival.

Devdas Bhagat