Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure

[Evan Lavelle <sa212+geda@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

al davis wrote:

> The BSD ver 1 license has an interesting subtlety that the 
> closed source developers love to exploit.  Derivative works 
> have no strings attached.  You can take the code, edit it into 
> a new code block that does the same thing.  Now you can do 
> anything you want. .. make it proprietary ... release under 
> GPL ...   

That's what it's for, as you point out. It's not a subtlety. Where would 
Spice be now if it hadn't initially been BSD'ed? We'd have got something 
else, of course, but i suspect we wouldn't have heard of 'Spice'.

The business of universities is disseminating knowledge, with no strings 
attached. It's not such a big deal if someone makes money out of it; we 
all have to make money. In fact, it's essential that the process of 
giving away knowledge, without strings, should create wealth, or there 
would be no universities in the first place.

The real tragedy is that universities have been continuously moving away 
from this open model, and seeking to close and protect their knowledge, 
primarily through the patent system. This is absurd, but the opposite 
extreme - as exemplified by the GPL - is equally absurd. What sort of 
message is this giving out? Perhaps "see how smart we are, but don't 
touch - this is what we do with all your taxes"? There are honourable 
exceptions, of course - Antlr, for example, from Terence Parr at the 
University of San Francisco - smart guy, smart licence.

The uncomfortable truth: the GPL is simply pointless religious bigotry. 
Making money is not evil; it's a fact of life. There, I said it. 
Somebody had to.

Evan

[Ok, I know you all hate me... going to unsubscribe for a few days :) ]


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