OT - Closing Off An Open-Source Product

[phil hunt]

On Sun, 15 Apr 2001 08:14:00 GMT, Fredrik Lundh <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote:
>phil hunt wrote:
>> Why is that bad, but taking free code and putting it into a closed-source
>> product, thus also killing its free nature, is somehow good?
>
>when people use my code in closed-source environment, I've helped
>them do a good job, deliver a better product, and get home by five
>to play with their kids.  that makes me feel good.
>
>when people relicense my code under GPL, they're telling me that
>they're morally superior, and that I haven't yet understood the true
>nature of open source development. 

Has anyone who'se actually done this to your code said this
to you? If so, I'd find their attitude wierd.

Firstly, you can't "relicense" someone else's code, although you
can attach it to your own code insuch a way that the
conglomeration is GPL'd.

This is what I've done with my GPL'd Parrot[1] program which uses
John Aycock's BSDL'd SPARK[2] parser. Note that I don't think I'm
morally superior to John, and AFAIK he desn't think he's morally
superior to me, nor does he have any problems with what I've done.
We're just two people who write open source code.

I think the GPL is an OK license, as is the BSDL, as are all open
source licenses, more or less. If John wanted to use some of my
Parrot code in a later version of SPARK, and askred me to BSDL my
code, I'd have no problem with that.

I don't think that people who prefer different open source licenses
should fight each other, since we have more in common than we
have differences.

[1] see http://www.vision25.demon.co.uk/oss/parrot/intro.html

[2] see http://www.csr.uvic.ca/~aycock/python/

obPython: both Parrot and SPARK are written in Python, so this post
is on-topic.

-- 
*****[ Phil Hunt ***** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk ]*****
"Mommy, make the nasty penguin go away." -- Jim Allchin, MS head 
of OS development, regarding open source software (paraphrased).