License selection for free software

[Carl Banks]

On May 7, 6:56 am, Paul Boddie <p... at boddie.org.uk> wrote:
> On 6 Mai, 19:22, vivai... at gmail.com (Ville M. Vainio) wrote:
> > I don't think BSD/MIT like license really annoys anyone. Think python
> > here ;-)
>
> As some have pointed out, it can discourage people from contributing.
> I've said many times before that some companies might not contribute
> to a permissively licensed project because their competitors could
> leverage the benefit in proprietary software, and I consider Linux and
> the involvement of companies like IBM to be a reasonable example of
> this.

That IBM and other companies are involved with Linux is an example of
companies that are willing to get involved with GPL; it says nothing
about whether those companies would be more, less, or un- willing to
also get involved with more permissive licenses.

IBM is also involved with Apache, which does have a permissive
license.


Carl Banks