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Open-source Licensing: BSD or GPL?
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:07 AM
from the six-on-one-hand dept.
from the six-on-one-hand dept.
BSDForums.org writes "Mark Brewer of Covalent Technologies argues BSD is better for the enterprise. As open source licensing models, both the Berkeley Software Distribution license and the General Public License have advantages and disadvantages. But in the end, the BSD offers more benefits to enterprise customers. Matt Asay of Novell makes the case for GPL. He says, no one open source license is ideal in every circumstance. Different licenses serve different ends. Berkeley Software Distribution-style licenses have been used to govern the development of exceptional open source projects such as Apache. Clearly, BSD has its strengths. However, all things being equal, he prefers the General Public License (GPL ). The GPL is one of the most exciting, innovative capitalist tools ever created. The GPL breaks down walls between vendors and customers while enabling strong competitive differentiation.
Which is a better licensing model for open-source applications: BSD or GPL? What do you think?"
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Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:3, Insightful)
Buzz word overload! Take cover! Buzzword overload! Take cover! Buzz...
* Robot's head EXPLODES in a shower of sparks!
Would it kill people to speak in normal sentences instead of Market Speak(TM)? This entire article is just silly. Of course businesses prefer the BSD license. It places fewer restrictions on them, and allows them true ownership of derivitive works. That gives them something to later sell or use as a barganing chip.
Of course many OSS authors prefer the GPL. It forces companies and other users to help pay for development by giving back. The benefit to OSS authors is very clear. The benefit to businesses, however, is still questionable in many circumstances.
In the end it comes down to the usefulness of the software. If a business can't build upon BSD licensed software, they'll go with GPLed software. But if they can help it, they'll just go for the public domain stuff.
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:5, Insightful)
Where the BSD license really shines is in areas like the Apache project. Businesses donate to the project so that they don't have to reinvent the wheel every other day. They are then free to take the resulting work and bury it deeply inside the code where they don't worry about it any longer.
In the case of GPLed code, a business must make an up front decision to accept the change in business procedures that the GPL requires. This is good for GPL developers because they see a return on their work other than money. It's bad for a business because it may invalidate their business model. (i.e. How they make money.)
As with all things, everyone has to meet in the middle on this stuff.
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen a bunch of projects that chose to go with the BSD style licence and it's bit them in the ass. People are using their code left and right, but hardly anyone is contributing back since they don't have to. [...] As long as there are human beings involved, there's going to be people taking advantage of you.
I don't get this. Surely he wanted everyone to use his code, without any further obligations? Since that's exactly the point of the license he used? How can you call that "biting him in the ass", or "taking advantage of"?
BSD is clearly too loose, if you don't want people to keep their changes for themselves. But well, duh, don't use that license then. Most people in the BSD projects are perfectly happy if there code is used somewhere, regardless of ever seeing anything back (or so I've heard - I'm a Linux weenie).
Anyway, in between GPL and BSD license, there's always the LGPL.
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:4, Interesting)
If this is /really/ "biting them in the ass", and not just something they expected, but you happen to find personally disagreeable, then the people in those projects deserve every bit of pain they receive. The whole *point* of the BSD license is so derivative code remains under the control of the people writing it.
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:5, Informative)
GPL is extremely hard to use as part of a commercial project, as it forces GPL on everything that links to it. That's fine if that's what the author wanted to achieve.. I do remember in my earlier years as a programmer GPLing everything without thinking though and it wouldn't surprise me if that still happened.
Parent
FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
That's exactly why the LGPL exists.
You shouldn't be copying from the headers anyways. You should be #include-ing them.
It's really not that big of a deal to make most programs dynamically linked... it's standard industry practice.
That the user can replace some libraries is actually a good thing... for example, the SDL shipped with Neverwinter Nights does not work with some recent versions of nvidia-glx, but newer versions of SDL do, so I just replaced the SDL in NWN with a symlink to my more recent SDL library. If I couldn't do this, I wouldn't be able to run the program, and I wouldn't have bought the expansion packs.
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:4, Informative)
Second of all, Microsoft *bought* a TCP stack from a Spider software when they were writing Win2k. Ironically, that TCP stack was taken from BSD - so you can be mad a spider software for 'stealing' the BSD tcp stack and laugh at Microsoft for paying for it.
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:4, Interesting)
yeah, i know, i'm dreaming. on the other hand i'm getting a free $50 program because they used ONE of my BSD licensed libraries
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:4, Informative)
It would appear to me that they're not too hurt people are doing this. In fact, the choice of the BSD license in this case seems pretty well thought out, in line with that one aim of using the software however you so choose.
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, most companies don't care! Most companies aren't in the software market, don't want to be in the software market, don't care about the license as long as they can freely use and copy the software for their own purposes, and think all this arguing is insane. As far as they're concerned, the BSD and GPL licenses are functionally equivalent.
But for the tiny percentage of all companies that actually are in the software or computer services market, the BSD license is something they only want to see applied to other people's code. So, saying they "prefer" the BSD license is hopelessly naive and misguided. They prefer to give away as little as possible, while getting as much as possible. And, in general, many of them seem to find the GPL or other copyleft licenses to be a reasonable compromise.
The benefit to businesses of the GPL is quite obvious (at least to smart companies, of which there are an increasing number). They can release their own code without worrying that their competitors will abscond with it, improve it, and not share those improvements.
Me, I tend to prefer the BSD license for my own code, as it's simpler, and there's less to worry about. But it's a very mild preference, and I happily contribute to GPL'd projects as well.
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is one reason I am personally fond of the LGPL. It says, in essence, "MY code is Free and must stay that way. Do what you want with you parts." It also has the side-effect of encouraging good, modular, component-based design. That's a win-win for everyone. Why people keep forgetting the LGPL in these flamewars I don't know, as it is a perfectly reasonable compromise between the "do anything" BSD and the "hand of Midas" GPL. I am particularly fond of it for libraries, frameworks, APIs, etc.
That said, can we mod this entire story flamebait? I mean really, is the next Slashdot story going to be "Vi or Emacs, what does Slashdot think?"
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:4, Informative)
The FSF (the people who wrote the GPL) don't agree with you on that matter.
How do you think Google gets away with modifying their software and deploying it on servers world-wide?
Some quotes from www.gnu.org from the GPL FAQ
Is making and using multiple copies within one organization or company "distribution"?
No, in that case the organization is just making the copies for itself. As a consequence, a company or other organization can develop a modified version and install that version through its own facilities, without giving the staff permission to release that modified version to outsiders.
Note : Notice the use of the word facilities, not facility.
However, when the organization transfers copies to other organizations or individuals, that is distribution. In particular, providing copies to contractors for use off-site is distribution.
If someone steals a CD containing a version of a GPL-covered program, does the GPL give him the right to redistribute that version?
If the version has been released elsewhere, then the thief probably does have the right to make copies and redistribute them under the GPL, but if he is imprisoned for stealing the CD he may have to wait until his release before doing so.
If the version in question is unpublished and considered by a company to be its trade secret, then publishing it may be a violation of trade secret law, depending on other circumstances. The GPL does not change that. If the company tried to release its version and still treat it as a trade secret, that would violate the GPL, but if the company hasn't released this version, no such violation has occurred.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to trust the FSF and the hundreds of other people who say what I say, as opposed to the handful who disagree, none of which have anything to do with the FSF
Parent
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:5, Funny)
I think Market Speak(TM) revolutionizes leading-edge initiatives by deploying mesh synergistic relationships and innovates in user-centric niches by enabling strategy scalable streamlined virtual communities and transition collaborative deliverables!
Parent
And he is right too. (Score:5, Insightful)
The BSD license is perfect for everybody else.
Re:And he is right too. (Score:3, Insightful)
The GPL license is perfect for developers.
The BSD license is perfect for everybody else.
As a software consumer who never ever wants to be forced to agree to a EULA just to get better performance from my software I have to favor the GPL. Screw those who want to screw others, if you want to charge me for something then make it yourself from scratch.
Re:And he is right too. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
OMFG, they actually asked what we think about this (Score:5, Funny)
"Which is a better licensing model for open-source applications: BSD or GPL? What do you think?"
Please for the love of god remember the children when you post.
Re:Licensing genes. (Score:5, Funny)
So should we license our children under the BSD license, or the GPL one?
Really depends on the source I think. My fiance doesn't let me share my source anymore, and I certainly don't contribute it back to the tree, shudder.
Parent
Which is better? (Score:5, Funny)
Better question yet (Score:5, Funny)
BSD License vs. GPL
Linux vs. FreeBSD
Emacs vs. vi
C++ vs. Java
Python vs. Perl
PHP vs. Ruby on Rails
Microsoft vs. SCO
Parent
Re:Better question yet (Score:4, Interesting)
A big part of that is because of Theo's opening driver work, cause the entire time he's been rubbing it in the noses of Linux developers and communities, cause they refused to help.
Not to mention the comments in that one interview.
Those and the whole security thing really put some gas on the fire that is OpenBSD versus Linux.
I guess this will start up the OpenBSD versus Linux versus FreeBSD versus Linux flamefest then.
Parent
Re:Better question yet (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Which is better? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Wow, that is pointless. (Score:3, Insightful)
All depends on what you want. (Score:5, Informative)
The purpose of the GPL is to ensure that the code will always be open.
The purpose of the BSD license is to ensure the authors are given proper credit, not necessarily to keep the code open.
Oh dear Lord... (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyways, as an encore, I think the next posting should be "VI vs. Emacs: Which is the best text editor for your needs?"
BTW (Score:4, Informative)
This is incorrect. The GPL does not require that derivitive works be GPLed. The key is that the restrictions placed on derivitive works (you must give up the source code and exclusive rights to redistribution) makes the resulting code effectively like the GPL. You can still use some other license for the derivitive code, and once you stop redistributing you can stop giving out the source code. Plus, nothing prevents you (as the copyright holder) from reusing the source that is yours in a non-GPL-derived product.
Clear as mud? Good.
Re:BTW (Score:4, Informative)
Unless I've misunderstood you, you've got the facts wrong yourself. You claim: The GPL does not require that derivitive works be GPLed. and You can still use some other license for the derivitive code
If you distribute your derivative work, b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. [section 2b of the GPL [gnu.org]]
Parent
GPL helps programmers get paid (Score:5, Interesting)
The BSD license is great if you are a big company and lots of little folks like me are contributing BSD software that you can use in any proprietary way you wish. But it's not so great for those little people, because they are functioning as sort of unpaid employees. GPL gives the whole situation a balance.
If you take the range of GPL, LGPL or GPL + exception, and BSD, you have a range of licenses for essentially any business purpose. Each has their strong and weak points.
Bruce
Re:GPL helps programmers get paid (Score:5, Informative)
That really depends on whether or not you just accept random patches, or if you're planning to license the code commercially, whether you require copyright assignment to you before applying those patches.
Parent
English garden or tightly maintained lawn? (Score:3, Funny)
I'll get beaten down for posting this again, but having used FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Redhat, and SuSe extensively over the last ten years:
The Linux distro cloud is like an English garden - wild stuff going on all over the place, very easy for someone with a new idea to break in and produce a distro, and in general there is a frenetic level of innovation.
The BSD systems are more like the lawn of the base commander at Camp Pendleton - each blade named, serial numbered, and rarely do they get out of line.
I'm running FreeBSD most everywhere because I don't have to jack with it. I've got SuSe on my desktop because I've got a captive Windows thingy with accounting data and people around here pay me to touch SuSe, so its worthwhile to be up to speed.
Each has their place - I love the massive amount of GPL stuff in
Yes, I've heard of portage, no, I haven't touched it yet - consider enlightening without flaming if you're a guru
I vote BSD style (but LGPL's ok)... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is not logical to expect (IMO) that a company contracting another company is always going to want (or be willing to accept) a GPL style license, so GPL'ing something limits its use in corporate sectors (again IMO).
Now many times if you go and ask the library authors' they'll grant special permission especially in a case like this, but it's a hastle to work with. And you can argue that you should fight for free software all over, but it doesn't make business sense in every case, especially when your company is not in the business of providing support.
Also the LGPL solves this sort of issue to some extent, but I'd say the LGPL is more BSD then GPL, but that's a bit of an overstatement...
Re:I vote BSD style (but LGPL's ok)... (Score:5, Insightful)
My goal in life is not to be your free development resource. My goal is to produce software to help my fellow man. If your company can benefit too, thats a bonus. But if you aren't willing to do the same thing, then you can pay for my work to replicated on your own dollar. You can't have it both ways. Pay me in code, or pay me (or other developers) to do it in cash. But you will pay for the use of it in another project.
Parent
Depends on where you are (Score:4, Insightful)
The BSD license offers more advantages to companies looking to sell software derived from existing software. They can take BSD-licensed code, do what they wish with it and treat the results as their own proprietary code.
The GPL license offers advantages to end-users long-term. Anyone wanting to take advantage of the starting point GPL'd software offers has to return the favor in the form of their code. Essentially it makes developers let other people take advantage of their work in the same way they took advantage of others' work. It also guarantees that, as an end-user, you're never in a position where you can't get fixes and modifications to the software.
Which one is better for you as the author of the software who has to decide on the license to release it under depends on your goals for the software.
The GPL good when ownership is well-defined. (Score:5, Interesting)
But, if there are are too many joint authors, that's a problem. It may be impractical to get everyone to agree to set up the alternate licensing.
If all the authors have assigned their copyright to some organization that is politically against proprietary software, that's also a problem for you. (That's why those FSF people want copyright assignment. They know too damn well that the GPL by itself isn't enough!)
These aren't inherent problems with the GPL, though, only with the specific situation involving the GPL.
Under the right conditions, when there are only a few authors or maybe just one, the key difference between the GPL and BSD is that you have to obtain permission from the authors of the GPLed program for proprietary use. When you do that, you have a bit of advantage too, because that program remains non-free to your competition. If they want the technology, they have to approach those authors and buy it separately from you. Heck, you could even buy the complete, exclusive rights to the GPLed program. Afterward, none of your competitors could make proprietary use of the technology, only the uses permitted by the GPL'ed public releases (which you can continue to make, as the new owner!) So you see, it's pretty damn smart to write GPLed software: you leave yourself open as a nice acquisition target for someone who wants the technology.
That's what kind of makes the BSD license stupid; the authors have just given away the permission to everyone to do anything. It's a good license to put on the smallest possible piece of code that will make a name for you as a great hacker and help you secure future contracts. It's also good for your reference implementation of some spec that you are trying to push onto everyone else, whether it be a data format, protocol, or what have you. Otherwise you're just doing free work for some software venture capitalist, which is stupid. I mean, if you want to help people, go spend time with sick children or something. Doh!
Re:The GPL good when ownership is well-defined. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently there are some mods who only read half of the comments.
So I suppose the Apache Foundation should just give up the work they've done? I suppose name-recognition for a popular BSD project isn't enough for you?
If anything, licensing under BSD instead of the GPL is the most selfless act a software developer can make. It means they are coding for the love of coding, not because of a political or philosophical agenda. Is there something wrong with that?
Likewise, is there something wrong with working for Habitat for Humanity, the Peace Corps, and The Hunger Project?
Parent
FSF's stance on linking (Score:4, Interesting)
My biggest problem with the GPL is the FSF's position that even dynamically linking against a library under GPL is enough to make the resulting code a derivative work (and thus also subject to the GPL). The BSD license affords much more flexibility. The LGPL is also not so encumbered. (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/lgpl.html [fsf.org])
Note also that the FSF's interpretation may not be binding, but it hasn't been tested in court (that I'm aware of, and I recently attended a symposium on this very topic). So, in my mind, it creates an unacceptable exposure for anyone who wants to develop software but not adopt the GPL. The BSD license is substantially safer.
More discussion on this point: http://www.oslawblog.com/2005/01/static-linking-gp l-and-lgpl.html [oslawblog.com]
Trolltech's stance is worse (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:FSF's stance on linking (Score:4, Insightful)
The FSF doesn't define derived work, that's a legal term from copyright law. Most lawyers are of the opinion that the FSF is being far to liberal and that much more stuff would constitute derived than even they believe (stuff that most programmers would consider "mere aggregation".
Parent
WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Use the GPL if you're going to get upset if someone uses your code commercially without paying you. GPL won't quite prohibit that kind of thing, but it will make most business models involving it impractical.
Use the GPL if you have strong philosophical objections to the basic idea of intellectual property. If, eventually, a sufficiently large portion of code is GPLed, then it might become prohibitively difficult for anyone to make non-GPLed code without re-inventing the wheel. Dream on.
Use the BSD license if you just want your code to be useful to as many people as possible.
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Use the GPL if you have strong philosophical objections to the basic idea of intellectual property.
I don't get this. Without intellectual property (read: without copyright law), it would be like everything was BSD licensed. The GPL relies entirely on copyright law to do its trick.
Parent
Businesses sit on both ends of the table... (Score:3, Interesting)
Kjella
My experiences of an open source project release (Score:5, Informative)
software. We had done very well in the run-up to Y2K - lots of people wanted
to perform regression testing on their database applications. We were a small
company - much smaller than e.g. Rational.com (Now borged by IBM), but felt
that we had a good product. The management decided that the best way to help convince
customers to buy our product, in the face of arguments that Cyrano might not
be around in a couple of years time, was to open source the code. In these
circumstances, the obvious license to choose is the GPL: it ensures that
the company benefits from any changes anyone else makes.
I spent a very long time going through the files, adding the appropriate
header comments, and removing any comments naming individuals, especially
individuals who were no longer with the company, before setting up the
project at SourceForge: http://opensta.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]. There were
also OpenSTA.com and
I believe that several ex-employees, made redundant after the company went
tits-up, are now self-employed and using the application.
At the very least, open-sourcing the project meant that the codebase was not
lost when the company folded.
GPL is the worst of both worlds (Score:5, Insightful)
Because:
1) It offers *zero* real protection, *especially* for *small developers* with no legal team to back them up.
2) For people that *are* honest, it causes a hell of a lot of interworking problems.
These are quite simply the facts, regardless of all the religious beliefs that are continously being flaunted above by misguided GPL zealots.
END TROLL
I marked this as a troll because that is how most people will percieve it. Nevertheless it's the truth.
Shock news! (Score:4, Funny)
"Frankly, we resent the air our programmers use up; how come that's not mentioned in thet Coyote agreement thing we hear about?" said a spokesman.
In other news, it was found that people like to be given free money and have sex with beautiful people.
TWW
Re:What a retarded question. (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you subscribe to the loony definition of "derivative code" that RMS does, the GPL encompasses a hell of a lot more than "derivatives of their code".
Parent