Re: bsd license question

[Marc Espie <espie@nerim.net>]

On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 08:43:17PM -0500, Kurt B. Kaiser wrote:
> OTOH, the commercial source may reach far more users than the open
> source project ever did, and that can be a public good.  e.g. OS X
> (though that doesn't seem to have damaged the community too much
> because Apple didn't buy out the NetBSD team, and there is Darwin.)

You people focus too much on the code.

What real money can buy is *talent*. Doesn't matter much if the 
original code is released under a BSD or a GPL licence, if someone
manages to buy the development team.

In both cases, the original code is only covered as far as copyright
goes.

Have you ever tried writing one of your projects from scratch ?
Doesn't look like fun, maybe, but it only takes a small portion of
the time it took the first time over.

So, in both cases, you're screwed... or not.

A software licence covers source code, not more. BUT... It can't easily be
rescinded, unless there are explicit provisions in the licence for it.

People are not covered by the licence. They can decide to go work on
something else.

Blabla, the magic cauldron, blablabla, geek culture, blablabla, Eric
Schwartz Raymond.

Yeah, right. 

The gift culture of people who sit around actual developers talking about
licence issues and worrying that someone is going to steal the precious
code that's been written by _the community_.

Dream on.