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Re: GPL Liscensing on New Release: What Gives?
There's nothing wrong with government funded code finding its way into private
software. That government wants the code to be used. That's why they
develop it. Just because some code winds up in a close source product doesn't
make the ORIGINAL code unavailable. If a commercial entity adds some bells and
whistles and sells it, then more power to them. If it's something useful that
they won't give me, or charges too much for -- I'll write it myself. A
commercial entity would have to do a SIGNIFICANT amount of new work to the
code (possibly justifying selling it) to make any derivative more palatable
than the original FREE alternative.
So what someone has taken my work and commercialized it? If I wanted to
control my work, I would not release the source. Period. Fact is, the GPL does
not protect you from an unscrupulous businessman. They have all sorts of means
at their disposal to take what they want including very deep pockets to fight
it out in court. (Incidentally, the GPL has never been reviewed by any legal
action.)
You're also under the mistaken assumption that there has to be "winners" and
"losers"
in the open source development community. Mach was originally a research
project. From what I understand the project is complete. It's not competing
with
Linux. Linux is an itch Linus Torvalds wanted to scratch. It's not competing
with MS Windows although a lot of people would like to think that. The success
of Linux has more to do with Linus's leadership and a supportive following
than any technical merit.
Was licensing an issue. Maybe. But if I recall, the original Mach license was
not
completely open like GPL or BSD style licenses. Perhaps the more important
problem
was that only a few people were allowed to contribute to the code base.
There's plenty of room for everyone to develop what they want. One project
being
very successful shouldn't detract from all the other similar projects.
References: