Re: [HACKERS] Re: Revised Copyright: is this morepalatable?

Mike Mascari wrote:
>
> Why do you continue to insist that GPL is superior to BSD? GPL is
> BSD *with restrictions*. If someone comes along and sweeps up the
> major developers:
>
> A) Good for the major developers - they deserve to have large
> sums of cash thrown their way, particularly for many of them who
> have been working on this *for years*
>
> B) The moment it happens, the project forks and another "Marc"
> out-there offers to host development on his machine and the
> process begins again. PostgreSQL exists despite Illustra's
> existence.
>
> This is not something new. SunOS, AIX, HPUX, etc. all have (at
> one time or another) considerable BSD roots. And yet FreeBSD
> still exists... All GPL does is 'poison' the pot by prohibiting
> commercial spawns which may leverage the code. If someone makes
> some money selling CommercialGres by integrating replication,
> distributive, and parallel query, good for them.

Is perhaps GPL more restrictive for *developers*? And BSD more
restrictive for *consumers*?

As a consumer I prefer the GPL. But Mike's point is well taken. I
agree that the GPL is rather idealistic. It makes it very difficult,
almost impossible, for someone to make money doing software development.

Is there a middle ground? Somewhere where perhaps I can be assured that
*someday* in the not-so-distant future I, as a consumer, will have
access to source code? Is there any such thing as a license with
built-in time limits? Reasonably short time limits, as opposed to those
provided by the U.S. patent office?

Or is there a way to write an open-source license that allows developers
to make money? I know, I know, there are too many licenses already.
But if talented hard working people can't make a living, there's a
problem. This will probably sound very stupid, but would it be possible
to write a license that said something to the effect of "if you are a
big corporate commercial interest worth more than $X, you must donate $Y
to postgresql.org."?

I'm not trying to rankle the developers who have benefited me so much by
promoting the GPL. I'm just trying to protect myself as a consumer from
being left in the cold when the product I've spent so much time learning
and implementing suddenly goes proprietary.

Sorry to be cynical, but as a consumer, I can't help seeing BSD licenses
as good old bait and switch. And this discussion doesn't reassure me
otherwise.

Sure, the code can fork. SunOS, AIX, HPUX are good examples. Examples
of the kind of code forking and corporatism I thought, I hoped, the
world was moving away from.

________________________
Ron Peterson
rpeterson(at)yellowbank(dot)com