Re: About GPL and proprietary software

On Mon, 2003-09-08 at 15:25, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Richard Huxton wrote:
> > What happens with an application built on top of MySQL+PHP I couldn't say. I'm
> > guessing your PHP scripts can be distributed under any licence you like, but
> > you couldn't distribute MySQL+PHP with them.
> >
> > Anyway, their intention is that you *can't* distribute your application
> > without either GPL-ing it or buying a licence. One of the reasons why a BSD
> > licence is more friendly from a business point of view, although it does mean
> > companies can release proprietry extensions that they keep private.
>
> And contribute them to the community after 1-2 years, which has happened
> often.

But they don't have to. The Unix Wars were caused by large companies
that took BSD and made proprietary extensions. Thus, there are pit-
falls to both GPL & BSD (not to mention straight-up proprietary
licenses).

--
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Ron Johnson, Jr. ron(dot)l(dot)johnson(at)cox(dot)net
Jefferson, LA USA

An ad run by the NEA (the US's biggest public school TEACHERS
UNION) in the Spring and Summer of 2003 asks a teenager if he
can find sodium and *chloride* in the periodic table of the elements.
And they wonder why people think public schools suck...