Crock!
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| devnet May 31, 2005 8:36 AM EDT |
Too many licenses doesn't deter sharing of code. BUSINESSES deter sharing of code. He said it himself that they could do things with only 3 licenses. So if that is the case, then they ignore the rest of the licenses and share their code on one of the three. This is a wacked out article if I ever did see one...totally contradicts itself. |
| dinotrac Jun 01, 2005 11:37 AM EDT |
Devnet - Few people on this planet have the perspective that Bruce does. Not only has he been a project leader for Debian, but an Open Source evangelist within HP. Agree or not, he is a friend of Open Source and long time member of the community. I greatly respect his opinion on matters of integrating Open Source with the "rest of the world", and the difficulties that can arise even when people try to do "the right thing." |
| devnet Jun 01, 2005 2:52 PM EDT |
Logic defeats him in this case though. Hence why I say crock. |
| dinotrac Jun 01, 2005 4:03 PM EDT |
Devnet - Your position would be easier to swallow if you made an argument. I still remember giving up on Debian because of perceived incompatibilities between the GPL and the free (blessed by Stallman, even) QT license. For a company, the proliferation of licenses can be a real stumbling block. Companies do more than write software -- most companies use a whole lot more software than they write. To the extent they write software, they may use a multitude of tools and toolsets. The more question marks, the harder it is to convince management that using free software is not a risk and the harder it is to stem the tide of proprietary wares. |
| devnet Jun 01, 2005 7:05 PM EDT |
yes...but it is a business decision that forces the issue of licensing. No one else gives two squats about having multiple licenses because they can just ignore them. However, a business cannot...they need to hire lawyers and spend X dollars to go through and make sure they're doing ok selecting the one they select. If a business just didn't care, they'd GPL it and be done. Or they could Mozilla it and be done. The many licenses we have are a thorn in the side of a business...IF the business lets it become one. Therefore, logically, a business LIMITS ITSELF on whether or not it shares code. The # of licenses do not. |
| dinotrac Jun 01, 2005 7:39 PM EDT |
Devnet -- Curious argument... You seem to be arguing that it's ok for most people to ignore licenses, but that businesses can't do that. Somehow, I don't think even Richard Stallman would agree with you on part A. Sharing code is not a serious problem from the perspective of the business -- so long as it shares only that which it has written. Using code and writing code together can be a problem. |
| TxtEdMacs Jun 18, 2005 9:33 AM EDT |
Sorry I did not post on this earlier, but I already knew of an important instance where licensing conflicts can cause pain. Previously php included within its distribution MySQL libraries. Moreover these groups were friendly, however, the change in the latter's licensing caused the former to exclude the MySQL libraries. See [hardcopy reference: "Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL From Novice to Professional" bu W Jason Gilmore, p. 12, pp. 519 - 521, Apress 2004 or on line: http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/faq.html ]. The crux of the problem is that the free version of MySQL is distributed under GPL whereas php using another "free" or oss license. Who says that differing licensing cannot cause problems? Even without this example is should be intuitively obvious that clashes would arise. See the recent comments of Linux vs. BSD's, where neither can use the others' code. |
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