gpl backlash?

[Wilfredo Sanchez]

| For the software I personally write, there really isn't much  
choice but the
| GPL. That's because I donate my time to increase the amount of  
available
| free software, _not_ non-free software. I absolutely will not  
tolerate being
| treated as an unpaid employee by someone who takes my contribution and 
| incorporates it into non-free software, without returning the same  
value to
| the community that I put into it when I made my contribution.  
Thus, I would
| not contribute my time to writing free software without the  
_protection_ of
| the GPL.

  That's a fairly narrow view, Bruce.

  NeXT used GPL'ed code for years without adding much value to the  
GNU Project because they made lots of NeXT-specific changes and  
didn't care at all whether they got folded into the FSF source base.   
Sure the software remaind "free", but none of it ever made it into  
the FSF sources and was therefore generally useless to the Community.  
 Had it not been GPL'ed and had they made it "proprietary," there  
would have been little difference to anyone.  What did this  
"protection" buy you?

  On the other hand, Apple has contributed a fair bit (not a  
terrifically great bit, but certainly something) to NetBSD and Apache  
despite the lack of any requirements to do so.  And we're finally  
getting our act together and submitting a large body of work to gdb.   
I just met with a pile of gdb developers at a Cygnus-sponsored gdb  
party, and they were quite exited to be getting this code.  The fact  
that it's been available for years never helped anyone.  The fact  
that we are now actively trying to merge it in upstream is what  
counts, and the GPL isn't going to get you that.

  Which isn't to say that "the GPL is evil";  that's yet another  
narrow view.  I'm just saying that you're not looking at the bigger  
picture.  I would say that the GPL isn't necessary, but I just want  
better software, not some notion of code virtue.

  I want to be able to run an open system on my computer, and I want  
it to be the best open system it can possibly be.  So I'll write  
open software to contribute to the value of that system, and I'll  
hope that lots of other people will use it and see the value in  
improving it in the same way.  If someone else takes it and decides  
not to contribute, I don't really care.  I'm not anyone's "unpaid  
employee" because they use my code.  My belief is that people who  
take open source and diverge on their own at in the long-term going  
to lose.  I don't have any doubts about the security of open source,  
and don't need to force my view onto others.  I'd rather welcome them  
and wait for them to get a clue if they don't already have it.   
Poo-poo-ing them because they don't share my view isn't going to make  
my software better if it means they go work on something else  
instead.  So if the GPL limits my audience, I see that as a bug, not  
a feature.

| Have you looked at freshmeat.net lately? At least half of the program
| announcements there have "GPL" as their license. That's a lot more than
| it used to be.

  The GPL has momentum.  So does MS Windows.  That doesn't  
necessarily make it The Best Thing.

	-Fred

#include <std_disclaimer.h> /* opinion(Fred) != opinion(Apple) */


--
       Wilfredo Sanchez, wsanchez at apple.com
Apple Computer, Inc., Core Operating Systems / BSD
          Technical Lead, Darwin Project
   1 Infinite Loop, 302-4K, Cupertino, CA 95014