[ On Sat, September 19, 1998 at 00:22:12 (-0500), seebs@plethora.net wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Sleepycat Software DB 2.x library licensing vs. NetBSD 
>
> But what would be more open than a system you can use for whatever you
> want?  This is the goal I mostly have in writing free software.  I'd *like*
> people to also share their work, but I'd rather they use my work, and not
> share theirs, than reinvent any more wheels.

In strictly philisophical (and possibly some legal) terms I don't think
one can consider software that can be "hijacked" and turned into
proprietary software to be truely "open" and free.

I don't particularly mind being paid to write code that will be
proprietary (though as time goes by the payment must be ever more
handsome!).

However I do not want people to sell code that I've intended to be
freely available, and it's not just because they're profiting and I'm
not.  There are uncountable examples of people who have discovered that
others are selling their code, even code which was supposed to be freely
available, and sometimes they discover this fact because the purchaser
tries to get support from them.  I've heard stories like this for over a
decade, and I'm sure that's only the most recent batch.

(of course that hasn't (yet) stopped me from using "Berkeley" style
copyright licenses on the odd thing I've written for public
consumption...)

I'm also of the opinion that it's often good for software to be
rewritten, even if the only reason for doing so is to come up with a new
version that's not covered by the original's copyright license (and
regardless of the purpose for escaping the original copyright).  After
all that's effectively what NetBSD is from top to bottom.....

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>