Subject: Re: My reasons for BSD over GPL, for a company
To: None <netbsd-advocacy@netbsd.org>
From: Hernani Marques Madeira <hernani@vecirex.net>
List: netbsd-advocacy
Date: 02/10/2005 07:22:09
On Wed, Feb 09, 2005 at 09:38:19PM +0100, Hubert Feyrer wrote:
> I was asked on how to convince some decision makers at a (mostly) hardware
> company to 1) use BSD-code instead of GPL-code for the start (i.e. use
> NetBSD over Linux) and 2) make them release the code to the public after
> making changes. Here are my thoughts:
>
> [...]
I think that one of the most interesting effects of *BSD-licensed
software is that technology gets spreaded.
Companies can instead of inventing a similar or much different (totally
incompatible) wheel make use of an existing core that's *BSD-licensed.
That's much more motivating and cheaper.
An example is TCP/IP.
But, even for companies there's an interest in releasing -- at least the core
and/or interface parts -- of their code under the *BSD-license, if they want a
new innovative technology to be widely used. That's especially interesting
for smaller companies.
*BSD-licensed software may result in standards to be born.
--
hernani