[Phpgroupware-developers] Re: licene debate (was: We can't...)

[Norbert Bollow]

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Reiner Jung wrote:

>> Maybe you read the license from cool projects/people like BSD/Theo de
>> Raadt ( www.openbsd.org )  
>> This is really free software. 

The BSD license gives lots of freedom to companies which like to
take good code that was written by unpaid volunteers and integrate
it into proprietary closed-source commercial software.

The overall mission of the DotGNU project (of which phpGW has
chosen to be a part) is to create a successful Free Software
competitor to Microsoft's .NET stuff.  The use of copyleft
licenses (such as the GPL for apps, and for things like phpgwapi
the LGPL is sufficiently strong copyleft) is absolutely necessary
to achieve this goal.  Otherwise, we'd put a lot of work into
building an alternative system, and when parts of it become really
good, Microsoft and other proprietary software companies could
simply insert the code (on which we worked so hard) into their
system, without giving computer users any access to the program's
source code or the freedom to change it. Our system would thereby
lose its competitive advantage, and with almost unlimited financial
resources for adding other nice features and for marketing,
Microsoft could still build the effective monopoly they want.


Dan Kuykendall <address@hidden> replied to Reiner Jung:

> To also explain why I support the LGPL for the API is that is still 
> protected from becoming enslaved, yet it doesnt put limits on working 
> with enslaved add-on apps. The GCC is a good example of a compiler and 
> base libs which can be used to create propritary apps. The idea is that 
> if its not possible to do that, then many will be forced to use 
> something else. Likewise businesses who need to have a proprietary app 
> would have to choose some other base groupware solution. This is a loss 
> to us, because it means less users and development from these sources on 
> our GPL/LGPL'd parts. We loss nothing by allowing this, because all 
> their changes to the GPL/LGPL'd parts must be fed back to us.

Well said.

(Well there is a minor detail that the changes to the GPL/LGPL'd parts
don't necessarily have to be fed back to us, the licensing requires
only that the changed code be made available to its users, but in
practice changes to GPL/LGPL'd code are normally fed back to the
development project, so that in practice things work like Dan
described.)

Greetings, Norbert.

- -- 
Founder & Steering Committee member of http://gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/
Free Software Business Strategy Guide   --->  http://FreeStrategy.info
Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet (near Zurich, Switzerland)
Tel +41 1 972 20 59        Fax +41 1 972 20 69       http://norbert.ch
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