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Comment by andreyf | Hacker News Reader

> The MIT license and the BSD license are much truer to the idea of "free" than any FSF licenses.

The point of the licenses is different. BSD and MIT gives you the freedom to take away other people's freedoms using the code. FSF does not.

I don't think it's quite obvious which of these is "truer to the idea of 'free'", which is a pretty vague phrase. Where you are coming from makes sense, but one could also think of it as MIT and BSD giving a certain user more freedom, and FSF protecting all user's freedom better.

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You're not taking anything away when building open source software into proprietary systems, other users are free to get the original project just like you were. FSF licenses just restrict the way I can release my derivative work.

At best the FSF license can be seen as an understandable restriction on freedom to preserve open source software by requiring reciprocation. To me there is no question that MIT and BSD licenses are more free. FSF style licenses made more sense when open source seemed like it might be a delicate beast at the mercy of proprietary forces, I think its clear now just how robust open source software is.

> You're not taking anything away when building open source software into proprietary systems,

I don't think that's necessarily true. Imagine an open source system that's fairly popular, but with just a few developers. ProprietaryCo hires them all up, and users realize that if they want improved versions of said project, they're going to have to pay, or find some new developers. Far fetched? Not really, it's pretty similar to what Sun Microsystems did.

So, there is some risk to the community. What 'protects' BSD licensed projects best is to have a strong, and diverse development community, which is one of the things that the Apache Software Foundation tries to encourage.

I guess I imagine that style of thing will be a rarity. Its not specifically proprietary software thats creating a problem in that case though, its that a company is stopping development on the open source project by hiring all the programmers away, that could happen with a FSF license as well.

With a GPL license, you could hire up all the developers, but unless you really got all of them, or had a copyright assignment, it would be very difficult to take future versions proprietary.

As to how often that kind of thing happens, it's hard to say. BSD/Sun is a big, obvious case. It would be interesting to get statistics on others.

My general strategy is to use BSD style licensing when my code might be included in someone else's project (Hecl), and GPL if it's a "finished product" kind of thing.

You're not taking anything away when building open source software into proprietary systems

From Stallamn's view, I'm pretty sure you're not taking anything away by restricting the creation of more proprietary software. Proprietary software pretty much doesn't exist for him.

To understand his point, you really have to apply all of the moral frames relating to 'freedom' to software licensing. In that view, to license software without distributing source is akin to licensing software with a clause to give up your first born.

BSD and MIT gives you the freedom to take away other people's freedoms using the code.

This sort of doctrinaire newspeak is what gives GPL advocates the appearance of a cult. Developers who incorporate some open source code in their app and don't release it aren't taking away anyone's freedoms.

Exactly. The way I see it, you can think of a piece of code sort of like chain links. GPL code looks like this: http://ace.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pACE2-988564dt... AND it requires that ever piece 'below' it on the chain also look like that. Open source, BSD-licensed code also looks like that, but allows later links to be closed as well.

The upside to GPL is that any link N has the same rights to use and modify N-1 as 2 had on 1, with the downside being that N has limited rights on itself. BSD grants maximum control to each link, with the downside being that any given link may choose not to allow any links to be added below it.

This sort of doctrinaire newspeak is what gives GPL advocates the appearance of a cult.

Let's not throw around names... it's not out of comprehension to think of knowing what your computer is running as a fundamental right.

Developers who incorporate some open source code in their app and don't release it aren't taking away anyone's freedoms.

That's precisely it. I'm not asking you to agree with the FSF view, but to understand it. In the view of the GPL, distributing proprietary software is absolutely taking away people's rights of knowing what's running on their machine, modifying what they're running, etc.

Fundamental rights aren't always obvious, and whether or not this view will catch on is not something I pretend to know. I think this will be an open question for dozens, if not hundreds of years to come.

Free Ipod! Terms and conditions apply

I agree about the different purposes, but I'd also point out that usually the more "terms and conditions" the less likely what you're getting is really free. To remove vagueness regarding freedom, Webster's definition:

1: the quality or state of being free: as a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b: liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence c: the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous <freedom from care> d: ease, facility <spoke the language with freedom> e: the quality of being frank, open, or outspoken <answered with freedom> f: improper familiarity g: boldness of conception or execution h: unrestricted use

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