Let me rephrase the quote for you: "once the code is GPL'd, we cannot get the modifications back"
That's what he meant. Look at the full context.
That's what he meant. Look at the full context.
FSF recommendation is that you use the same license as the project which you are contributing to. If you use a BSD project, contribute your patches under BSD. If its GPL, contribute under GPL. If you combine work under BSD and GPL and write modifications, contribute back the modifications based on what code you are doing modification for.
The proprietary way is to release modification only if its make a business sense to do so, and I don't know if OpenBSD actually has a official recommendation in this aspect. If they do, its not something I have ever seen.
- one of GPL's cool thing is that it prevents proprietary software from including GPL'd code without contributing back to the community
- Because BSD is not as strict as GPL regarding license derivation, GPL says "BSD is bad, you're allowing proprietary software to use BSD code without giving back"
- Some people take BSD code, modify it and distribute modifications under GPL
- Because of this, the original BSD code authors can't benefit from the modifications, only GPL projects can... doing exactly what GPL was against in the first place (preventing authors from enjoying modifications)
Theo is only pointing out the irony of it all.
Not much a comparison to proprietary software.
I guess that other way that I could interpret your response is that you are suggestion that the BSD people should just relicense their stuff as GPL to be able to use GPL'd project. This really ignores the points being made (if this is what you are saying).
This is not an accurate description of what the GPL is shooting for, which has significant consequences on the things built up from this misunderstanding.