[hobbit] Just a suggestion : License change from GPL to BSD

[Jones, Jason (Altrincham)]

I can second that, the only reason why my company started with hobbit at
all was the community, the fact that it was GPL vs. BSD never entered
the argument and now we have 9 sites monitored and soon will have a
further 5 in western Europe alone along with x in Russia, America, Japan
etc. etc. all in the hope of eventually getting one server that hosts
them all through bb proxy (but that is still a ways off yet :) ).
Although I do admit that I have not really contributed much myself :(
mainly because I am still learning but am getting better...I think so
anyway :)

But if there is anything I feel worth sharing do I just put it in the
/incoming directory?

Jason.
-----Original Message-----
From: Henrik Stoerner [mailto:henrik at hswn.dk] 
Sent: 28 October 2006 08:36
To: hobbit at hswn.dk
Subject: Re: [hobbit] Just a suggestion : License change from GPL to BSD

On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 05:41:09PM -0500, Larry Barber wrote:
> With the GPL you don't have to "give back" changes unless you transfer
the
> program to another company or individual. The GPL just requires that
the
> code be available wherever the binaries are. You are perfectly free,
under
> the GPL, to change anything you want for your own use, and not give
anybody
> else the changes.

You're right, of course - but I don't see that as a problem. What you do

internally for your own benefit is not something I need to be involved
in.
(Of course, if you do something really neat and generally useful, I
would 
appreciate it if you would share it with the rest of us).

The problem with the BSD license from my point of view is that it is
unfair - you can take my code and benefit from it (eg sell it), but 
I cannot get your improvements and use them to benefit the whole
project, or even just my own use of Hobbit. It's an anti-social 
license, and I really don't see any reason why it would be beneficial
to change license.

(The "more companies would participate if it were BSD licensed" argument
is rubbish. There are lots of examples of companies contributing code to
GPL-licensed projects, simply because it is in their best interest to
have an active community working on the software that they use - and
even rely upon for their business).


Regards,
Henrik


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