Re:GPL vs BSD, a matter of sustainability
by dllthomas on Friday February 08, 2013 @09:23AM
(#5187962)
I almost gave up at that line. If you'd continued reading, you'd have found that the author winds up somewhere near your position.
If you bother reading the complete article, they come to an actual conclusion and comparison at the end.
Why would I bother, the conclusion has been declared in the first section, and as the guy says - we've all witnessed enough flame wars in the last 20 years to know the arguments inside out.
The article was written five years ago, and we still haven't stopped the arguments, therefore it doesn't say anything revolutionary.
--edit-- I've done as you asked now, it's not as long as I thought it was at first glance.
Conclusions aside, I disagree that with the statement that BSD is freer license, because the GPL guarantees the transmission of freedom, which BSD does not. The BSD license provides (almost) absolute freedom to the individual holding the code right now, which the GPL does not. I don't think it's possible to declare one objectively more free than the other. I'm not sure it's useful to either, apart from in the context of a flamewar.
Gave up at this line.
As far as I'm concerned the licenses give different freedoms and pointing at one or the other as objectively superior is just dick-waving.