[time-nuts] Open source

Chris Albertson albertson.chris at gmail.com
Sat Dec 8 01:09:39 UTC 2012


Yes, GPL is just one of many Open Source license types.  Others include

1) GPL (may only be used for other GPL'd projects)
2) "BSD" style (allows use for any purpose, buy you can't sue the author)
3) Public Domain (totally unrestricted use)
4) Various Creative Commons versions some allow comercial use some don't

My advice for anyone writing something new is to use GPL is you ant to keep
the code free and BSD if you want to allow free commercial use.

Many authors  ike GPL because they figure "I wrote this and I'm giving this
away for free, I don't want some other guy to take it, change the title and
claim it as his own work and charge money for it."   GPL prevents that.
 BSD on the other hand allows it  The University of Califoornia used BSD
because their goal was to get the technology out into the world and
allowing someone to make money is a good way to do that.

BTW you CAN make as much money as you like with GPL'd software.  Just look
at all Android phones.  They contain Linux and a pile of other GPL'd
software.  Apple is using BSD Unix in there products.

On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 7:00 AM, Scott McGrath <scmcgrath at gmail.com> wrote:

> GPL and Open Source are frequently confused technically any code where the
> source code is available to the customer is open source. As in open for
> inspection,  under terms agreed to in the license.
>
> What most people think about when they hear about open source is code
> released under variants of the GPL which require that code released to the
> public built with GPL tools be made available for no more than the cost of
> distribution ie you can charge for the cost of the optical disk and postage
> but no more.

-- 

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California


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