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NewsForge: Licensing primer, part two: a look at GPL from the BSD side

[ Thanks to Tina
Gasperson
for this link. ]

No Open Source software license is perfect. The BSD
licenses allow closed-source proprietors to swipe code created
under it and turn it into non-free software. And while the GPL
license seems to be completely unrestrictive in its freedom, in
actuality, some say, it ends up more restrictive. In fact,
opponents of the GPL say that it infects code like a
virus.

“The offending part of the GPL license, according to the BSD
guys, is section 2b, which states: “You must cause any work that
you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is
derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a
whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this
License.” (For a GPL perpective, see Part 1.)”

“The way anti-GPL’ers see it, even the tiniest code snippet can
force an entire project to be handed over to the GPL, which could
be disastrous for a proprietary software company, and extremely
distasteful for a programmer who just wants to maintain control
over his own creations.”

Complete
Story

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