Why GPL License?


To ng-spice-devel@ieee.ing.uniroma1.it
From "Buzz Megg" <buzmeg@hotmail.com>
Date Sun, 22 Jul 2001 19:20:32 -0400
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Reply-To ng-spice-devel@ieee.ing.uniroma1.it

All,

Please forgive me if I am beating a dead horse or starting a flamefest (that 
is not my intent), but I queried the indexes and didn't find anything about 
this:

Why choose the GPL license instead of the updated BSD license?

The GPL license carries a set of restrictions on it that many companies, 
rightly or wrongly, find unpalatable.  It's primary use is to prevent people 
from selfishly appropriating the software.  However, it can get in the way 
of an engineer trying to convince a skeptical management chain to absorb a 
particular piece of software to be used in daily operations.

If the goal is to create a better, free circuit simulator, adopting a much 
less restrictive license would be more encouraging to companies who might 
later feed back fixes and extensions.  I might even argue that the 
restrictions on commercial use of spice3 helped lead it to its current 
moribund state.

If there are obvious reasons for choosing the GPL, please tell me.  However, 
my personal belief is that the extra use (even if small) gained by being 
less restrictive far outweighs the risk of having the code stolen and sold 
for profit.

At the very least, think how much work it has been to get Berkeley to modify 
the spice license.  How hard do you want to make it on the people who may 
want to fix *this* code 10 years from now?

Andy Lentvorski

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