Fedora Freedom and linux-libre

[Callum Lerwick]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 5:42 PM, Matthew Saltzman <mjs at clemson.edu> wrote:

> On Thu, 2008-06-19 at 17:04 -0400, Horst H. von Brand wrote:
> > Matthew Saltzman <mjs at clemson.edu> wrote:
> > > Plenty of companies that would be willing to release free software are
> > > leery of releasing it as GPL
> >
> > Why?
>
> You'd have to ask their lawyers.  But it's a fact.
>
> >
> > >                              and of using GPL software.
> >
> > Now that is completely unwarranted.
>
> You'd have to tell their lawyers.  But it's a fact.
>

As much as I hate to drag on this clusterfsck of zelotry any longer, I can't
let this bullshit fly unopposed. Here, I'll stick to a concrete example:

Linden Lab is a small start-up, which may or may not even be pulling a
profit yet, running off venture capital. They developed a closed-source
virtual world, Second Life. A year ago they chose to release their client
open source. What license did they choose? They chose the GPLv2. Think about
it, if they had used a BSD-style license, some other company could take
their code, start up their own for-profit service, and profit off Linden
Lab's work without giving anything back, quite possibly putting Linden Lab
out of business. Their investors would have never let that happen.

Without a license like the GPL, which ensures that derived works remain
free, Linden Lab would have never open sourced the Second Life client. And
that's a fact.
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