[OT] open-source license issues

[Daniel Gibson]

Am 12.04.2011 12:24, schrieb Nick Sabalausky:
> "Russel Winder" <russel at russel.org.uk> wrote in message 
> news:mailman.3416.1302591172.4748.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
>>
>> Personally I find licences such as BSD, MIT, ASL, etc. ones to avoid
>> since they allow organizations to take software, sell it for profit and
>> return absolutely nothing to the development community.
> 
> I've never seen that as a realistic concern. Here's the basic scenario:
> 
> 1. I make program Foo and release it under BSD/MIT/etc.
> 
> 2. The company EvilSoftwareCo takes Foo and sells it giving me nothing.
> 
> That's what's seen as the problem, right? I'm not concerned because the 
> obvious next steps are:
> 
> 3. I go around spreading the fact that EvilSoftwareCo's Foo is available for 
> free (both meanings of the term) from my site.
> 

What difference does it make? You don't have the money to reach
EvilSoftwareCo's (potential) costumers. Ranting in your blogs and some
mailinglists or whatever won't change anything.
They do big marketing to sell your software (with their small
additions), they claim its stable and certified etcpp.
So they still make big money with your code without giving anything
(neither code nor money) back.

> 4. There isn't a fucking thing EvilSoftwareCo can do about it.
> 
> "But what if EvilSoftwareCo makes proprietary changes to Foo and sells it as 
> FooPlus? Your Foo doesn't get any of those extras!"
> 
> Don't care. If they put in the time and effort to add value to something, 
> then they *should* be allowed to ask for compensation for their work under 
> whatever business model they choose. And if the value they've added is 
> merely trivial, then A. My version of Foo can still compete and B. I can 
> just add it to my Foo myself (or anyone else can).
> 

The problem is not only that they get money for your code (+their
extras), it's also that suddenly there's an incompatible version of your
program.
Maybe it's incompatible with your file formats etc. If their FooPlus is
successful your Foo may become obsolete.