Re: Another job for the Gnome Foundation ?

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs eazel com>]

Brian Behlendorf <brian@collab.net> writes:

> 
> Finally, with this code being GPL, I don't understand the concern that
> any entity, be it the Gnome foundation, or openoffice.org, or whoever gets
> copyright, being able to "run away" with the code; they can change the
> license, but they aren't able to keep anyone from using, enhancing, and
> redistributing older versions under the GPL.

However, this makes the code effectively not GPL. One reason many
hackers like the GPL is because that way their contribution can never
be used in proprietary software. Copyright assignment to a for-profit
company dilutes this to some extent.

I realize many people don't agree with this motivation for using the
GPL, but failing to respect this point of view is essentially like
saying "you should just use the BSD license", i.e. unproductive.

 - Maciej