[CrackMonkey] OS/X Warp!

[Rick Moen]

begin  Poopmastah quotation:
>> Do you know of any instance where Apple Computer has modified
>> BSD-licensed code and _not_ contributed back the changes under the
>> original licence?  I know of none.  
> 
> But they could, if they wanted to.  And it would be just fine with the
> FreeBSD-developers, or they would have released it under that other
> more restrictive license.

Indeed; excellent point.

Much virtual ink gets wasted over the supposition that coders are
getting "ripped off" or their code is being "misappropriated", when that 
code is being used precisely in accordance with its specified licence.  
Apparently, such commentators think programmers can't read, or can't
understand the conditions they elect to use for their code.

If so, _that_ would be a problem (theirs) -- but I see no reason to
think it commonly true.  

My point is not to advocate specific licences over others, but rather to 
stress that each licence is an instrument of the copyright holder's
will, to implement his policy.  If it grants the permissions he wants,
then it's successful.  If not, he needs to study licensing more
carefully.

> It seems that people who use the various BSDs contribute code back,
> though.  Like the netgraph-code in FreeBSD, from Whistle.  (As in the
> Whistle Interjet, or whatever it's called.  Now owned by IBM.)

Yes, I know of that one, having attended BAFUG meetings there.

More generally, Jordan Hubbard once commented (in an O'Reilly interview,
I think) that, although proprietary forks of BSD have been known to
exist, they tend not to persist, for the obvious reason of development
inefficiency over the long term.  You have to have a really compelling
reason to maintain a separate codebase, when you can alternatively feed
changes back upstream.

-- 
Cheers,                                    I'll try being nicer,
Rick Moen                                  if you'll try being smarter.
rick at linuxmafia.com