John \"sb\" Werneken wrote:
> ONE QUESTION: under modified BSD, can derivative work be made proprietary?
> If so, some companies would be more likely to support us (so long as it did
> not turn in to something that would 'poison the well' as far as attracting
> open source community support). Perhaps Jon Winters could speak to this, or
> ask ESR ?
Modified BSD is non-copylefted free software...
<snip from
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#Non-CopyleftedFreeSoftware>
Non-copylefted free software
Non-copylefted free software comes from the author with permission to
redistribute and modify, and also to add additional restrictions to it.
If a program is free but not copylefted, then some copies or modified
versions may not be free at all. A software company can compile the
program, with or without modifications, and distribute the executable
file as a proprietary software product.
The X Window System illustrates this. The X Consortium releases X11 with
distribution terms that make it non-copylefted free software. If you
wish, you can get a copy which has those distribution terms and is free.
However, there are non-free versions as well, and there are popular
workstations and PC graphics boards for which non-free versions are the
only ones that work. If you are using this hardware, X11 is not free
software for you.
</snip>
Richard Stallman has a nice article about why he likes copyleft software
better than non-copyleft:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html
Hope this helps.
-- Jon Winters http://www.obscurasite.com/jon/"Everybody Loves The GIMP!" http://www.gimp.org/
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