Newsgroup: it.comp.os.dibattiti
Titolo: Licenze...

Questo e` un po' OT, ma per la pace di tutti:
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Into the ongoing debate, 'The GPL versus the BSD license', I'd like add 
yet another opinion. I agree with the positive points claimed by both 
sides, but I don't generally agree with the negative ones directed at 
the opposition. That is, I think that both licenses have strong points 
that the other lacks, and further, that the two actually complement each 
other when both are applied to products in the same market. We need them 
both.
In the operating systems arena, for example, I believe that Linux and 
*BSD together will eventually cover more ground than either could cover 
independently. Companies that might be uncomfortable building products 
based on GPL'd code can use a BSD-derived package and enter the market 
quicker and cheaper than if they built their product from the ground up. 
Further, a company that initially develops a closed source product -- 
but based on BSD-licensed source -- is more likely to release the source 
in the future, as their situation changes, than a company that develops 
a purely proprietary product.
Meanwhile, individuals who aren't striving for an exclusive marketing 
advantage in their package can spread the open source approach with more 
certainty by using the GPL.
Another advantage of having more than one major strain of open source 
license is purely psychological; the presence of multiple open source 
licenses makes each of them seem more mainstream and, therefore, less 
radical. This makes it feel like a smaller, safer step for a company to 
try out open source.
The license to choose, of course, depends on your goals. The BSDL is 
less restrictive and is, therefore, more free. The GPL, while less free, 
guarantees that published derivitive works retain the original set of 
freedoms (and restrictions). Therefore, if you want maximum freedom for 
the licensee, the BSDL is best. If you want guaranteed access to the 
source of future published code, the GPL is best. In practice, each 
allows the creation of open source code that the other would not. If I 
had to assign the common labels to them, I'd say that the BSDL is more 
consistent with the term 'free software' and that the GPL is more 
aggressively 'open source'.
That is, the GPL provides for the distribution of multiple generations 
of source code. The BSD license encourages more people in wider ranging 
situations to try out, and maybe release, source code, but still allows 
for new variants to become closed in the future.
While the two licenses do have an overlapping market, together they 
encompass a larger potential user base. As long as people and businesses 
come in countless varieties, no single license will fit them all. That 
the open source/free software world is large enough to require multiple, 
and quite different, licenses, also seems to me to be a good thing.
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bye,
-- 
piergiorgio

 and quite different, licenses, also seems to me to be a good thing.
Ma infatti e' come dico sempre io, alla fine basta non usare Linux.
=)

 Ma infatti e' come dico sempre io, alla fine basta non usare Linux.
Ma di un po', e` vero che quando installi
FreeBSD viene il tizio a casa tua per
completare la cosa?
bye,
-- 
piergiorgio