[ewillbefull]

Liberal licenses like BSD are enormously free for everybody involved. The people putting work into software using the open-source code can contribute if they want, which encourages more businesses (who would otherwise be working with proprietary alternatives) to work with the software in the first place.

The increased amount of participation probably far outweighs whatever benefit is involved from the "freedom" in forcing others to publish their changes, which actually just discourages participation from the industry and only marginally improves the ecosystem in the process.

[tspiteri]

The FSF freedom is not about giving freedom to developers, BSD-style licenses give more freedom to developers. The FSF wants to give freedom to the users, not the developers, and believes that code which is not open and free is a threat to the personal freedom of the users and has every chance of being malicious.

[epistasis]

That doesn't make sense to me. How much freedom does a non-programming user gain by having the source code? Such users can hire others to work with the source code for them.

And interestingly enough, non-programming users have this same freedom whether it's BSD code or GPL code. Even more, these same non-programming users have greater freedom with BSD code, because it's more permissive.

I think what you're arguing, obliquely, is that users benefit because there's more source code around when there's GPL than when there's BSD. This is still the core debate between GPL and BSD; does being permissive and trusting people result in less or more source code?

For me, personally, I always contribute back to BSD projects, and avoid GPL projects where there are alternative. I want the freedom BSD gives me, even if I don't exercise it, and even if I never plan to exercise it. But it's why defining GPL as "free" software comes across as double-speak to me.

I think that many people share my goal of having more source code out there, with the freedom to modify it for one's own purposes, but it's definitely not universally agreed that GPL is the best way to achieve this.

[davexunit]

>How much freedom does a non-programming user gain by having the source code?

How much freedom does a non-journalist gain by having freedom of the press? I can understand the value of a free, uncensored press even though I am not a journalist. I think that users can understand the value of software freedom even though they do not write code.

>Even more, these same non-programming users have greater freedom with BSD code, because it's more permissive.

Incorrect. You are referring to the "freedom" to restrict another user by distributing nonfree software. The free software community is concerned with positive liberty[1] and freedom for the end-user instead of the copyright holder.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_liberty

[synchronise]

Actually it includes the freedom to make licensing as difficult as possible for those who want to use your code.

The GPL is incompatible with several FOSS licenses including itself (GPLv2 only and GPLv3 being the best example) and such legal issues only serve to drive away potential users of those licenses.

Personally, that's why I find the Mozilla Public License 2.0 to be the only copyleft license I can trust. It's much clearer than the GPL, it doesn't have restrictions on dynamic linking, it is copyleft to itself but it allows code to be shipped under a defined secondary license. By default these are the entire *GPL family from v2, but it can be expanded to include other copyleft licenses such as MPLv1 or the CDDL if the developer so wishes, as long as the parts under the MPLv2 are available separately from the project under that license.

This stops license incompatibilities, something that the FSF needs to work on with their licensing scheme.

[smsm42]

Freedom of the press in not a good analogy. Better analogy would be a source of information - such as a research group - that allows you to print their information only if you allow unlimited reprints - i.e. refusing to talk to journalists form Wall Street Journal or New York Times because they have paywalls. While it is a completely legitimate behavior, it's hardly synonymous with the freedom of the press as one usually understand it.

[_delirium]

> I want the freedom BSD gives me

But from a user-centric perspective, this is not freedom but power, specifically the power to restrict downstream users' freedom. The GPL does not give you that power, while the BSD license does. That's the main philosophical difference: the GPL says you cannot add new restrictions on distribution, while the BSD says you an add any restrictions you want, as long as you don't remove the copyright notice.

[lsc]

Freedom is nearly always a matter of perspective.

Many folks, especially Americans, feel that the freedom, for example, to kick someone else off their land (or out of their living room) is pretty important, even though from the perspective of the person getting kicked off, this is a restriction of freedom.

The BSD licence is more free from the perspective of the developer, while yes, the gpl is more free from the perspective of the user.

Personally, I think it's good that we have both. "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others."

The fact of the matter is that under at least US law, it's the programmers choice how to licence their software, and considering that a whole lot of software is not open-source at all, both the bsd licence and the gpl licence are way better for users, I think, than closed-source software.

[pjmlp]

Except that most developers working on open source are actually getting their bills paid by working on closed-source software.

That speaks it all, I think.

[lsc]

>Except that most developers working on open source are actually getting their bills paid by working on closed-source software.

Do you have references for that statement?

I was under the impression was that most, or at least a very large portion of open-source code was written by people paid by companies to work on that open-source code. Both on the BSD and GPL side of things.

[belorn]

In every study I have seen, your statement is incorrect.

The wast majority of developers work at internal code, code that never will get redistributed outside the company walls.

[jka]

Not everyone can cook, but many people might find it informational and/or useful eventually to know how their meal was prepared.

In some restaurants, you can't see how your food is prepared at all, and you judge based on your knowledge and experience of prior meals.

Some restaurants will openly show you the preparation of the food (to display that it's freshly made, reassure that there's no microwaving going on, etc).

And in most cases you can look up recipes online to try your own hand at recreating a similar meal - although often without the same tools, experience, ingredients and precise recipe, it might be tricky.

Ultimately I think it'd be wonderful for all recipes and instructional information to be available for anyone to view and try themselves if they so desired - it'd also help people understand what goes into the food that they eat (and pay for).

[smsm42]

However, the downside is that if there's not enough developers to make the software on GPL terms, the users don't have freedom to use the software because there's no software worth using. Of course, it's not true for many GPLed projects, but may be true for some.

As for being malicious, I don't see how GPL adds anything to any other open source license.

[rickjames28]

That's the party line that the FSF has been spouting for decades now and I don't know why anybody keeps on repeating it. I think the people that give a wink and a nod to that FSF talking points don't even really buy it.

First of all, "users" (as in non-developers) don't care about the code..never have, never will. Secondly, the code never goes away. It's not like someone can physically snatch up some BSD code and lock it away for no one else to use.

But what I find most disturbing about this line of reasoning is that it doesn't take into account the developers decision on how she or he wants to license his or her code. If you want to GPL it, fine, if you want to give it a liberal license fine too.

[davexunit]

I think liberal licenses or weak copyleft are appropriate license for certain software, usually libraries. What we see today is that us developers have great freedom in what free libraries we can use to build our applications from. However, that freedom ends with us. It never reaches the users. We use liberally licensed libraries to build proprietary end-user applications. The GPL aims to ensure that freedom reaches the users. People say that the GPL is less free than liberal licenses because it "forces" developers to give source code to users, but the freedom to restrict others is certainly not freedom.