Quote:
Originally Posted by rocket357
99.99% of the users out there do not give a flip if they have access to the source code, or even if bugs get fixed (unless it directly affects their workflow, of course), or to go a step further, most end users don't even care if security patches are put in place. Think of your typical Microsoft user, or typical Mac user. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've been called out to help a family member or friend with their "computer issues", and they're doing things like disabling Windows firewall while their machine in plugged directly into the internet with a public IP on it. I know you've had similar experiences so there's no need to expound on that.
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This is one of the points that leans me to the BSD licensing side (as opposed to other points leaning me to the GPL/GNU side). I think of my roommate. She absolutely loves her Macs (whatever, there's no accounting for taste). GNU, BSDs, or any other group producing free software has nothing I think would suffice for her. Perhaps I could set her up with Gnustep (or Etoile if it were finished), but she'd get crabby with me. So here FreeBSD (and others) helped a commercial entity make something someone's happy with. Who am I to judge that a bad thing when it's not clear if free software can produce things that will please everyone? I've read similar enthusiasm over Lispworks' compiler combined with doubt whether free software could do as well (the person made vague economic arguments that sounded plausible to me).
It happens I was reading today some of the comments on an IBM employee's blog about setting up OpenOffice under Apache (it was linked from an old Bradley Kuhn blog entry). If you'll remember some interpreted that as an attack on Libreoffice and copyleft. It was interesting in the comments, Jeremy Allison (geez, how many times have I mentioned this guy -- but he's an entertaining speaker, nearly as funny as Bob Beck, check him out) suggested FreeBSD made out poorly in their interaction with Apple. I suppose he was thinking Apple made out like gangbusters on their code, since Apple has some astronomically larger number of users than FreeBSD. But then a FreeBSD contributor chimed in saying that it was great for them. Some of them got jobs out of it and lots of useful code comes back down to FreeBSD from Apple.
Link:
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2011/06/...penoffice.html
So it's complicated. I can see decent arguments all around (and some bad too -- for instance, the Why you should use the BSD License article on FreeBSD's site is mostly dreadful IMO).