Quote:
Originally Posted by nilsgecko
Hi,
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But yes, I think the licensing model would present some serious obstacles to patent trolls for example, but maybe I am wrong. I suppose we would only be able to find out if BSD somehow exploded onto the scene as Linux has, thereby attracting the vultures (read: Lawyers).
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Only in as much as it allows users not to release their software as free software while using other people's software without paying for it (not even paying a measly $50 Canadian for a cdrom in many cases, apparently). As a human consuming products and services that's to my advantage I suppose -- the cheaper products, the companies that succeed and offer competition to the market. As a programmer and hobbiest greedy for free code to look at and use it's of little interest.
The license does nothing to protect BSD programmers distributing their work freely. If a company like this wanted to shutdown any of the BSDs, they could easily probe their publicly available source for a patent in use, then slap an injunction on them and go after whatever little money there's to be had. If they're looking for money they'd go after the Junipers and NetApps of the world. But maybe they just don't want to be undercut by free software. Then they might choose to go after the projects themselves. Probably wouldn't be particularly difficult, these projects not having ready access to skilled Berkeley lawyers like in the past unless perhaps Marshal McKusick could drum up a favor from an old friend.
So I'm going off to renew my FSF membership. Maybe I'm the only OpenBSD user contributing to them, but whatever.