Re: [avr-chat] µC/avr crypto lib

[Bob Blick]

Let me paraphrase:

David Kelly wrote:

> The sprit of GPL is that Richard Stallman saw the Lisp environment he
> worked on claimed by a financial backer and turned into a successful
> commercial product and locked him out of all the source, even the parts
> he had written. The result was an extreme knee-jerk reaction to the left
> known as GPL.

Richard Stallman is a polarizing character who must have written some
good code because someone made money off of it. And there's something
political about it because the word "left" is used.

> The BSD license is more open and more free specifically because you may
> use the code for anything in any way other than to claim it as your
> original work. The BSD license does not allow for itself to be revoked.
> Once BSD-licensed code is out in the wild it can never be pulled back.
> That is exactly the problem Richard Stallman overreacted to in creating
> GPL.

Allowing people to take open code and then close it is somehow more
open. Freedom to profit, in other words.

> There is nothing about the BSD license which hinders public development.

BSD still allows you to be good but only if you want to be good.

> We already see Daniel Otte not only wants GPL to require users to
> contribute fixes and enhancements back, but that he wants to own those
> changes so that he can sell licenses outside of GPL. This is called,
> "Having your cake and eating it too." That means everyone else has to
> abide by GPL, but he is above it.

I didn't see that in his emails. He seemed generous.

> > Haven't heard of any justification as to why Daniel's crypto library is
> better than the totally free pubic domain TomCrypt. Or the Lesser-GPL
> genuine FSF GNU libgcrypt: http://directory.fsf.org/project/libgcrypt/

People that want crypt libraries with other licenses can already have them.

> The reason the BSD license works is that businesses and entrepreneurs
> can postpone their decision as to whether any changes they have made are
> a competitive advantage, or just a nuisance to maintain. And meanwhile
> protect their original work.

Money trumps all.

> As for GPL, link it into proprietary code and immediately one loses
> one's rights to the proprietary code. Its not just the library that is
> GPL but the entire project. LGPL was created in recognition of this, and
> to emphasize that property of GPL. LGPL is not a copyright virus, but
> GPL is.

Microsoft says GPL is a virus and they know a lot about viruses so it
must be true :)

> Apple lifted many BSD parts of FreeBSD for MacOS X. Apple has
> contributed huge amounts of code and work back into BSD. What I happened
> to see the most was in NFS support and bug fixes.

See, some companies have contributed back! Only un-American companies
like RedHat contribute to GPL code!

I'm not intending to raise anyone's ire here (although I guess I have).
I merely want to point out that the GPL tilts toward community and
education more than other licenses which tilt toward business. So that's
why some people prefer it.

The fact that there are already crypto libraries with other licenses
says to me it's about time we have one that's GPL. Because whether you
like it or not, it's the preferred license for many people. Who write
code. Code that you probably use every day. Maybe some written by
Richard Stallman.

Cheerful regards,

Bob