..and let me guess, you don't mind the company doing the proprietary fork, sue/threaten the open source forking guys, use software patents as a weapon/threat against open source developers. and you don't mind getting someone else's work, and giving nothing back.
In short your freedom is an egoistic tactic where you take, use and even abuse but dont care. There are people like RMS who think otherwise; they want a world where everyone shares to everyone so that everyone benefits from all derivatives.
That's quite the extrapolation. When did I ever say I don't mind those things? I mind them very much. I also mind being forced to do something. I can make a proprietary fork and still give back; when are those two things mutually exclusive?
In your quest for "freedom", you're endorsing a license that forces people to do something. Isn't that the very antithesis of freedom?
that "something" is crucial to the argument; GPL forces people to open their sources to ensure the freedom to use/distribute is passed further down the chain and to the future. Think of a BSD-licensed device driver; if a company forks it and makes it proprietary, develops a different but new device and sells the device with the new driver; Neither the users nor I; the original developer will be able to benefit from the derivative work and will end up with an unusable new printer in case the company ends support or does not solve a specific problem. I, as the developer and many users will end up in need to re-invent the wheel and improve the old copyleft driver.
So I the original developer, in case I give away my code with BSD license, end up allowing a permission to someone who does not give the same to everyone (and to me).
That seems like her freedom to you, but it is the freedom for one to end the freedom for many and to the original developer, in the long term, especially considering we all live in the same ecosystem finally. If BSD was ethically/not forceably used by every fork-er, that would be ultimately the same idea with copyleft.
Everytime I am giving away some code, I face this dilemma (I have MIT/BSD contributions too). I don't want to strengthen abusers, and non-contributors.
I appreciate your concern about "abusers" who use your code without giving back, but that's what I mean when I say GPL isn't advocating true freedom: They should have the freedom to not give back. What GPL does is force developers to release their code. I wouldn't consider that freedom, even if it's done in the name of protecting the ecosystem. "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" and all that.
> Think of a BSD-licensed device driver; if a company forks it and makes it proprietary, develops a different but new device and sells the device with the new driver; Neither the users nor I; the original developer will be able to benefit from the derivative work and will end up with an unusable new printer in case the company ends support or does not solve a specific problem.
How likely is that, though? If you release your code under GPL, they'll just write their own version and keep it proprietary. At least with BSD, you'll have the same base if you needed to rewrite their driver.
A BSD license benefits the market and end user, while a GPL license benefits other developers if they decide to use your code to begin with.
> Everytime I am giving away some code, I face this dilemma (I have MIT/BSD contributions too). I don't want to strengthen abusers, and non-contributors.
I feel the same way, but I'd rather have code people can use without worrying about the license versus forcing other developers to adhere to my personal belief system. Your reason for using GPL sounds like the reason some publishers use DRM: They do not want to give abusers and pirates easy access to their product. With DRM, it only ends up hurting legitimate users while pirates illegally remove it. With GPL, it's not as clear-cut, but I'd imagine there are many projects who have used GPL'd code without releasing their source, while shops who abide by the license but don't want to release their code are forced to reinvent the wheel.
Again, I do appreciate your concern regarding code abuse. I certainly wouldn't like it if a company swiped by code and sold it as their own, but the chance of that happening is slim. I'm much more worried about the small startup who wants to use my library but doesn't want to release their code.
>They should have the freedom to not give back. What GPL does is force developers to release their code.
They only have to release their code if they are using someone else's GPL licenced code. They are totally free not to use GPL licenced code, we can argue the semantics of 'freedom' until the cows come home but nobody is forced to use someone elses GPL licenced code.
>A BSD license benefits the market and end user,
It benefits the proprietary market, and if you want your code to be able to be used in proprietary projects then yes, BSD is indeed a great choice. I don't see how the end user is better served by BSD than GPL.
However, many developers pouring hundreds of hours into code they then release as open source do not have any intention of having that code end up in proprietary projects. They want the code to remain open so that they as end users will be able to recieve any enhacements done to their source code. And given the vast popularity of the GPL licence, particularly for open source applications then I'd say it's serving it's purpose.
And don't take me wrong, I think programmers releasing BSD licenced code are extremely generous, and I personally think BSD/MIT style licenced code is a better choice for single purpose library/framework/component style code where there's little risk of proprietary forks.
At the end of the day GPL is about the source code and any further enhancements to it being made available to recipients, and this is what has made it so popular. And while that means it can't be used by proprietary code projects, we have ample proof that it's a licence through which lots of companies chose to cooperatively develop open source code, likely due to the very fact that all distributors of that source code is legally bound to release any enhancements.
In short your freedom is an egoistic tactic where you take, use and even abuse but dont care. There are people like RMS who think otherwise; they want a world where everyone shares to everyone so that everyone benefits from all derivatives.