Comments on: Debating the Best License http://www.the-source.com/2009/09/debating-the-best-license/ Free and Open Source Software News and Opinion Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:44:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 By: Jason http://www.the-source.com/2009/09/debating-the-best-license/comment-page-1/#comment-7 Jason Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:42:31 +0000 http://www.the-source.com/?p=251#comment-7 Terry, Loving the Dracula-guarding-the-blood-bank analogy! That captures the situation quite well! I also agree that the label "best" isn't much good outside of giving people something to discuss or argue about. Terry,

Loving the Dracula-guarding-the-blood-bank analogy! That captures the situation quite well!

I also agree that the label “best” isn’t much good outside of giving people something to discuss or argue about.

]]> By: terry sawchuk http://www.the-source.com/2009/09/debating-the-best-license/comment-page-1/#comment-5 terry sawchuk Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:52:41 +0000 http://www.the-source.com/?p=251#comment-5 When someone brought this debate up during our weekly working lunch, the best comment was "Having Asay defend the GPL is like having Dracula guard a blood bank!" Asay has been acting like a protege of ESR: open source goof/free software bad, so it got quite a good amount of laughs. As for the OSI (Asay again), they allow every tom, dick and redmond to have their own, no matter how similar they are to others and diluted the term open source even more than before (not just their fault, its the meme du jour. everyone wants to be open, even professional liars/politicians talk about openess). I grudgingly accepted the self serving 'open source' definition that was pushed a few years but have gotten back to what I started with and the reason why I contributed in the first place: GPL.and free software. I understand the need for less copyleft licenses for some business reasons but I am NOT an open source developer and I dont share the same goals as everyone that describes themselves as such.. I dont do BSD, I dont do MS-PL, I speak GPL. It doesnt make the other licenses bad or the people evil, it just means I have different goals for my code than others do and calling myself and open source developer is too vague and could be interpreted as something I am not.. Free/libre software describes exactly what I do while open source is a vast porte-manteau which incorporates a lot of principles I dont believe in. Debating the 'best' license is as meaningless as debating the 'best' song. The best license is the one you use (anyone ever use the worst licence?). It might be the best for you but might not be the best for other people. This quantifying things as 'best' is a bit juvenile in that regard.. When someone brought this debate up during our weekly working lunch, the best comment was “Having Asay defend the GPL is like having Dracula guard a blood bank!”
Asay has been acting like a protege of ESR: open source goof/free software bad, so it got quite a good amount of laughs.

As for the OSI (Asay again), they allow every tom, dick and redmond to have their own, no matter how similar they are to others and diluted the term open source even more than before (not just their fault, its the meme du jour. everyone wants to be open, even professional liars/politicians talk about openess).

I grudgingly accepted the self serving ‘open source’ definition that was pushed a few years but have gotten back to what I started with and the reason why I contributed in the first place: GPL.and free software.

I understand the need for less copyleft licenses for some business reasons but I am NOT an open source developer and I dont share the same goals as everyone that describes themselves as such..
I dont do BSD, I dont do MS-PL, I speak GPL.
It doesnt make the other licenses bad or the people evil, it just means I have different goals for my code than others do and calling myself and open source developer is too vague and could be interpreted as something I am not..
Free/libre software describes exactly what I do while open source is a vast porte-manteau which incorporates a lot of principles I dont believe in.

Debating the ‘best’ license is as meaningless as debating the ‘best’ song.
The best license is the one you use (anyone ever use the worst licence?).
It might be the best for you but might not be the best for other people.

This quantifying things as ‘best’ is a bit juvenile in that regard..

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