LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Adam Hawes <adam.hawes@flinders.edu.au>
  To  : Rob Bryan <Rob.Bryan@kaz-group.com>
  Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 11:48:34 +0930

Re: bsd- easier than you think

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On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 11:18 am, Rob Bryan wrote:
> > > I choose Beer.  I'm going to choose a Crown Lager, because that's
> > > what's in my fridge.
> >
> > Bah - Coopers Pale is much nicer[1].
>
> Enough of this "Closed Source" beer!
> What if there's something wrong with their packaging, or
> I don't quite like the colour/flavour/price?

Nobody is stopping you making your own brand of beer.  You can choose any 
license you want for it - GPL, BSD, totally closed.  Personally I would 
prefer you chose a BSD license for your beer.  You can share some parts of 
your recipe with us and still retain the control over the parts that make it 
your special beer.

> We should refuse to purchase any more of this
> "proprietary" beer and make our own!

There are some good closed source beers around the place.  Take for example 
Guinness and Coopers Pale/Sparkling.  Coopers use more of a BSD license, as 
they produce homebrew kits using the same (or most likely similar) 
ingredients as their commercial offering.  Guinness on the other hand use a 
M$ license.  You must buy our product.  We'll bundle everything you want with 
it (shirts, glasses, tonnes of "free" promotional garbage), but if you don't 
pay for it you won't get anything.

> i.e. Free Beer! Free as in "Freedom"!
> (right Barney? ;)

Freedom when it comes to beer refers to only two things; choice and price. We 
have choice.  Just walk into any half reasonable trendy bar and look at the 
offerings.  They are as varied as the people on this list.   If you don't 
like any of them the tools are available for you to go home and make your own 
beer any way you like.

Free as in price :-p Free I tell you. That's a whole other matter.  If the 
great (and utterly terrible) beer makers of the world were to give their 
product away for free... well that'd spell the end of beer as we know it.  
However, an open source beer based on the BSD license.  They could tell you 
how to make their beers and hold back one "secret" ingredient.  You could get 
close to the real thing but not perfect.  

Most people wouldn't bother though.  there aren't enough people who truly 
appreciate beer to be bothered brewing their own.  A lot of the drinkers just 
drink it because it is relatively cheap and gets them pished.

The same argument applies to software.  Most people do not really appreciate 
what goes into developing a piece of good software.  They don't have the 
skills or the time to compile their own from source. They don't care that the 
source code is available.  They won't understand it anyway so why bother with 
it? All they want/need is something that comes on a CD and just works first 
try.  

At the end of the day it doesn't matter which license you use, but if you want 
the general masses to actually benefit from your work (instead of a few 
chosen geeks) choose something like BSD that at least lets commercial 
developers use your code without fear of having to open their source as well.  
You get to retain the rights to your part, and they can do what they like 
with theirs.

Several free beers for everyone should improve the quality of this freedom 
discussion quite significantly!

- -- 
Adam Hawes
Ph.D Student
School of Engineering
Flinders University

ICQ:    2492016
Email:  adam.hawes@flinders.edu.au
Mobile: 0402 854 965

http://users.esc.net.au/~ahawes/bcc.html
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