BSD vs GPL

You either think freedom, real freedom is a matter of trust and optimism, or you think you can only have freedom, real freedom at the end of a gun.

via bynkii.com

Again, I find myself quoting Bynkii.

No matter what its proponents tell you, the GPL is not free. It’s close, but not actually. It’s like those mobile phone companies offering “unlimited*” plans. See the asterisk? GPL has a mighty big, viral and clever one: if you use GPL code in your project, your project must also be GPLd. You are not free to do whatever you like with GPL code. Doesn’t sound like freedom to me.

The BSD licence on the other hand, is totally free. No fine print, no catches, nothing. You can do whatever you want with the code. It would be very nice if you would improve it and release it, or use it in your own open-sourced program, but there’s nothing, anywhere, saying that you have to. You can bake it into some closed-source software that ends up making you millions of dollars, and that’s fine. THAT is freedom.