On 7/6/24 18:32, Jan Stary wrote:
To be clear: I can sell delphinusdnsd-1.8.0.tar.gz to anyone stupid enough to buy it, right?
It even works for GPLv2 software. There's more "smart TV"s and set-top boxes running Linux than you can point an IR remote at.
GPL means they have to share changes they make with the person "receiving" the binaries (which includes the end user, since they were shipped the binaries stored on the boot device in said appliance). As the copyright holder, you can then take people to court if they withhold such modified sources, since that's a license violation.
BSD means they don't have to share the changes they made, or even the original code. The only thing they cannot legally do, is change the copyright on the code, which as some have pointed out, is a tough thing to prove. Modifying code and keeping it secret is fair game.
In practice, if you're small enough, MIT/BSD or GPL doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference, you likely won't have enough money to take the culprits on anyway.
The one thing it does give you though, is if it breaks and costs them a lot of money, you simply point out that line that says 'THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"…' (BSD and MIT) or 'BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW' (GPL). i.e. you didn't buy it from me, so I don't have to provide support of any kind.
-- Stuart Longland (aka Redhatter, VK4MSL) I haven't lost my mind... ...it's backed up on a tape somewhere.
