Re: OpenCASCADE ACCEPTED!
On 14/06/2008, Ross Boylan <ross@biostat.ucsf.edu> wrote:
> Personally, I'm pretty sympathetic with people who want to restrict to
> non-commercial use.
I'm not. I think they are confused, believe that "free" and
"commercial" are binary opposites and misunderstand the nature of
software freedom.
> I may not fully understand the reason such restrictions are
> considered undesirable.
Because they discriminate against fields of endeavour. You work at a
company like Motorola, and you want to use the software, but you can't
while you work at Motorola because the software says it can't be used
commercially. I'm actually thinking of David Bateman who contributes
heavily to GNU Octave, works at Motorola and is in just such a
position. If Octave had a restriction against commercial use, then
Bateman wouldn't be allowed to use it as a Motorola employee, and who
knows if Octave would be getting all the contributions that Bateman
actually submits using some hours from his work day.
More obviously, it also restricts you from selling CDs with the
software in it, which truth be told, doesn't harm the original author
at all, and if someone wants to sell the software with value added
(e.g. promise to support it), all the better. Your software gets
further exposure and someone managed to add value to it while
profitting at the same time.
If it's free, it has to be free for everyone. Making commercial
restrictions isn't free for everyone.
Now I just have to rephrase this in a nicer way to the author of Triangle...
- Jordi G. H.
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