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> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 23:08:15 GMT
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...

> Nick,
>
> Thanks. But if it's possible to relicence and close BSD, how come it's not
> commercialised and closed?

It is. We have a Network Appliance file server, a closed-source
commercial product based on NetBSD. Closed variants of the other
source-code-available BSD flavors appear commercially in routers and
similar boxes, where the customer is buying some dedicated
functionality, and doesn't care what's inside as long as it works.

Those who choose to release their code under the BSD license consider
such use of their work a good thing: those who choose the GPL do NOT
want their code used in such ways. Each group knows what it is doing,
and chooses its license terms based on its objectives.

Of course, the disadvantage that someone like NetApp suffers is that
they don't get the benefit of the publicly-donated continuous
improvements to NetBSD, unless they constantly work at applying the
donated changes to their forked source tree. That's their choice (in
the BSD-license world, though it would be prohibited in the GPL world.)

--
Chris Jewell chrisj@... Hollister CA USA
voice 831-637-0391 fax 831-638-9204