[Corpora-List] POS-tagger maintenance and improvement

[Linas Vepstas]

2009/2/25 Andras Kornai <andras at kornai.com>:

> is that the GPL basically stands in the way of industry-academia
> partnerships, FSF claims to the contrary notwithstanding.

Strongly disagree.  Having worked on both GPL and
BSD-licensed projects, I find that GPL enables far deeper,
broader collaboration than the BSD license does.  To
understand this, you have to understand that its a cultural
issue, not a legal/license issue.

Here are the two cultures as I experience them:

-- BSD license -- someone from some corporation
downloads the source, modifies it, incorporates it
in some product, ships it.  There is no interaction
whatsoever -- no email, no "Hi I like your software",
nothing -- it disappears into a black hole.  -- Until years
later, when some new-hire from said company gives
you a call, because "they saw my name in the code",
and wanted some free support (for their years-old,
hopelessly-out-of-date snapshot) .  In short, BSD
licensed code fails to nurture a community, or any
sort of feedback, interaction, mutual cooperation;
its a one way street from creator to profiteer.

The GPL license is very much the opposite: It does
not bar corporations from using the code, or even
selling it; but it does require that the fixes and changes
be made public.  This means that the rank-n-file
corporate software jockeys sign up for the mailing lists,
participate in the discussions, and send in patches.
You get a real community out of it, and you actually
see the communal improvements happen -- which
everyone shares. The license fosters a community.
That's really the crux of the difference between the
licenses.

--linas

_______________________________________________
Corpora mailing list
Corpora at uib.no
http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora