Amusing article about busybox

[Denys Vlasenko]

On Saturday 04 February 2012 03:57, Rogelio Serrano wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 9:38 PM, Felipe Contreras
> > In order to see that you need vision, and you need some basic
> > understanding of how open source works. Sadly, a lot of people don't
> > have those, and instead believe in FUD, and make decisions based on
> > that.
> 
> too bad they just dont get to benefit from open source economics and
> that may give their competitors who do a little advantage.
> 
> >> when you have intellectual property issues you will hate gpl. i have
> >> worked with companies with no IP issues whatsoever and the gpl is
> >> perfect.
> >
> > Agreed. Unfortunately most, if not all, big companies have IP. Sony for example.
> 
> too bad for sony. most of you will disagree but i dont think busybox
> needs the big companies to survive. small companies can keep busybox
> chugging along just fine.

Well, busybox at the moment doesn't need any companies to survive.

For example, my current employer did not hire me because I'm
a busybox guy. Neither I have any consulting contracts
related to busybox.

If tomorrow busybox project magically disappears, I would still
be employed, and I would earn exactly the same amount of money.

So I have no financial stake in making sure that busybox is still
being used by the companies, big or small.


> sometimes i think the big companies are just using their size to
> persuade developers to change the license.

Busybox is not going to change the license. (This is in fact not possible -
anyone who ever contributed to GPLv2 licensed code has a right
to demand that all future changes must be under GPLv2 too).

But, we are not going to be deaf - we are listening to other peoples'
opinions and we might consider some changes to our license enforcement
process. It would be arrogant to think that we always do everything
in the best way possible.

-- 
vda