What really makes me sad is that the BSD license allows corporate leeches like Sony to create incredibly successful and valuable products like the PS4 without ever having to give back to the project that produced the software they rely on. It's obvious that Sony picked FreeBSD over Linux because they don't have to publish their additions to FreeBSD, and can continue to integrate new and improved code from upstream with no obligations whatsoever.
Yes, some corporate users contribute financially back to the project, and we're thankful. But why should we have to be thankful? The GPL already provides a tried and proven legal framework for requiring downstream users to publish their improvements for others to use. Free software is an ecosystem where everyone helps and everyone benefits. When the BSD license allows parasites like Sony to benefit to the tune of billions of dollars without giving a line of code (or a penny) back, that breaks the ecosystem.
I'm calling Sony out particularly because they are not included in the list of corporate sponsors in the article. The Sony games division made $3.2 billion in revenue in quarter 1 2016, this is unacceptable.
> It's obvious that Sony picked FreeBSD over Linux because they don't have to publish their additions to FreeBSD, and can continue to integrate new and improved code from upstream with no obligations whatsoever.
It's obvious that FreeBSD contributors picked FreeBSD over Linux because they wanted to publish their software for people to use with no obligations whatsoever.
If Sony is heavily modifying the FreeBSD code, eventually they'll start contributing back, because maintaining a substantial fork is more effort than upstreaming code. Either that, or they'll end up with a largely frozen code base like Apple's copy of the FreeBSD userland, which is probably OK on a console.
> What really makes me sad is that the BSD license allows corporate leeches like Sony to create incredibly successful and valuable products like the PS4 without ever having to give back to the project that produced the software they rely on.
You should not be, because this is what BSD license is for; otherwise the developers would've chosen GPL.
What could be the reason Sony dont contribute back. Surely it is a tiny amount of money. May be there are problems they have in minds we are not aware of? Just wondering.
Yes, some corporate users contribute financially back to the project, and we're thankful. But why should we have to be thankful? The GPL already provides a tried and proven legal framework for requiring downstream users to publish their improvements for others to use. Free software is an ecosystem where everyone helps and everyone benefits. When the BSD license allows parasites like Sony to benefit to the tune of billions of dollars without giving a line of code (or a penny) back, that breaks the ecosystem.
I'm calling Sony out particularly because they are not included in the list of corporate sponsors in the article. The Sony games division made $3.2 billion in revenue in quarter 1 2016, this is unacceptable.