On Favoring the Democratic Nature of the BSD Licenses

I've begun writing an overview for a graph toolchain project that I've begun developing, as of this week, formally. It's a project, I think, that — in some sematic regards — extends back by at least a decade, was furthermore flummoxed of its humanitarian goals around the sensational hype about Edward Snowden's own actions in theft of raw data and intellectual property formerly of the NSA and affiliated instititions. The struggles one would would ever find in any single developer community, beside that — not to drag things out of proportion — perhaps one's own concerns, as such, may seem rather eclipsed of a significant number of broader concerns, at the data theft by Snowden. Perhaps one learns to not "Lead with empathy," not by any too much, in regards to development and implementation of computational systems?

Presently, I've arrived at writing a short overview about the license service design being developed in a graph toolchain project that I have begun developing, formally, in documentation and in a format of a UML model, this week  — having made reference, now, about CORBA licensing services and CORBA object lifecycle services moreover. Regardless of my own thoughts and feelings about any manner of applicable relevance of each set of such services, and their likely co-supportive relevance, I think that the licensing discussion may find a more semantically compelling focus around a question: How does any single licensing model reflect of a relation of creator's rights and, respectively, institutional rights? Is there, moreover, an opportunity to develop a licensing model as would singularly and legally derive an instution's own data rights as a function exclusively of creator's rights?

Taking the GPL as an example, it's my impression that the GPL is another license subsuming a creator's rights under an institution's rights. Even if it is not commercially affiliated, in any proprietary and exclusive regards, to any single corporate or governmental or otherwise non-profit institution, but simply in the process of subsuming rights to all of derived works, a GPL license thereby subsumes creators' rights.

Comparatively, a BSD 2 clause or 3 clause license makes not any manner of subsumption in regards to creators' rights.

Noting the time of the year, perhaps it may seem too convenient to observe that the BSD license, as a media rights license, is more like the governmental rights license of the US Constitution.

Thus, I'm favoring BSD in systems design, for networked, desktop, and mobile applications. Moreover, perhaps I might now be able to articulate: Why so.

The GPL effectively subsumes creators' rights of contributors, on the behalf of any project applying a GPL license. If it may be thought to ensure the integrity of any original project, as such, the choice of a contributor to contribute or not contribute, that much derives always, certainly to the individual contributor — assuming a contributor is not being coerced to contribute to a software project.

Comparatively, the BSD licenses present, in each, an indemnity clause, subsuming nothing of contributions.

In making what I consider is, firstly, a personally ethical comparison of the two respective license types, I consider that the BSD license firstly permits more flexibility for how software developers may devlop and apply any of, each, one's own contributions — the BSD licenses allowing for essentially any legal extension or application of software licensed under the BSD license.

Considering a BSD operating system, moreover, as it not presenting any ambiguity with regards to rights for licensing and linking to the kernel itself, I'm favoring FreeBSD moreso for its "Square" design, but the licensing concern makes a nice second to that, I think — in terms of a generic estimation of empathic/sympathetic value, if not moreover in terms of a functional relevance of things.

Perhaps a GPL license may see as if more sympathetically relevant, if the GPL may be presented as a "free/libre" license, however juxtaposed to any singular views of corporate policies of proprietary determinism, as some corporations have made, with regards to competitive ethics and software systems? Microsoft's old "Acquire and rebrand" policies, for instance — that echoes so far back as to the theft of CP/M itself. How may a software developer community ever defend its own productions against such acquisitions?

What, though, does the GPL ultimately defend, beyond the original works to which, each of a GPL license is applied? If it may be thought that a GPL presents a defense to any carelessly exploitaitive strategies in commercial acquisitions of software source code, but how may it defend from such? and what, moreover, may a GPL license prevent, in any terms of an otherwise socially accpetable commerce?

A GPL license might seem as though to make an institution of any single software project, in itself — but not altogether a benign institution, rather an instituion in which all rights for any derived, subsequent works all devolve to the original project applying the GPL. Is it so much a manner of a philosiohically democratic institution, any single institution effectively instated of any application of a GPL license to an ostensibly original work?

I propose: Concerning the GPL's approach to defense of ostensibly original works, it makes all of a naive defense, in a commercially and socially unnecessary way. It's as well, to me, if developers apply the GPL to each of their own original projects, however. Beyond any questions or views of binary linking,  the GPL effectively finds a boundary at the limits of any single network service.

The BSD licenses serve to permit for all of a value-oriented review of original works and original contributions. In a measure of relative numbers of freedoms, the BSD licenses are likewise more truly free in philosophical nature. Considering, as well, that the BSD licenses allow for any indefinite number of legal applications, how may I ethically choose to apply a GPL license to any ostensibly original work as I may ever develop of my own knowledge and experience? Would such decision ever devolve to my own small estimates about operating systems? Would I ever avoid applying a permissive BSD license, if to try as if to shun the BSD operating systems? Would that be an effective approach for software dvelopment, or for any manner of product marketing, or in any sense or manner of a philosophical focus in software and systems development? If one may wish to imagine a world of software products all susbsumed by a GPL license, perhaps it may then seem wise to shun any socially unfavorable license juxtaposed to the, so to speak, the miraculous GPL?

The BSD licenses effectively allow for contributors to retain, each, their own legal contributor's rights — each contributor being legally enabled to contribute any further developments and to distribute any derived works, legally so, with or without any broad social consultation about any logistics, philosophical goals, or material natures of the respective works. In a metaphoric sense, perhaps it's more to a hobbyist workman's model than any manner of a bazaar or a cathedral.

Considering a contrast of creator's rights and institutional rights — moreover, if any social and/or technical concerns are beginning to trend, with regards to models for digital rights management — of course, there are more license models under the sun. Not only are there each of the GPL and BSD software licenses, there are also the Creative Commons content licenses, and any discrete number of other licenses applied for licensing of software source code or binary application media — in terms of media and/or applications — and static media content. Personally, I've chose to focus about such contrasts of BSD licenses and GPL licenses as a set of contrasts not only of legal terms, moreover a contrast of philosophical goals, a contrast lastly having implications in regards to material and social means for software development and for developers' commerce.

So, it is not either as if to shun any products licensed under terms of a GPL that in a personal and a philosophical regards, I'm altogether favoring BSD.

Inasmuch as that two software services may interoperate across a network interface, irrespective of how, each, their software source code is licensed, the GPL might not be, itself, so virulent after all? If there may be a discussion of a broader concern with regards to data licensing, moreover, personally I foremost hope that the discussion will retain acknowledgement of content creators' rights, secondly of institutional rights as deriving from content creators' rights. Simply, without any one or more content creators, there would be no content for an institution to publish.