BSD Provides Hope

GPL advocates declare their users are better off than those of BSD because their code has more features. How little they understand# GPL users are forced to surrender all ownership rights to their code. With BSD users, there is hope -- there is the prospect of ownership.

There is no permanent class of newbies among us. Ten years ago, I was a mere newbie. But the newbie of yesterday learns to code today and writes code for himself tomorrow. Advancement -- studying the source and writing new code -- is natural in a society of equals.

Free users who can own property have the inspiration of hope. The GPL license, which demands users to surrender all their property rights, offers them no hope. The power of hope as an incentive to encourage users to learn to code, to contribute to the ecosystem, and to make them happy is powerful.

How many hours have you spent scolding users about the need for software freedom? How many GPL applications did you get them to install? If you promise to give them ownership rights and pay them for their work, they will install twice the number. We can replace scolding with hope. We can give up the GPL license and advocate free software.