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On the other hand, the BSD license does not give _me_ the freedom to obtain the source of _your_ closed modifications, therefore making it less free for me.

The GPL guarantees that I can obtain the sources of your modifications, making it more free for me than the BSD license.




It is true but... what are we talking about? freedom of the code or your freedom?


Exactly!

So rare that this debate actually gets to the real point, which is that the BSD license and the GPL optimized for two different "freedoms". Ne'er the twain shall meet.

Which is larger, a company of 100 selling $500 million a year of goods, or a company of 1000 selling $50 million a year of goods? Well, it depends on your metric. Two perfectly valid metrics produce two different results.




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