Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Request: Change the allowed license of plugins

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From: Tim Potter <tpot@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 11:37:15 +1100
On Fri, Nov 22, 2002 at 01:16:55AM +0100, Joerg Mayer wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 22, 2002 at 11:02:14AM +1100, Tim Potter wrote:
> > To simplify things a bit (OK a lot), I might take the stance that if you 
> > aren't going to share with me then I'm not going to share with you in which
> > case I would make my software GPL.  If I didn't care what people did
> > with my software as long as they respected the original copyright then I
> > might go BSD.  
> 
> The special case with ethereal plugins is, that companies providing binary
> only dissectors *are* sharing something: Knowledge about network protocols.

I don't think it's a special case for ethereal plugins.  For example
video card drivers writing binary-only drivers for Linux are sharing
information about that video card.

The gift is not on the same level though.  The company is not sharing to
the same extent that the authors of the GPL'd software are.


Tim.