Myths and Facts pt.1

Myth
The BSD license does not prevent incorporation of code into proprietary software which makes it more free then the GPL which does.
Fact
By failing to prevent the incorporation of code into proprietary software, the BSD license effectively strips the freedom of the users of proprietary derivatives the software. The GPL in contrast ensures users of all derivatives of the software have retain their freedom.

Myth
The copyright on BSD license cannot be changed or removed as the BSD license does not allow it.
Fact
The BSD license says you must retail the copyright but can modify the code. One can take the copyright and remove/change it under the protection of the modify act and thus effectively removing the copyright and the BSD license. The code no longer belongs to the old copyright owner who put the BSD license on it. The new copyright own now has the right to sue others using the same piece of code.

Myth
The BSD license is a legally valid license.
Fact
The BSD license is legally invalid as it is very short, vague and easily subjected to a wide variety of interpretations so much so that many lawyers and judges today deemed it too vague to be a proper license and thus it is moot.

Myth
With the BSD license, there is little need to worry about any legal complications, limitations or strings attached.
Fact
This is a huge lie. The BSD license’s extreme vagueness and subjectively to interpretations puts it’s all of it’s users great legal risks from companies like Apple, Microsoft and Sony who use the ambiguity of the BSD license and their interpretation as legal leverage on smaller competitors. In fact many law experts say that the BSD license is one of the most dangerous licenses for small and medium sized businesses and thus many now avoid BSD licensed code due to this.

Myth
The FreeBSD project has stated that “The GPL is that it is very favorable to large companies that want to undercut small companies and contributing to monopolistic behavior while the BSD license doesn’t”.
Fact
The FreeBSD project is nothing more then a bunch blatant liars. It is the BSD license that contribute to monopolistic behavior while the GPL actually helps small businesses. The nature of the BSD license forces code and software under it to be of poor quality and useless but none the less a huge starting point. It takes a lot of money, manpower and risk to turn useless BSD cparts and pieces such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD into pseudo-effective proprietary software such as Mac OSX and Windows. Many small companies lack the resources to do this while larger companies do effectively giving them a huge advantage. Also stated earlier, the BSD license can be used by larger companies as legal leverage against smaller companies. Statistics have shown that the BSD license is related to the failure of 40% of all start up software businesses each year and experts predict that statistic could be 70% if it were not for the GPL.

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