OT: Opinion, best open source license to use?

[Christopher Browne]

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 7:56 PM, Anthony de Boer <adb-SACILpcuo74 at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Partly license choice is a matter of goals.  Do you want a widely
> understood license?  Do you want to be able to sell commercial copies of
> your code later?  Does it bother you if a distro packages your code with
> significant changes (see the "iceweasel" saga) from your version, or even
> if someone else forks your code?  Do you just want your code to stay out
> in public without anyone dragging it back to their cave and going
> proprietary with it?

I'll put a bit of a "BSD advocacy" in, here...

If someone decides to drag it off to their cave, does that actually
terribly much matter?

There's a significant cost to "dragging it back to their cave" and
using it, as described here (from several perspectives):

http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2011/09/01/the-cost-of-going-it-alone/

If you *demand* attribution, and *demand* to assert ongoing ownership,
that's excellent reason for people to look at the code, say "it's not
THAT interesting," and walk away.

If your code influences others, then you really have accomplished
something, whether you get formally attributed credit or not, and
whether you get paid a cent or not.
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