Byron Jeff wrote:
> What's fundamentally wrong with
> this "Pay it Forward" model. It doesn't prevent you from being
> commercial and closed source (like the GPL).

It does if you make modifications to the open code.

> It's doesn't give
> developers free reign to do what they see fit without regard to the
> community that helped them (like the BSD or Olin's license).

But that limits the value to those developers.  If the aim is to end up with
the widest and cheapest software choices publicly available, then your
requirement is not the right choice.  You might gain a little because some
people that made modifications will publish the result whereas they
otherwise might not have bothered.  On the other hand, you will loose more
because anyone that might want to make changes to the code and use the
result for commercial advantage isn't likely to touch it.  I think the
latter greatly outweighs the former.  It is the latter type of effort, which
produces real distributed and supported software accessible to the masses,
that has far more impact than a few software developers making things a
little easier for other software developers.

Remember that software developers are a tiny minority of software users.
The vast majority doesn't know from source code and wouldn't have a clue
what to do with it if they had it.  In fact most developers wouldn't want to
touch source code outside their field either.  Having access to source is
waaaaaay overrated if you look at the world of software as a whole, not from
the niche of a university surrounded by software people.


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