@Saidi, But please note that *the license* matters -> even more the Freedom:) ... e.g. The BSD License allows proprietary use, and for the software released under the license to be incorporated into proprietary products. Works based on the material may be released under a proprietary license or as closed source software. This is the reason for widespread use of the BSD code in proprietary products, ranging from Juniper Networks routers to Mac OS X http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses regards, On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 9:40 PM, Gakuru Alex <alexgakuru.lists@gmail.com> wrote:
(there are a lot of *private* modifications to FOSS that are not released, contrary to the opensource licenses).
That's illegal. "The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ruled that just because a software programmer freely gave his work away, it didn’t follow that it could not be protected." http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/14/open_source_creative_commons_license...
Dispelling the "Intellectual Property" Myths
One of the most common misunderstandings regarding intellectual property rights, particularly copyright, is that the actual creators are the main beneficiaries of the grant. In reality, it is the large companies that employ creators and then strip them of their copyright through contracts who actually benefit from the grant society intended as a reward for authors. This important misunderstanding is no accident. Misleading "romantic notions of authorship" are systematically spun by the companies who stand in the shoes of creators to justify the generous monopoly right rewarded to them. http://www.imaginelaw.com/lawyer-attorney-1181356.html