For the developers of this forum:

GNU General Public License (GPL) (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php)
GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-license.php)
BSD License (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php)
Other (please specify) (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/)

Which of the above software licenses do you prefer to distribute your products under, and why?

Before I make a choice, I'm going to spend some time and read all the other relevant licenses available at http://www.opensource.org/licenses/.

I vouch for the GPL. I simply love the idea of getting help from all quarters.

GPL all the way

GPL, it protects my code, and lets other people use it.
BSD lets anyone use it without showing me their modifications, and so does the LGPL.
GPL forces people to give back to the community

I'm not voting, because you asked for developers but I prefer BSD or Other, I think, just because of what teval said - the GPL 'forces' people to give back. I have no problem with that as nobody 'forces' you to use the GPL in the first place, but I like the BSD/Other 'do whatever the hell you wanna do' angles and would just prefer that people *chose* to give back to the community because they understand the advantages of the bazaar. Okay, yeah, naive/idealistic/whatever.

I wouldn't like a company to take hundreds of hours of my work. Make a few code monkeys put a few hundred extra hours of work into it and then commercialize it. I'd feel cheated.
My opinion of companies.. souless cash whores. They wouldn't give back to the community unless they could get something out of it, or would be forced to. I'll bet on the latter

GPL, only one

I"m not a developer yet, but I am in the process of learning. I like the idea of the GPL. I like to see stuff that i do protected, and still allow other people to edit and use it.

You can always dual-license your own apps which you created yourself.

Let's say... GPL for non-commercial use and your own license for commercial use. Eg., MySQL, Qt, etc.

The only people who'd find it unsuitable would be "pure" Open Source zealots... But then, to each his/her own I guess :shrugs:

As I posted at http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/show...104#post92104.

Regardless of what license one uses, if someone implements the code--or parts thereof--in a closed source application, how is anyone to know?

I prefer the BSD license. The fact that someone uses my code is a complement... it doesn't matter how.

If I'm about to release a program as open-source, I'd choose the GNU GPL license because it provides a maximum of freedoms for the program's users while ensuring that enhancements benefit the same community. The BSD license--and licenses like it--would allow commercial software developers to profit from my labor without having to contribute back to the program users' community in return.

I'm not going to go as far as to say machine-code-only licenses are bad, but the dfferent licenses have their own niches. As long as we must continue to live in a capitalist society, I see nothing wrong with using machine-code-only licenses that still protect the users' rights (i.e., no spyware, no authoritarian authentication schemes, no insane restrictions on allowing the user to run a copy on one computer at a time, etc.)--provided that the program is open-sourced after a reasonable amount of time or after the program has become obsolete and/or unsupported.

Actually the choice of licensing terms is irrelevant... It's whether you're able to enforce it that's important.

Which is why individual programmers will benefit by releasing their software with OSI approved licenses. You can get support from organisations such as OSI, the FSF, etc.

Unlike proprietry licenses which can be culled beyond recognition by lawyers. And let's face it, say for example you have proof that some megacorp has stolen your code... can you afford a really good lawyer to battle their fleet of suits?