Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] GPL license question

[Ulf Lamping <ulf.lamping@xxxxxx>]

Martin Warnes schrieb:
> Unfortunately this appears to be the case, which is possibly a shame as 
>   
I wouldn't call the GPL a shame ;-)
> we have a bunch of plug-in dissectors we would willingly release for 
> free download, but it would be a cold day in hell before our lawyers 
> agreed to release the source code, even though I doubt there's anything 
> of proprietry value in there.
>   
Well, there must be a reason that Wireshark contains a lot of dissector 
code from company's that rarely do this otherwise.

IMHO: If Wireshark would have been released under a BSD style license 
(which would allow what you think of), we would probably have a lot less 
dissector variety - as you're probably not the only one thinking this way.


You might argue to your lawyers (or your boss), that releasing the code 
might be beneficial because of a lot less maintenance and might even be 
a good marketing thing:
- available to your customers
- being nice to the open source world
- ...

You might even be promissed, that there already were some ideas of your 
executives in the open source direction, and Wireshark code could act as 
a test how it's working.

However, I know from my own experience, that arguing this way can be 
challenging ...

Regards, ULFL