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I think from the BSD point of view, contributing back is seen more of a weak social obligation than a legal one. You contribute back because it's a nice thing to do for those giving you free stuff, not because of section 6 paragraph 1 of some ten page legal document.

Asking people to consider it is the right thing to do. Switching license would defeat the entire point.

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There probably exists lots of differing experience on this, but I've found it easier to get permission to contribute paid work on a tit-for-tat basis, because it alleviates the "why should we let our competitors use our work for free" question.

I don't think that it is a coincidence that GPL led to Red Hat, a billion dollar support and services company, while BSD let to a multitude of hardware companies. The former is direct and the latter indirect profits of their respective software. The difference in worldview leads to different business ideas.

> I don't think that it is a coincidence that GPL led to Red Hat, a billion dollar support and services company, while BSD let to a multitude of hardware companies.

GPL isn't directly responsible for Red Hat. The popularity of GNU/Linux at the time (vs *BSD) of it's inception is responsible for that. Licence had nothing to do with it.

Don't take my word for it. Take Bob Young's.

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