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Python 1.6 Incompatible w/ GPL
WillSmith sent in a bit running over at LinuxToday addressing the fact that RMS thinks that Python 1.6 is incompatible w/ the GPL. The article is basically how to resolve this within Debian.
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compatible with RMS?
Some information is missing here. A license doen't need to be compatible with the GPL for debian to software covered by it. It just has to be free. Debian includes lots of free software covered by licenses that are not compatible with the GPL.
Will some Debian comment what the real issue is?
PS: I predict we will see lots of flames here (condemning RMS, Debian, Python or the GPL) from people who haven't bothered to find out what the issue really is.
Have RMS's complaints about different liscences (anything other than pure 100% GPL) ever done a damn thing for open source?!
Why would RMS care about Open Source? He is interested in Free Software. And several people talk about RMS as if he's getting in the way of OS. WTF? OS is just a watered down form of Free Software that people like ESR approach businesses with. If you think the two are the same movement, then you are sadly mistaken.
it really doesn't encourage the adoption of open source to insist on a particular liscense scheme
Again, you are missing the point. Open Source is the watered down, pragmatic movement that doesn't address user freedoms. That's not what RMS wants, so why would he help in it's acceptance? RMS is seeking to educate people about their freedoms, and at the same time write enough quality software that people have a viable free choice. He has a higher goal than just "better code", and is not interested in compromising on his ideals.
There's no point in expecting him to stop this sort of thing, but we can hope.
I sure hope he never stops. The man may not be someone you want to take home to mom but, then again, he is a freedom fighter: radical, unkempt, and fighting the good fight.
I'm amazed at the number of people who don't understand RMS. Have you never read the GNU Manifesto?
--Lenny
People seem under the impression that RMS pronounced a verdict ex cathedra about the new license. That's wrong; the Pythoneers explicitly went and asked him for an opinion on the new license's GPL compatibility. RMS has not said you should not use Python; RMS has not said that Python's license is bad. He was asked if it's GPL compatible, and his legal advisors don't think it is, that's all. If you blame anyone, blame GvR and BeOpen for considering GPL compatibility an important criterion. I think they're right, and expect the situation to be resolved somehow by the time Python 2.0final arrives.
First IANAGE (I Am Not A GPL Expert).
We are seeing more and more GPL incompatibilities these days. Now I am not sure but here might be some reasons why :
1) People defending the GPL are becoming more and more fanatic about it because they feel "threatened" by all these incompatible licenses
2) Maybe the GPL is just a bit too strict and should be loosened to help people develop under some other license withouth having to bother thinking too much about pissing off other developpers
3) People are writing other licenses not caring about the GPL and it's compatibilities and only realise later when they are threatened to not be distributed that they have to modify it??
Whatever the reason I definitly think something should be done quckly... After all the goal of open source is to develop good software working all together in the same way and not against each other...
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
Who cares? I don't even see why they're "negotiating" with RMS. The man won't be happy until the software is used his license or a license that is just the GPL with another man. He's a zealot. You can't negotiate with that.
The fact is that the current license is an Open Source license. RMS just tries to use his fame to denegrate any OSS software project that doesn't agree with his radical "software wants to be Free" ideals. Witness the latest KDE & Qt nonsense. I think he's quite frankly power mad with his fame.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
If you really think it's splitting hairs, why don't you accuse CNRI of the hair-splitting... they could easily take it out if it's so insignificant as to be hair-splitting...
You just have to read the /.-article, and you know there will be RMS-bashing inside. And always there has to be a cleaning woman trying to get the FUD out of the world. Now it's my turn:
Sorry to point this out, but to RMS, the only license that is compatible with the GPL is the GPL.
That's simply wrong. I don't think RMS view differs substantially from the FSF view. You could know about compatible licenses by just visiting the FSF-site and read the list of GPL compatible licenses. Either you didn't, or you are spreading FUD although you know better.
echo $FAKEMAIL | sed s/soccer/football/ | sed s/" at "/@/
RMS is most emphatically NOT an advocate of "open source". His cause is "free software" and there are many examples of software which meets the Open Source definition without being Free (the latest, apparently, being Python 1.6). Whether you agree with some of the stands he has taken in the past, honesty requires that you acknowledge he has never misled people about what his goals are and he has never cared what others thought of his methods.
The recent high-profile licensing flamewars have come about in part because of the success of RMS's cause. After many years trapped in universities and corporate basements, free software has become quite popular and its quality is recognized. ESR's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" provided a stimulus in the form of demonstrating how users will improve software faster when they can provide more than just bug reports. As a result, the world has become fixed on the idea that releasing source means better software. There are two big problems with this success, though:
The first problem comes about through licensing schemes that provide source but little else to the user, the most egregious example I can think of being the SCSL abomination delivered by Sun. Licenses like these are little more than an attempt to get users to do your work for you while reserving all rights to that work to yourself. Stallman's attack on this particular license generated little flame because the Open Source crowd was also condemning it.
The second problem is a little more subtle and is best exemplified by the unending GPL vs. BSD bickering. A BSD-style license provides source and nearly unlimited rights to the user, but is little better than an SCSL in Stallman's view because it permits unscrupulous users to "take the code private", that is, to benefit from others' work without sharing their own. If you truly understand RMS's definition of free software as "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" then you will see how such a license is also unacceptable to Free Software advocates.
These second category licenses have enjoyed increasing popularity as an opportunity by developers to get their product in wider use. Many people misunderstand the requirements of a GPL-compatible license and think that anything they do using a GPL-comptaible product must be released -- don't laugh, I know one guy who refuses to write anything in Python because "then I'd have to give my code away." The question of people asking if they can release binaries compiled by GCC without having to release source demonstrates the prevalence of this miunderstanding. A quick way around that is to allow people to take the code private. Some like that, some don't. It's unfair to attack RMS for being just as insistent on free software now as he was before the great Open Source Revolution of the 1990s.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
Perl has been doing this for many years with GPL and Artistic, easy to do, no possible problems.
You offer the code under a choice of licenses, refuse all patches that don't fit both licenses, and call it a day. If you wish to use Perl with some drivers or some packages, you may need to use the Artistic license. If you need to use it in others you may need to accept the GPL. Most people don't ever bother deciding...
Cheers,
Ben
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GNU/I GNU/just GNU/Dont GNU/see GNU/what GNU/everyone's GNU/problem GNU/is GNU/with GNU/RMS. GNU/Maybe GNU/I'm GNU/just GNU/biased.
-GNU/Rich
Something else which I'll bring up that hasn't been is that this is about leverage. Don't confuse it with anything else. It is about positive leverage for change. As the GPLed code base grows, being able to use it becomes more and more desirable. To use it you need to contribute to it, that's the leverage. It's reaching a critical point now, there is a lot of good software that is GPLed. That is how and why RMS designed it. It's also a good thing, the leverage is controlled by us, there isn't an IBM or Microsoft on the other end, it's us. The community, the programmers and the users. It's not an RMS thing either, ESR brings it up at the end of Magic Cauldron and in his eyes it is much much more than that because he believes that opensource has already won and that in 3 to 5 years when just about everything is opensourced that leverage can be applied outside of software; applied to laws? social causes? all sorts of things, we're talking about wholesale social change! This isn't a communism or socialism thing, it's about restoring power to the people, the people own GPLed software and the people need to police it and protect it.
KDE not complying is damn important, it undermines everything that does. Python doesn't? Well it should and it will. There will be countless others, as the GPL's importance grows so will the amount of attention given to products which go against it and I'm betting that there is a pretty fair number of them.
I don't know if Bruce Perens or ESR are reading but I suggest that an ammendment be made to the opensource definition. There needs to be a level of license interop that is supported. We've already seen the NPL fail to comply with GPL, the QPL fail to comply with the GPL, the CNRI license fail to comply with the GPL, interoperability is critical. I want to use KDE code in GPLed GNOME code! I want to use GPLed GNOME code within KDE! I want to use mozilla code with both! If the interop can't be worked out then what is the point really? It seems like a lot of the ideas and theories about opensource go out the window if interop isn't part of the deal.
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First of all, licenses matter. To programmers they matter directly--which code can you reuse and who can reuse your code. To non-programmers they matter indirectly--which products get which features, when and how compatible.
Second of all, I seriously doubt RMS has a list of software vendors that he consults and then goes out to badger them into using the GPL (or a compatible license). More likely, Python went to him to see if they were GPL-compat. He said "no" which is entirely his choice. Furthermore, Python acknowledged that it was his choice by the very act of asking.
Third, this causes no problems to the FSF, the Python people or the general public. It's only a problem for groups like Debian that want to distribute A) only GPL and GPL-compatible software and B) Python.
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