New Site Makes OSS Development Easier

An anonymous reader submits "OpenSnippets is a fledgling online community for OSS developers. New members are welcome to submit articles and code of interest, and everyone can view/download the code! It's blog-styled with topics for most popular languages. How useful- I only wish it'd make my coffee..."

Comments

Not "Open", but GPLed

[aziegler]

The default licence assumed is apparently GPL, which isn't open -- it's GPL. I can't use GPLed snippets in my code that I wish to make BSD or MIT or MPL licensed.

Great idea, lousy default licence choice.

-a

Re:Not "Open", but GPLed

[larry bagina]

the license you're talking about IS GPL.

Consider if you want to use the snippet in BSD licensed code. Oops, it can't be BSD licensed, becuase BSD allows you to make a closed fork. MIT, Artistic License, and a few other "open source" licenses do allow closed forks.

Re:Not "Open", but GPLed

[aziegler]

That's the GPL essentially.

I don't mind if they called it "GPLedsnippets.com"; I mind that they call it "opensnippets.com". As I've said many times, the GPL works most effectively against open source (e.g., non-GPL/FSF licences) projects, not closed source projects.

I did a little bit of searching on their site and they really haven't done their homework. They say that they accept PD, GPL, or LGPL only -- but those aren't the only licences compatible with the GPL. They could have easily gone through and found the "approved/compatible" licences from the FSF and listed those. Not only that, they don't actually give a place to *specify* the snippet's licence, leaving the assumption of the tagline on the website itself: "GPLed snippets, served daily."

Sorry, but it's not open if it's GPLed. If I can't use it in a less restrictive context, it's not open. It might be what the person wanted -- and I fully support that -- but don't tell me that it's "OpenSnippets.com" when it's really "GPLedSnippets.com".

-austin

Re:Not "Open", but GPLed

[GigsVT]

After reading this story, I posted a GPLed snippet of my code on the site.

If someone emailed me and said they would like to put it in their BSD licensed application, I would grant them a specific permission.

I have a feeling most people that license their stuff under GPL would have similar feelings about small snippets of their GPL code. It can't hurt to ask, not everything has to be a huge political battle, we are all programmers here.

Re:Not "Open", but GPLed

[Znork]

Not at all. The resulting code must be distributed _under the terms of the GPL_. The GPL code remains under GPL, the BSD code remains under BSD, and the combined work is guided by the terms of the most restrictive license in the combination.

BSD code can get distributed under pretty much any terms, and thus the BSD license wont interfere. The GPL code only requires that the terms of the GPL are fulfilled on the combined work, and as the BSD license doesnt place further restrictions on the combined code, that means you can distribute the GPL code together with the BSD code.

Relevant sections of the GPL:

2. ...

These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
collective works based on the Program. ...

That means, the GPL only governs the right to distribute the GPL part of the code as long as that part is combined with the other work. The other work is still governed by its own license, but that license has to be able to fulfill the terms of the GPL to allow you to distribute them together.

woah

[SHEENmaster]

A friend just told me I was /.ed. Sorry that the site is on such a slow line, I'll be moving it to a faster one tomorrow.

As for the name, it's open if you can read it. If you are trying to get code for commercial software, check out planet source code. I might change the default license in the near future, but it isn't very likely. Submissions can specify their license of choice in their comments.

Email me with any suggestions, complaints, burning garbage, or offers of endorsement.

Makes development slower!

[joto]

While the "snippets" idea is a good one, it has never really succeded before, even though people have tried.

I suspect the reason for this, is that it simply is a too large scope to have "everything useful". Categorizing all this stuff, throwing away the 99% of junk code, it's just too much work for anyone to do. And making it into a blog isn't going to make it work better.

Sure, let the people who want to, have some fun with it. Follow the discussions, read the code posted, learn from it... But don't ever expect to ever find something you actually need there!

Re:Makes development slower!

[jesboat]

Take a look at MacOSXHints, it's thriving.

"Code for commercial software"

[aziegler]

I think that's a sideways swipe at my own comment regarding the poor choice of default licence.

I was quite specific that I prefer to source my own code BSD, MIT, or MPL -- none of which could happen if I used a single snippet from this resource. As I said: the GPL isn't "open" in the sense of most OSS licences; it is "free" in the doublespeak sense of the FSF. It's a licence that makes sense, from a perspective, but is most effective against other open source licences.

Commercial licensors are either going to use the code without reporting it, they have another way of making their money, or they're going to find other code that doesn't interfere with their licence of choice. It's the rest of the open source community that suffers when tiny but useful bits of code or libraries are put under the most restrictive "open source" licence.

So the submitter of the story is probably more at fault than you are (as I said, I don't like the name because it's not quite true) because this site won't help *open source* developers; it will help the so-called "free software" developers.

Make it easier by letting people select the licence as an attribute on the snippet itself, and make it so that any of the OSI approved but GPL-compatible licences are allowed. Then I think you'll actually have "OpenSnippets".

-austin

Re:Help on Understanding all the Different License

[moncyb]

The GNU site is a very biased place to go. However it is a good place if you want to know if a license is compatible with the GPL.

I can't think of any places which aren't biased, but opensource.org lists a whole tonne of them without stating one is better than the other. I suppose they have to be certified as "open source" by the site to be listed there, but it seems more objective to me...

It is a good idea, but...

[wizs]

It is a good thing that there is a site aggreagting rich code seqment examples. The code segment is not necessary too long, therefore people can catch the point more quickly. OpenSnippets may be a good start. But it seems there are too many OSS developing sites in the world. Too many premuture sites may disperse the development power of OSS.

The FAQ

[jesboat]

Sortof,

It's guidelines: Here
Open Snippets->Misc Stuff->Official->Snippet Guidelines

gpl stuff

[morgajel]

As one of the coders who has provided snippets for them, I gotta say that I the gpl licence works just fine. the purpose is to TEACH you how to do it, not just copy paste and be done with it. The gpl has a handy little clause that says you can rewrite the code and call it your own.

If you like my code, the only thing I ask is that you figure out what what it does before using it. If you understand it, you don't have to copy/paste it and can just write your own.

I think that gpl is perfect for this site because the snippets are small, and easy to rewrite. It's perfect for me because in order to rewrite it, you have to understand it, which is why I posted the snippets in the first place- to help people learn.

Good job sheenmaster, but you really gotta get a different handle:)

if you want to check out other projects I've worked on, check out morgajel.com

Some critique

[DukeyToo]

Took a look at the site. And I thought /. was anti-MS!

I won't be returning to the site...I don't want social commentary, I want useful source code and coding techniques, algorythms.

Try www.codeproject.com for a decent site.