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We Don't Need the GPL Anymore
jpkunst writes "In a lengthy interview with Eric S. Raymond by Federico Biancuzzi at O'Reilly's onlamp.com, ESR defends his position that 'Open source would be succeeding faster if the GPL didn't make lots of people nervous about adopting it.'" From the article: "I don't think the GPL is the principal reason for Linux's success. Rather, I believe it's because in 1991 Linus was the first person to find the right social architecture for distributed software development. It wasn't possible much before then because it required cheap internet; and after Linux, most people who might otherwise have founded OS projects found that the minimum-energy route to what they wanted was to improve Linux. The GPL helped, but I think mainly as a sort of social signal rather than as a legal document with teeth."
nuff said
What I hate about GPL is that is I use any of the code I am now working for the original author forever, Whatever I build belongs to that person as long as I started with that code, without limit. This is worse than most commercial deals, which usually have some limits or price you can pay / negotiate.
You have, of course, the choice of not using GPL code. I think FSF is disingenuous about the GPL and things under it being free for this reason. The Apache license makes software truly free. I can use it and do whatever I want and owe no one anything. Apache is true freedom. GPL is a social vision and a very "communist", in the true philosophical sense, vision of the world.
Adam Smith would disagree with you that giving back is better for the society. In a free market, it is the self-interest of capitalists that ultimately enhance society and sustain the free market.
The GPL, accessible guilt-free wide-spread piracy, and socialism are all related in that they remove the valuation of a product or service. In socialism, the state controls the value of everything. With the GPL, all work and contribution is on equal footing. No one would argue Linus' contribution is much greater than someone who wrote an obscure kernel driver. Yet Linus receives equal reward (i.e. the Linux kernel code base) as the person who wrote a single driver. Take this concept further to worrying with social concerns, as you argue MS should do, and you have socialism.
Having others take and not give back (not that I believe you have proof MS did this) is one risk with contributing to GPL and BSD code. All authors are aware of this risk and that they should not expect any reward--even recognition.
It's quite easy to blame Microsoft for many things, mostly because they are the big target and they themselves make it easy. But this is called "scapegoating," where members of society look for an entity (corporation in modern societies) to blame for just about any "bad" thing that happens in the world. You are blaming MS for social injustice, though not stated as such. As if MS disappeared tomorrow the world would automatically be a better place to live in. If such a thing did happen, people would simply shift blame and find another scapegoat (be it Apple, Sun, or someone else). IBM was the previous scapegoat. Along with IBM's scapegoat status came all the cute little puns with their acronym and name just as we have today with your "M$" and other tiring "jokes."
Another related fallacy is "evil is everywhere," where members of society point out the "evildoers" and are constantly on the look-out for evil. Corporations are not inherently evil, and Bill Gates is certainly not an evil person (compared to other capitalists, some greater and some less than he, Gates is relatively tame).
Both are freeloaders. Dev 2 is a freeloader because he wants to use someone elses work with no compensation to Dev 1 (though to be fair, Dev 1 was stupid enough to release his code to the world)
Dev 1 is a freeloader because he's too lazy to do his own improvements and development with his code and wants access to everyone elses work just because he decided to be a nice guy and put his work ou tin public (though to be fair, Dev 2 did use his code)
In short they're both a bunch of freeloaders expecting other people to do work for them and for no compensation.
I'm not combative at all, just sick to death of hearing people who release their code bitch about people using their code.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984