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Does GPL v3 Alienate Developers?

Posted by Zonk on from the get-thee-hence dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Via Wired, a blog post in which BMC Software's Whurley and Google's Greg Stein agree that the GPL v3 is currently on a path that will alienate developers. Stein has an interesting theory called 'license pressure' which is similar to 'pricing pressure'. 'Due to pressure from developers, all software is moving towards permissive licensing" translation, the GPL and developers are moving in opposite directions ... Developers care about the licenses on the software they use and incorporate into their projects, they like permissive licenses, and they will increasingly demand permissive licenses.'"

3 of 430 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Impression by The_Wilschon · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    So you'd rather not have the fixes, add-ons, improvements, and optimizations that others make, instead of having them and being able to use them for anything not closed-source? After all, by BSD licensing your code, you're depending upon the goodwill of others to give back their contributions (which even if they do give them back, their contributions might be under a different license). The BSD license in no way guarantees an improvement to your situation.

    Perhaps in practice the BSD license does result in a better situation, but it could very easily result in a worse situation. Since I don't write any closed source code, the GPL doesn't harm me at all, and it guarantees something that the BSD license cannot.

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    SIGSEGV caught, terminating

    wait... not that kind of sig.
  2. Re:Impression by fyngyrz · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Speaking as a commercial developer (most of the time), and the owner of a very successful software firm, I don't like the GPL because the licensing opens the door to an additional legal minefield we'd just as soon avoid, makes distribution and maintenance more complicated, and poses linking issues, forcing decisions about embedded code vs. external libraries based on exposure of our own IP. Not saying the GPL is wrong or anything, by all means, if that's your thing, proceed — but that's why we won't touch it.

    From where I sit, if you want your code to be used by the most people in the most ways, issue your code as PD. That's what I do when I code for the community. Also... Free means free. Not "restricted." At least it does to me. I never did like Orwellian double-talk. The GPL isn't about freedom, it is about restriction.

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    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  3. Re:Trasnslation by sumdumass · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    We want gifts from you developers, and we don't want to share! GPL3 alienates us because we want free gifts and we don't want to share!
    The GPLv3 doesn't alienate people any more then the GPLv2 does in this matter. If you truly believe this is the argument against the GPLv3 then you need to listen a little better about it. Your arogence will get us all killed to put it politely.

    Sorry for the flaming, but I hope you can see it's easy to lose patience with this sort of thing. And I lose patience with Slashdot for running this story over and over again.
    Lose patients with what? Taking something completely out of context or refusing to listen to their grips and concerns because of that act?