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Is Apache Or GPL Better For Open-Source Business?
mjasay writes "While the GPL powers as much as 77% of all SourceForge projects, Eric Raymond argues that the GPL is 'a confession of fear and weakness' that 'slows down open-source adoption' because of the fear and uncertainty the GPL provokes. Raymond's argument seems to be that if openness is the winning strategy, an argument Michael Tiemann advocates, wouldn't it make sense to use the most open license? Geir Magnusson of the Apache Software Foundation suggests that there are few 'pure' GPL-only open-source projects, as GPL-prone developers have to 'modify it in some way to get around the enforcement of Freedom(SM) in GPL so people can use the project.' But the real benefit of Apache-style licensing may not be for developers at all, and rather accrue to businesses hoping to drive adoption of their products: Apache licensing may encourage broader, deeper adoption than the GPL. The old GPL vs. BSD/Apache debate may not be about developer preferences so much as new business realities."
GPL or Apache doesn't really matters -- what matters is if you can make money. There essential matter is whether the software in question is a tool you use or the product you sell itself. If it's just a tool, the GPL makes sense, so you get contributions back. If it's your product itself, neither GPL nor Apache makes sense.
Be relentless!
If you're trying to get a protocol or "standard" of some kind as widely adopted as possible, then you should use a more permissive license (e.g. BSD, MIT, Apache). If you want people to embrace your product, yet then have to buy a license from you if they want to modify it in any proprietary way, you use the GPL.
It's basically a business question of whether you plan to make money DIRECTLY from the code (i.e. GPL), or whether you have ulterior motives for making money elsewhere (i.e. Apache). For examples of the latter, most of the largest permissive-licensed projects (Apache, Firefox, etc) are bankrolled by Microsoft competitors as a means to block Microsoft from having full monopoly power in a particular niche.
This really is a TIRED and boring flamewar. There simply is no "one license to rule them all". It depends on what you're trying to accomplish.
Yes.
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I always thought that was the idea -
"If you want to use my stuff in your project, you have to open it. Feel free to write your own if that doesn't fit in with your plans"
It's actually pretty difficult to contribute to dual-license GPL projects - they'd rather do the changes themselves and not risk legal hassles. What they want is bug reports.
When I was maintaining the ISC DHCP distribution (BSD license, BTW), I dreaded getting large patches, because I'd have to go through the whole damned patch and figure out what it actually did, and correct it. I much preferred bug reports. The idea that patches are why people open source things is really a red herring - sure, if you get a regular contributor who's really good, you can start to trust their work, but that only works for projects like linux where you have a huge number of interested geeks.
So really, what's going on with a dual-licensed model is that the owner of the copyright is using the FUD of the GPL to get people who don't trust open source or don't want to open source their own code to pay for non-GPL copies. At the same time they are offering the GPL version to the community of people who like the GPL, which spurs adoption. It's a win for everyone.
The problem with the BSD license is that the only way to get money out of it is charity, because there is no license FUD. Nothing wrong with charity, but it can make paying the bills a bit difficult.
The problem is that there's no incentive to contribute. You can take, but nothing makes you give back. Especially because if you give back, you're effectively working for your competitors.
So yeah, BSD is excellent from a "leech" point of view. It's not that good from the "project" point of view. It's not that good from the contributor point of view either. Why should I bother contributing when that in effect makes me an unpaid employee of every company using that source?
The LGPL exists for a strategic reason.
For some things, such as the C library, there exist many reimplementations. Making that GPLd drives people to alternatives, and loses on any potential contributions. So the LGPL is a compromise to still get contributions to that code.
Stallman considers that a library should be GPLd when it provides a competitive advantage. If it's GPL or "code your own", he hopes you'll go with the GPL one.
On the contrary, it jives perfectly fine with business.
Take Red Hat for instance, and other companies that pay for GPL development. Why do they do that? Because they know that even if IBM takes advantage of their improvements, the moment they fix something in Red Hat's code, they have to give back as well. So not only does Red Hat get better drivers or SMP support, they also get free fixes from IBM for it!
The BSD on the other hand doesn't have such things. Red Hat would write their driver, release as closed source, not contribute it back obviously, and every other company would do the same. The end result is that BSD won't get the driver until some volunteer happens to contribute it.
There's also lots of GPLd code in various devices you rarely look at very closely, such as cash registers. The companies that work for those don't sell code. They sell hardware + software + support, and have no problem with contributing bugfixes for whatever GPLd code they used, because their business loses nothing by doing so. And without the GPL they wouldn't bother to contribute, because that takes programmer time, and as such won't be done if optional.
It's only death if your business is selling software on the shelf. There are many companies with different business models, which sell routers, or cash registers, or support, and for which the GPL isn't a hindrance in the slightest.