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Leaving the GPL Behind
olddotter points out a story up at Yahoo Tech on companies' decisions to distance themselves from the GPL. "Before deciding to pull away from GPL, Haynie says Appcelerator surveyed some two dozen software vendors working within the same general market space. To his surprise, Haynie saw that only one was using a GPL variant. 'Everybody else, hands down, was MIT, Apache, or New BSD,' he says. 'The proponents of GPL like to tell people that the world only needs one open source license, and I think that's actually, frankly, just a flat-out dumb position,' says Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, one of the many organizations now offering an open source license with more generous commercial terms than GPL."
Hmm, okay? Seems kind of sensationalist to me.
Yeah, well I think that's actually, frankly, just a flat-out fabrication. Could we have a source for this assertion please?
The GPL makes the user a distributor and if your business model depends on restricting what the user can do it is no surprise that you wouldn't base your creations on the license, GPL is a license that protects those who use and modify the software from their predecessors, BSD is open code with the ability to conceal the source. The two among others are for different purposes and saying that there is one license to do the work of all is just as absurd as saying the GPL is dead. Until we see alternative OSes based on alternative licenses take a bigger spot than LInux, the GPL is in no danger. Furthermore, the goal of FOSS is more than just the GPL, it is the expansion of freedom to share and modify code and as long as FOSS as a whole is growing GPL or not it's a good thing.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
There is a small but vocal group of Free Software zealots who make life miserable for anyone who thinks that the GPL isn't the end-all and be-all of Open Source licenses. They frequently point out problems they perceive with other licenses like BSD without conceding that their perspective may not be applicable/correct/logical/reasonable. These are what I call the Free Software Fascists. They claim to work for the greater good of the OSS movement, but their actions are only self-serving.
This is not to say that everyone who chooses the GPL is one of these. There are many reasons to use the GPL, the greatest among them is how the GPL guarantees software freedom for all users, not just the developers. This is a respectable choice, though it does tend towards indian-giving.
It's difficult to say that the GPL fails to be useful to business because 1) there are businesses which quite efficiently use GPL software and tools and 2) it was not written with commercialization in mind (in fact, commercialization of GPL software is completely tangential to the GPL). But in its own way, the GPL makes itself hostile to developers basing their products on the base GPL libraries/software. In a very real sense, by demanding software freedom, the GPL makes any software it covers poison to a software product company.
So the article is right. There are many software/hardware product companies who are shunning Linux and the GPL. The lack of IP protection (nee, the deliberate elimination of IP protection) is not something companies who innovate are likely to embrace. On the other hand, the article is wrong in that GPL software usage has never been higher. The existence of GPL software helps many companies be able to compete due to lower implementation and licensing costs.
Which side you believe is the side you already believe.
Every GNU zealout shouts this out at the top of their lungs, it should be pretty easy to understand by now: If you don't like the GPL license, don't fucking link to a GPL'd library. End of discussion.
Some of us find it a bit improper/offensive when these people claim copyright over something that doesn't actually contain any of their work. It's kind of like if a cookbook publisher tried to stop me from telling people that the ribs recipe on page 104 and the second beans recipe on page 286 go really well together, especially if you also have the cornbread from page 42.
You just know that he would have demanded that Linux be called 'GNU/Linux' and so on. He's known for turning down speaking engagements from people who refuse to do that, too.
I beginning to think Richard Stallman is techdom's Michael Jackson. Once brilliant, his past work is appreciated by all... but he currently exists in a vacuum where he lives off his dwindling reputation and fawning attention of a few creepy adoring fans while everyone else just scratches their heads and wonder what the hell happened to him.
Ok, you really got to learn to not use logic on /., it might confuse some.
My fave part is from the Eclipse guy saying ".....one of the many organizations now offering an open source license with more generous commercial terms than GPL."
You dont say?
That is not surprising in the least since the GPL is there for the USER's benefit, NOT the developers or corporations.
U-s-e-r.
As for using a license, you use the one that suits you and your needs but many times what companies are looking is for ways to get free development/community while still being able to keep something hidden for their own benefit. That's what BSD is for. If you use it, enjoy but just dont pretend that you are this for anyone's benefit (user or other developers) than your own.
And even the most diehard GPL defenders will agree that you need the LPGL, Affero and other variants like v3. That is NOT one license, they are similar but still not one license.
That is not surprising in the least since the GPL is there for the USER's benefit, NOT the developers or corporations.
Yes, because the users get so much benefit from it being harder for developers and corporations to write programs for them.
Some folks want to take code they had no part in writing, do a few mods, call it their own, and give nothing back to originating source of the code. Some like to call them "commercial developers", but a more common and accurate name is "greedy leaches".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
A big business is more liable then a small business, they have more assets to lose, assuming they lose a copyright infringement case. Lawyers like to sue people with money.
Big business historically have been the target of GPL lawsuits.
So I don't buy your theory.
GPL is a probably the best open source license for distributing software you actually want to make money from. What you do is charge a fee for people who don't agree to the GPL terms. With BSD, it's not quite as easy to do this. Notice some of the most profitable open source products (eg: SugarCRM, and MySQL) are GPL.
Hard to believe but the article show there are *still* 'analysts' who despite having not even the first idea what the GPL asserts, get their opinions into these kinds of articles.
From TFA:
"To force the free distribution of source code, the GPL requires publishers to place the source code on the disk they distribute their applications on. Under GPL, "you've got to give it away for free, and you've got to give the source code away for free as well," says analyst Kiewe."
Yes, and the moon is made of cheese and bad things don't happen to good people.
I fail to see how being offered the option of using GPL code, subject to certain conditions, impinges on your freedom(much less represents "fascism"). If you don't like the conditions, use something else. Nobody is going to put you in the GNU/Death Camps.
Unless you start from the position that other people owe you use of their work, without conditions, being offered that use, with conditions, can only benefit you. If you don't like the option, don't use it, if you do, do. Easy.
Fer crissakes.
This is a big whiny piece about how poor poor kleptocrats can't use GPLed code without giving back. Well, don't use it. Duh. There's no shortage of proprietary code.
And then it ends the article with the old fragmentation canard.
I expected to see Dan "Lyin'" Lyons in the byline.
Yellow journalism, anyone?
"Fair and Balanced"
--
BMO
You can't be serious.
If developers and corporations want to provide software for users they have several options: 1. Pay for development 2. Trade for some existing code by making their additions available 3. Find someone who will volunteer their works
None of which are harder than the others for developers and corporations.
Except of course that (2) means that people suddenly have a lot less reason to buy anything from you, since they can just (legally!) download it from someone else.
That doesn't change the fact that there are outright false statements here.
Most of the people who knew RMS at MIT don't want to say anything; and those who do only do so anonymously.
Which of course means we should all be skeptical of your claims.
Just about the only thing I can immediately think of that should be GPL is standard libraries for a programming language (C++ STL for example).
I doubt you understand the consequences of your preposition. The C++ standard library is based on templates, so you can't link dynamically to it. Translation units need the whole template definition and declaration in order to successfully instantiate an object or function based on a templated type. If this was the case, all code which used your C++ standard library implementation would have to be released under GPL. Not even LGPL would work here. This is why even GNU does an exception for their implementations of libc and C++ libraries.
People talk about "code freedom". It seems ridiculous (to me) for code to have freedom. What about my freedom? If I make something awesome with a library that is GPL and I'm feeling altruistic, I can't let people sell it without distributing source? That's ridiculous.
You don't have an inherent right to use GPL code without abiding to the license conditions any more than you have the right to breach copyright on other works. No one forces GPL down your throat. You can choose not to use it. If you feel so altruistic, code your own implementation of whatever library you find licensed under GPL and release your code under MIT or BSD.
Many business types can't get their brain around the concept of cooperation.
Let me give you an example: A great platform for working with microcontrollers is the Arduino. Google it, if necessary. It is open, you expect open source software with any shields (hardware addons) you can buy and developing applications interacting with the real world is a lot of fun. People built model plane USVs with GPS control and 3D printers with Arduino. Even some non-free spinoffs exist, but noone is really upset about them.
Great fun, useful, brilliant environment built on free soft- and hardware.
Now let's have a look at Mr. Liu. He runs a very small company (jyetech) that produces a very, very cheap, very simple oscilloscope. I own one - and for the things I do with it, it is more than adequate.
You could download the documentation and schematics from his website and build yourself that scope with a little thinking. (To find that it is actually cheaper to buy a kit or a completed device.)
But what about the software? Should be free, shoudn't it?
Someone actually wrote his own software for the scope from scratch. Mr. Liu didn't mind - but HIS software is HIS property. In a forum post somewhere, he explains the reasoning, which I cannot literally quote, but it goes like this:
"In China, a lot of stuff is copied. And bigger companies can build the scope cheaper and sell it more easily. I would be out of business. The competitors can build the hardware, but cannot write the software, and so far, my logo in the boot loader has kept the scope from being stolen."
It sounds a little like security by obscurity - but Mr. Liu seems to know his local competition. Now who would want to force feed the GPL to Mr. Liu because "all software must be free"?
Mr. Liu can do whatever he wants with his software. It's his. My point is that if Liu wants to build a cooperative community around his software, then GPL is a good way to do it. As it is, Liu's software has been duplicated. Well and good. If Liu wants to ignore the competing software he is free to. Then again, an alternative is to enlist and merge resources and work towards a single more powerful software base. Liu runs the risk of having the competing software go open source, attracting programming resources and himself being unable to keep up. His decision. No one is saying Liu must go GPL. I would say that he should keep it in the back of his mind though, if only to avoid loss of his current advantage.
GPL isn't just a hobbyist thing. Businesses find it quite useful, a a tool to keep each other honest when dealing with a shared resource.
No, you're completely off. They do claim copyright. That's the only way they're able to impose any terms, whatsoever, on what other people may do with the work. Otherwise, it would be public domain-- which is, in fact, the only genuinely free software.
Well, there's two ways to answer that.
The first, a moral argument that at the moment I don't have the patience to flesh out: Why do you _have_ to live from your job? Why is your probably-not-all-that-useful sort-of-contribution to society rewarded while theirs should not be?
The second, a practical one: many forms of modern art are simply too labor- and time-intensive to be done for free. Do you really think Half-Life 2 will be made "as a hobby in [somebody's] free time"? While some programming works can be done for free to the end user, they aren't free to the people making it. Linux would not exist as is if there weren't millions of dollars being funneled into it, and the methods of recouping that investment exist that don't involve direct sales of a product. Such doesn't exist for a lot of other methods that people find very valuable. Without copyright, we'll be introducing you to our old friend, the tragedy of the commons.
So, yes, I have no problem with criminalizing your fellow copyright infringers to protect my livelihood, and, quite frankly, I doubt even your fellow copyright infringers will have a problem with it when they realize that that's where the stuff they're passing around comes from. Taken to the extreme that you and your ilk think they would like, you would kill the goose laying the golden egg.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
No. The GPL doesn't do anything to anyones programming abilities. Well, indirectly it makes it easier to write programs, by allowing you to learn from the program's source code.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
GPL is good for anybody not making money directly off software products. I don't buy all the ideology around it, but as Linus says it's a cool license because it enforces tit-for-tat.
However, GPL is the kiss of death for anybody trying to make money selling software products. If you have a software product and publish any of its libraries as GPL, then your product must effectively become GPL'ed. And you put hard work into it and want to charge money for that, but anybody can take that product and sell it cheaper or give it away for free.
You can then play games to work around it (spawn the GPL product from a commercial one and talk to it through a pipe or something) but whatever you do is just a kludge in order to dance around the license.
Personally, I gave away the few small, well-rounded libraries I made under the BSD license. I don't really mind if somebody takes them and uses them to build a product they'll be making money off. The knee-jerk reaction here is that when somebody says "commercial software" people imagine big dominant companies like Apple or Microsoft, but the number of programmers working there is dwarfed by the number of small 1-5 programmer shops trying to make a living.
In fact, I don't even mind if a programmer at Microsoft takes my source code and uses it in a product. I met a few of them and they are mostly nice folks trying to make the best software they can. If Microsoft shareholders profit to an infinitesimal amount from something I gave away for free, I don't really give a fuck.
Dejan
It sounds a little like security by obscurity - but Mr. Liu seems to know his local competition. Now who would want to force feed the GPL to Mr. Liu because "all software must be free"?
Someone that bought the device and wants to add some new functionality or fix something in what they own. This is exactly the same situation that started the whole Free Software movement. Stallman merely wanted to fix a printer driver.
Yes, there are some companies who use the GPL with varying degrees of success and for a variety of reasons. The article is showing that there are many companies that choose to explicitly avoid the use of the GPL for a variety of reasons including but not limited to the very reasons that those other companies choose the GPL!!! The FORCED distribution of source code to modified GPL projects means just what the article says, it's a serious limitation for the business and loss of revenue potential. That's fine for some but not for most.
It's not about stirring FUD at all. It's about educating people that the GPL isn't right for many.
In my company we have no fear of USING a GPLed program or even of shipping it with our software. What we do not do is commit lots of time and money developing an existing GPL program and giving OUR changes away for free. Sure we'll change a line or twenty if needed to fix a bug or add a simple command line option we need for example, but we'll not put in any effort to develop it further. For serious updates we prefer to maximize our profit potential so we do prefer the other actually free licenses.
When shipping and using a GPLed program in your software make sure that you keep it contained in a GPL Virus Containment Condom so that it can't infect your own software! You do this by keeping it a separate program or by putting it into a separate program if you're linking to a library. Often a command line program is one of the best forms to wrap libraries in so that you can access it without being contaminated by it.
Now you might not like the way that I think or write about the GPL but it's not FUD, it's the reality of how my company and it's people hold the GPL in low regard and as a danger to our financial endeavors.
So choose your software licenses carefully for it can have a real world impact and the GPL can destroy your business if you're not careful.