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."

Comments

Bracing for GPL V. X fight?

[Ojuice]

Hmm, okay? Seems kind of sensationalist to me.

Re:Bracing for GPL V. X fight?

[RiotingPacifist]

GPL vs non-GPL
do you want to allow closed forks of your code:
YES -> look at other licenses
NO -> look at (l/a)GPL (and other similar licenses)

right now that I've sorted that out will everybody just STFU!

ORLY?

[Anonymous Coward]

'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,'

Yeah, well I think that's actually, frankly, just a flat-out fabrication. Could we have a source for this assertion please?

Re:ORLY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, RMS for example quibbles over what we call things all the time (open source vs. free software and Linux vs. GNU LInux) and does so with a religious fervor. If you don't think there are GPL zealots just a fanatical you're deluding yourself. I've been personally told before that the "GPL is the only REAL free license" by a fellow developer I once worked with. This sort of attitude is less about giving a company or individual what they want or need and more about making a philosophical/religious point about how you think people should behave and I agree with the article it's stupid and fairly damaging to the reputation and advancement of free/open source software.

Re:ORLY?

[Timothy Brownawell]

'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,'

Yeah, well I think that's actually, frankly, just a flat-out fabrication. Could we have a source for this assertion please?

I think it's actually the (a?) purpose of the "additional permissions" language, to make GPLv3 flexible enough for anyone to use.

Anything beyong one simple license that we can clearly explain the use and restrictions around open source software fails the future use and growth of the adoption of such software.

I've also seen calls to have only 4 licenses (BSD, LGPL, GPL, AGPL).

Re:ORLY?

[amicusNYCL]

Doesn't a "proponent" of anything sort of think that the world only needs one of those, and that's the one? I mean, what definition are you using for "proponent"? If you don't believe a certain thing is the best tool for the job then you're not really a "proponent", are you?

Re:ORLY?

[93 Escort Wagon]

What you missed is that there's a difference between "free" and "open source."

What you missed is that there's a difference between your definitions of "free" and "open source" and what that word and that phrase literally mean to the vast majority of people (even the majority of IT people).

I propose that, for clarity's sake, people who use always the word "free" per the GPL hijacking of the word should start using "GNU/Free" instead - and please use the phrase "GNU/open source" as well. That way we can do away with all the semantic silliness that usually comes out of these discussions, and start debating the real issues.

Re:ORLY?

[V!NCENT]

Oh My God, stop crying Q_Q.

If nobody wanted the GPL it would not be of any significance. Apparently a lot of people like it so stop whine about the fact that proprietary sucks, except for business.

It is there. People want it. People use it. Stop crying. This sounds a little too much like fabricated by Microsoft to me. But just like everything they create these days; it utterly fails.

Re:ORLY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this?

Re:ORLY?

[Mr. Slippery]

RMS for example quibbles over what we call things all the time (open source vs. free software and Linux vs. GNU LInux) and does so with a religious fervor.

People in scientific and technical fields generally appreciate the precise use of language.

The Free Software movement and the Open Source movement are different. RMS is right to insist upon the distinction.

Re:ORLY?

[moosesocks]

You can find less eccentric (and less easy targets) than RMS among those who support the GPL.

Yes -- RMS is quite the eccentric, and pretty much the antithesis of what you'd want to have in a spokesman.

Part of the problem is that he insists on taking "ownership" of the GPL, and frequently acts as though he's a spokesperson for the entire open source community. The GNU/Linux naming "war" that he's been waging for some time now is outright embarrassing for all parties involved.

He's also responsible for turning GNU from an open-source software collective into a pseudo political advocacy group. GNU's philosophy page reads like some sort of paranoid rant -- It's virtually impossible to take it seriously.

Perhaps the smoking gun is this mailing list post RMS made two years ago, admitting that he hasn't yet embraced hypertext. He browses the web through a HTTP-Mail gateway, and strips out the HTML. (On the flipside, GNU appears to have finally hired a competent web designer. Stephen Fry on the homepage is a rather nice touch)

Torvalds is a much better role model to follow. He keeps quiet, and insists that Linux is a community effort, of which he is only a small part.

Re:ORLY?

[rtfa-troll]

"fabrication" is a nice word. Lie is better. The Free software foundation, the main proponent of the GPL, actively recommends many other licenses than the GPL and for them and most users there is little difference. It's when you see a lie like this in the headline that you know that someone has an anti FOSS agenda (admittedly, it's in the middle of the Yahoo article, but the person writing it knew which sentence would go at the top in Slashdot). I wonder if yahoo really isn't joining the dark side.

What I've found, however, is that in a commercial environment the GPL is a very important tool. It's the one of the few licenses which can be trusted to build a completely fair sharing system where many companies can come together and produce one set of code without the likelihood of the other companies cheating on them. It's definitely true that commercial entities make more software based on BSD/MIT licenses. However, the fact that you see more contributions to the base software on GPL systems is not an accident. It happens because the commercial entities can be happy that if their contribution is used against them, they will at least have the come back of being able to use changes.

I've seen (and posted about before) many examples where the use of a non copyleft license or a less effective copyleft license has lead to abandoned projects. The most classic being the failure of the ipsilon routing contributions to be pushed back into FreeBSD which died with the operating system. This happens because licenses such as Apache and BSD don't demand contributions, which means that when the lawyers are asked, they often recommend against contributing "for now" and the contributions actually never happen.

For this usage, the AGPLv3 is also a big advance and should IMHO probably be the license of choice for all projects which want to have efficient long term cooperation with commercial software producers going forward. Having said that, the most important thing is to work together with other people who have similar interestes. The F vs OSS debate is all very fine in theory, but in real life everybody has very much to cooperate over. That's seems to be the main reason why Free software foundation generally recommends that people contribute using the projects own license.

Re:ORLY?

[iplayfast]

I've found that RMS often says things that make me step back and reconsider. For example cloud computing. I always get caught up in the buzzwords, but RMS pointed out that it actually gives people less control.

RMS is all about giving control to the user of the software. His whole philosophy is based upon being free to modify/repair/change any software that you are using, whether in a computer or printer or whatever. The fact that you've bought the software, means (in his mind) that you should have the right to change it. If you've bought a printer that has a bug in it's firmware you should be able to change it.

Companies don't like this idea because they will
1. have more expenses when a fix actually breaks something.
2. their propitiatory software is secret.
3. if you knew how simple the code was you would be upset at the price you paid.
4. competitors will use their code/ideas.
5. whatever

Companies are not consumer oriented. They are profit oriented. RMS is consumer oriented. He sounds eccentric when he talks because people have been brainwashed into thinking along the corporate lines.

If you view what he says from a consumer point of view he sounds very sane. Rather like Ralph Nader seemed eccentric when he went after the pinto.

Re:ORLY?

[_Sprocket_]

What you missed is that there's a difference between your definitions of "free" and "open source" and what that word and that phrase literally mean to the vast majority of people (even the majority of IT people).

And what you're doing is willfully ignoring the fact that there ARE semantic issues. Freedom and free-of-charge or not the same thing yet they can both be referred to as "free." This is just as much "hijacking" as the Free Software group.

You clearly understand the situation - semantics and all. Yet you're doing nothing to "start debating the real issues."

Re:ORLY?

[_Sprocket_]

I'd be cautious about dismissing RMS too much. It seems to me that RMS should have some "ownership" of the GPL in so far as it's authored by his group. And that group has always been an advocacy group even while acting as a software collective.

I like GNU's philosophy page. And I like RMS' rants. I can't always find myself agreeing or willing to follow the ideas presented. But they're often worth considering.

I've known individuals before who were very much the backbones of any given technical environment. They weren't good leaders. They weren't good with people in general. They weren't the ones you brought to a big presentation with "the suits." But they certainly were the ones you turned to when wanting things to work - both now and in the future. And even if their initial lack of pragmatism could be frustrating, their long-term view was often solid.

RMS strikes me as one of those guys. He's a sort of Don Quixote. You may not wish to emulate his example. But the ideals he presents aren't always without merit.

Torvalds offers his own merits. I wouldn't even begin to present him and RMS as an either-or choice.

Re:ORLY?

[moosesocks]

Perhaps I misrepresented myself: I'm not necessarily taking a jab at his philosophy. He's right about a lot of things, and has some good points about cloud computing. I could debate the merits of the GPL and his other (strongly voiced) opinions at great length, and not reach a satisfactory conclusion. There are usually excellent points to be made on both sides of the argument.

He tends to choose controversial topics, and it should come as no surprise that he's a controversial figure.

However, I take great issue with RMS being treated as some sort of leader or spokesman. His opinions most certainly do not represent a great many members of the free software movement, which is particularly bad, considering that virtually all of us echo the same sentiment (while our so-called leader frequently brings pedantry and senseless infighting (ie. GNU/Linux) to the forefront).

There's also the issue of his interpersonal skills and physical image -- the incident where he demanded an audience with the Prime Minister of France (and was subsequently outraged when it was denied) comes to mind rather immediately. It wouldn't kill him to shave and wear a suit when making public appearances -- I'm not one for judging based upon appearances, although it's going to be mighty hard for him to sell Free Software to the business world if he looks homeless.

Re:ORLY?

[fm6]

This isn't about some indistinct philosophy or religious point.

Maybe not an indistinct one, but the issue is pretty religious.

As you say, the Free/Open distinction is real enough. But it seems to me that it's the "software wants to be free" zealots who don't get this. They assume that everybody who uses FOSS is behind their entire program. That's why they insist that GPL is the only license anybody needs -- their program only advances if everybody uses it.

What they don't get is that the big backers of Open Source are not schoolyard radicals like RMS. They're big technology companies whose business goals are furthered by the existence of code bases that are accesible to everybody. So they subsidize FOOS projects by giving them money, hardware, programmer time, even management resources. This is what keeps the FOSS movement going.

The zealots see the FOSS movements success as a vindication of their silly theories. In reality, it's just a new business model. Their inability to grasp this is what causes the disconnect over licensing.

Re:ORLY?

[dbIII]

Consider the Trolltech and Qt licence debacle where the loudest of the GPL advocates refused to even read the licence Qt was under and the many amendments it underwent. It was GPL or nothing, and there were even years of sour grapes after that. Qt was the small soft target next to the MIT, X and BSD licences so was the head that was wanted on a stake.
Remove a couple of people purely in it for the politics from the discussion and it's a completely different story with tolerence of many licences based purely upon the content of those licences. I'm talking about RMS mostly but there are a few others in it for the politics who do not like other open source groups (and please don't nitpick about alternative definitions of "open source" "free" etc). He has done many admirable things but remember that his agenda will not necessarily always line up with your own (eg. going from years of the stupid "linux, never heard of it" joke to implied ownership when gnu are not even capable of tracking down the code to their own abandoned projects).

Re:ORLY?

[maxwell demon]

RMS is consumer oriented. He sounds eccentric when he talks because people have been brainwashed into thinking along the corporate lines.

How many consumers actually care whether the operating system is called "Linux" or "GNU/Linux"? I certainly cannot do more with it if the "GNU/" is attached to the name.

Re:ORLY?

[dbIII]

It's not a lie. It's just history and cooler heads are now prevailing.

Re:ORLY?

[MasterOfDisaster]

There's a big difference between "This is the right tool for this job", "This is the only tool for this job" and "This is the tool everyone uses for this job"

Re:ORLY?

[xororand]

Part of the problem is that he insists on taking "ownership" of the GPL, and frequently acts as though he's a spokesperson for the entire open source community.

Stallman distances himself from the open source community as much as possible. Both the free software and the open source communities (according to RMS' definition) have entirely different philosophies, with similar technical goals which allows them to work together most of the time.

He can't turn GNU from an open-source software collective into a pseudo political advocacy group because GNU has always been just that, a movement dealing with a social problem, while "open source" in general only refers to the technical standpoint.

Re:ORLY?

[X0563511]

You have a practical point about his image, but... Judging people based solely on their image is something we, as a society, really should get over doing.

He shouldn't have to visually conform to be taken seriously, he should be taken seriously for the things that actually matter.

Re:ORLY?

[X0563511]

Whats funny, is that some of us - like me, a paying FSF supporter - don't find what RMS does inline with "schoolyard radicals". But then again, I also think that BSD licenses have their place, and would probably use it myself.

Please stop associating the FSF with zealots. Sure, we have some... but what community doesn't?

Re:ORLY?

[nateb]

should start using "GNU/Free" instead - and please use the phrase "GNU/open source" as well

HAHAHAHAH. What a nice world you live in. Is there room for more? :)

Re:ORLY?

[makomk]

Consider the Trolltech and Qt licence debacle where the loudest of the GPL advocates refused to even read the licence Qt was under and the many amendments it underwent. It was GPL or nothing, and there were even years of sour grapes after that

Errrm... you do realise the whole Qt license debacle happened largely because the KDE developers chose both to license their own code under the GPL and to use Qt? If they'd either used a different toolkit or got their licensing straight, there wouldn't have been such an issue.

As it was, though, the problem was that KDE basically wasn't legally distributable due to the licensing snafu; the additional requirements in the QPL made it GPL incompatible, so you couldn't have an app that used code licensed under both.

Also, have you actually read the QPL? It's actually more restrictive than the GPL.

• It doesn't allow you to distribute modified sources - all modifications must be in the form of patches, which is a major pain.
• Changes must be made available to Trolltech for use in their commercial release.
• It not only requires you to open-source any program using it that you distribute, but to give Trolltech a free copy on request.

Re:ORLY?

[rtfa-troll]

It's just history and cooler heads are now prevailing.

I'm really not sure what you mean by that? The free software foundation has had a page recommending licenses other than the GPL for as long as I remember. You can't say "The proponents of GPL" without including the free software foundation. You can't say "like to tell people that the world only needs one open source license" about an organisation which since at least 2001 has been recommending the X11 license as a better alternative to the BSD license (check archive.org).

If the author wanted to merely mislead, he would have said something like "there are GPL proponents who will tell you that the world only needs one open source license". If he wanted to tell the truth, he would say something "a few irrelevant fanatics who have no real credibility even in the free software movement will tell you that the GPL is the only acceptable license for software" or, "I once met a guy in a bar who, after downing 10 pints and just before falling under the table said 'wouldn't it be really good if all software was under the GPL'. As it was, he lied.

Re:ORLY?

[Antique Geekmeister]

Richard is a fanatic. But his fanaticism is founded in genius, and foresight. He's been very correct about the edge cases and misuses of open source tools, and the attempts to limit open source tools in innovative ways (such as the Tivo has done). Richard is responsible for _creating_ GNU: his core work on tools such as gcc and glibc created the environment for Linux, the kernel, to unleash the somewhat confusing "Linux" operating systems. Linus should be, and is, grateful for that foundation, and wisely focuses his limited resources on the kernel itself. As irritating as the naming war is, Richard has a point.

As a project leader, Linus is amazing. I'd love to be like him when I grow up, although I'm not skilled enough as a leader nor a programmer to do so. As a prophet leading people to new ways of thinking and living, however, Richard is the clear winner. Bathed or not, Richard led the way into the land of milk and honey that Linus's farm is built in.

Re:ORLY?

[jellomizer]

A lot of people like GPL not because of the GPL but because it is free as in Beer without the fear it can be a trick. I usually search for GPL products not because I am a fan of GPL but because I know I am not going to get a crippled Demo, or some shareware that will expire on me. I am a trained professional programmer but really I don't care much for the fact the source code is open. Yes I guess I could change the code to fix the problem, however for most cases if it doesn't do what I want I delete the program and look for another one, as it is quicker to do so then to go threw the source and figure out how it was written and change the code (especially as source code is open but the specifications are not).

Why business like proprietary it isn't always about making money but it gives them freedom that the GPL takes away from them. (the LGPL is better at this) But if you want to incorporate GPL code into you program you are forced to make it GPL. Which makes Mixing GPL Code with Propriety code and libraries nearly impossible. Avoiding GPL allows the company to make a product that uses code that does the job it wants to do without the GPL baggage, It isn't always about oh man I need to open source my Code but more to the fact I cannot use this well made library with my code thus forcing me to choose Either don't use the GPL code then I have freedom to license my code any way I want or completely remake a bunch of closed source libraries just for the sake that the GPL doesn't want you to use it with their code.

Also the significance of the GPL is magnified by the environment that you are in. Linux Market share is around 1% and Linux is the GPL big Daddy Poster Boy of GPL Done right. Posting in the tech rags and sites like slashdot you think roughly 60% of all the population uses Linux. But it is really less popular then you think. Microsoft Bombed on Vista what happened... Most People switched to Macs, not Linux.

The GPL is targeted to people who are in the following sectors Education, Government, and Not For Profit. Why (I am generalizing here, Yes there will be exceptions, I don't want to hear them!) Labor is underutilized, meaning their time isn't worth much they can spend days weeks months working on something without getting noticed. Budgets have a huge bureaucracy behind them, Trying to get approved for software purchase is way to much effort and will take longer then it will take to tweak open source to work for you. Have an Open Culture these organizations have little in terms of organization secretes, if an other organization uses your code is is not your loss.
In contradiction For Profit businesses are different (and still I am generalizing here and they are exceptions). Labor it optimized, Meaning your time should be focused on getting the core value of your work done without tangents. Approval for funds are a bit easier, you say ether buy this $1000 application or it will take me an extra Month (costing $3000) to do it the other way. Closed culture. If you competitors get ahold of your work early they may have a better staff to beat you to your market and your development time is wasted and loss.

Re:ORLY?

[Bluesman]

It's a bit disingenuous to say that the FSF doesn't care what license you use, when clearly, they care very much.

Your link isn't a page of recommended licenses, by the way, it's a list of licenses with comments on their compatibility with the GPL.

The FSF has an agenda, and are willing to use threat of legal force to advance it. You may like their goals and there's nothing illegal about what they do, but any attempt to frame them as something different is not quite accurate.

Re:ORLY?

[packman]

Good luck if you're planning a crusade against the trends in modern society. All it's about these days is looks and image... :)

Re:ORLY?

[swillden]

I propose that, for clarity's sake, people who use always the word "free" per the GPL hijacking of the word should start using "GNU/Free" instead

There's a convention for making this distinction in place already. When referring to free-as-in-freedom, your "GNU/Free", the convention is to capitalize Free. This is actually pretty unambiguous, except when the word appears at the beginning of a sentence. In speech it's less clear, and must be qualified explicitly.

Now how about you stop quibbling over already-settled naming and start, as you suggest, discussing real issues?

Re:ORLY?

[dfghjk]

"What you missed is that there's a difference between "free" and "open source." As you noted, RMS is all about Free Software yet you ignore this distinction as quibbling."

It is only a distinction according to FSF people and that is exactly their quibbling. RMS changes the definitions of words so that he can argue his point.

Re:ORLY?

[dfghjk]

"This is just as much "hijacking" as the Free Software group."

Don't be ridiculous. The meaning of words predates software entirely. If you can't accept common language then you aren't qualified to participate in discussion.

Re:ORLY?

[dfghjk]

RMS claims to be all about giving control to the user yet BSD license accomplishes that just as completely as a GPL one. The GPL not just about that, it's about more.

Re:ORLY?

[jedidiah]

The fact that the Linux userland is not restricted to just Linux is a
very important little tidbit. Admittedly, a vanishingly small number of
people use multiple Unixen. However, it is a consideration.

This idea makes a lot more sense when you consider the bogus idea that
some people push with regards to MacOS. They try to call it Unix. They
try to conflate it with BSD. Infact, the BSD part of MacOS is even more
invisible than the guts and details of the kernel in Linux.

The same goes for Windows. The fact that it has a Mach kernel is pretty
irrelevant at this point.

Re:ORLY?

[jedidiah]

That's like saying that your state is not free because I can't come over to your house and pee on your sofa.

Once again we have the Mad Max definition of freedom being propagated.

Your definition of free is why the GPL was invented in the first place.

Re:ORLY?

[jedidiah]

If you are going to misrepresent stuff, try not to have the principal zealots present.

In particular, I objected to various forms of the licensing for libqt because it
would unduly interfere with small scale commercial activity.

Let me repeat that for you:

        I objected to the libqt licenses because it would do precisely the sort of
thing that many of the anti-GPL whiners are complaining about.

        I thought that posed a risk to Linux due to it being a competitive disadvantage
when compared to commercial operating systems that don't have similar burdens. It
forced some classes of Linux users into the position of paying for basic system level
stuff (with a high pricetag) that users of other operating systems didn't.

        Some of us who like the L/GPL don't have any problems actually *gasp* paying
for software. Cars don't need to be free but when the ROAD is owned by a crass
corporate entity, that can cause severe practical problems.

        This goes back to the whole "not everyone is RMS" retort.

Re:ORLY?

[david_thornley]

Stallman is the dominant spokesman for the Free Software movement.

He is not in any way part of the Open Source movement.

If you do not understand that, why should I believe anything you say?

Re:ORLY?

[Angst Badger]

Sure, there are GPL zealots, but that's entirely beside the point. The original statement is misleading because, for an ideological GPL advocate, the issue of "open source" is a necessary part of what they call Free Software, but it is not sufficient. No serious Free Software advocate is going to tell you that there should only be one Open Source license, because Open Source isn't really their concern. From the Free Software point of view, much of Open Source is merely a less onerous variety of non-free software.

I would suggest that if any Open Source advocates find their association with Free Software damaging to their reputation, they should stop associating with Free Software. Free Software advocates will, for their part, probably be grateful that the Open Source people have stopped trying to pirate Free Software by looking for a back door in the GPL. Free Software and Open Source can get along quite well without each other.

What's really infuriating about the Open Source camp's hyperbolic claims of zealotry and fanaticism is that it is just a cover for laziness and greed. Don't like Free Software licenses? Then don't use Free Software. The situation is really no different than if you don't care for Microsoft's EULAs -- fine, don't use Microsoft software. But the hordes of wannabe Open Source entrepreneurs -- and more than a few of the closed source corporations they yearn to emulate -- see Free Software as a dragon's hoard of riches there for the plundering, unguarded by well-paid attorneys. It's quite disgraceful. Don't like being told how you should behave? Lead by example and stop trying to tell people how they should license their work, and go do you own work. Being dishonest and hypocritical might actually serve you well in business, but being lazy, shiftless, and parasitic probably won't.

Re:ORLY?

[Carewolf]

As it was, though, the problem was that KDE basically wasn't legally distributable due to the licensing snafu; the additional requirements in the QPL made it GPL incompatible, so you couldn't have an app that used code licensed under both.

Only if you believe that Qt was a derived product of KDE because KDE linked to it. The GPL only has requirements to derived products, not to parent products.

Re:ORLY?

[amicusNYCL]

Yeah, I realize that. So which view does a "proponent" take? Wouldn't it be the first? The second would mean you're ignorant to the fact that there are other tools, and the third means that you're ignorant to how the tools get used. So if you're not ignorant then that would leave the first option, which is what a proponent is. So, yeah, proponents of X like to tell people that the world only needs X, that sounds like a correct statement to me. It doesn't really matter if X is a certain car or condiment or religion or operating system or license or whatever.

Re:ORLY?

[fm6]

I judge the free software movement by the rantings of its founder. I think it's safe to assume that his views are more representative than yours.

My definition of a schoolyard radical is somebody who loves elaborate social theories, but has no ability to apply them outside academia. RMS is a classic case: his GNU OS (the original "free" software project) has been under development for 27 years, with no end in sight. Yes, big chunks of it are incorporated in Linux, but the fact remains that RMS doesn't know how to see a big software project to completion. Like all schoolyard radicals, he never has to acknowledge his failure because he lives in the academic world, away from economic reality.

RMS's theories appeal to the same mindset that bought into the "fuck you I'll do what I want" brand of libertarianism that became alll the rage during the 80s. That mindset has just recently shown its intellectual and moral bankruptcy. RMS had one good idea: that voluntary cooperation was a better model for shared projects than the traditional committee approach. Others have taken this idea and done great things with it. RMS deserves some credit for that, but from his point of view it's almost an accidental outcome.

Re:ORLY?

[mounthood]

'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,'

Yeah, well I think that's actually, frankly, just a flat-out fabrication. Could we have a source for this assertion please?

If we assume it is true, then why aren't GPL advocates replacing all BSD software with GPL versions? Where's the big push to redo X and apache as GPL, and only GPL?

Re:ORLY?

[Stupendoussteve]

Mac OS X is UNIX 03 certified, it is UNIX. Both a FreeBSD-like ports system, and Debian-like apt-get system are available as well as a compiler out of the box. What does it not have? Pengiuns at boot time? The path of Linux seems to be heading in a similar direction towards current OS X... a nice GUI with the guts still accessible. Open up the terminal, it's pretty familiar, Darwin makes a fine system.

Your last paragraph seems to say Windows uses Mach. Is this intended? The OS X XNU kernel is a hybrid kernel built of BSD and Mach. The NT kernel is a hybrid kernel, but completely independent.

Re:ORLY?

[makomk]

Only if you believe that Qt was a derived product of KDE because KDE linked to it. The GPL only has requirements to derived products, not to parent products.

No, that's what would be required in order for distributing Qt itself to be legally dubious, which it wasn't. KDE itself was explicitly licensed under the GPL, which means that anyone distributing it has to comply with the GPL.

In the case of distributing binaries, that means that source for the entire program, including any libraries it uses that aren't included with the OS or compiler, has to be made available under the GPL. (Well, at least that's the usual interpretation; the actual license is somewhat badly worded.) If you can't legally do that - as in the Qt case - the GPL forbids you from distributing at all. It can't - and doesn't - compel third parties like Trolltech to relicense their code.

Re:ORLY?

[_Sprocket_]

Don't be ridiculous. The meaning of words predates software entirely. If you can't accept common language then you aren't qualified to participate in discussion.

I'm not sure you're qualified to participate in discussion if you don't actually DISCUSS. What words are you talking about? Yes - words have meaning. And specific words, like "free", have the exact same meanings that some of those crazy software folks are claiming they do (the problem is that they tend to have multiple meanings).

Now whether the FSF and the GPL does what they claim it does... that's a different point of debate.

Re:ORLY?

[HiThere]

There probably isn't much that can be done. English is, unless you are very careful, ambiguous on this point. And you aren't going to get most people to be very careful.

Some people prefer to speak of Libre Software (Software Libre?), but that never caught on. Others talk of free-beer vs. free-freedom software. (That became a sort of joke with the GPL beer license.) But that's also too clumsy for normal conversation.

So I guess we just live with the confusion, and deal with it as best we can. An when those appear who intentionally conflate the meanings, I guess we'll argue with them for awhile, and then flame them and ignore them as trolls.

The unfortunate truth is that the confusion isn't all deliberate. And there is a real overlap in the meaning. A very large overlap. E.g., "Software is free if it costs less than $0.01/MB to distribute it." True or false? Well, most GPL software costs less than $0.01/MB to distribute, and we say that it's free. We *mean* free as in freedom, but a result is free as in beer. The GPL doesn't forbid charging to distribute the software, but it establishes a floor price of $0.00, because everyone who receives a copy has the right to distribute it for any price they choose, and it's really cheap to distribute software.

So it's not really surprised that many people are honestly confused.

Re:ORLY?

[V!NCENT]

Why business like proprietary it isn't always about making money.

Yeah some businesses could make more money just by opening up, like, for instance, drivers. I know some cases. I just had to add that.

but it gives them freedom that the GPL takes away from them. (the LGPL is better at this) But if you want to incorporate GPL code into you program you are forced to make it GPL.

Dear God, if you are a software company and do not write programs yourself, and instead you take other peoples code, you do not get to be 100% in charge of the copyright? That doesn't make any sence...

Re:ORLY?

[Reservoir Penguin]

This sounds like an old Russian joke. The Jews have sold the Motherland, so where do I get my share?? I contributed to FS projects and according to you it's the Corporate money that keeps FOSS going, so dude, where is my cut??

Re:ORLY?

[jellomizer]

Yeah some businesses could make more money just by opening up, like, for instance, drivers. I know some cases. I just had to add that.
Well it really depends. For Drivers Open Source Drivers will mostly be for Linux. Which has 1% market share.
So Lets assume there are 3 billion computer users that means about 30 Million Linux Users. Now about 1/3 of them will have computer powerful enough for the hardware that will need the driver. So that is 10 million users. Now about 1/5 of them will actually want such a device, so that is 2 million. Now 1/3 of them will buy it if they could. So 666 Thousand. Now about 2/3 of them will still buy the product and use it with windows. Leaving 222 thousand. Now about 2/3 of these people will happily use a closed source driver for Linux. So 74,000 users are left in Lost sales of units.
Now If they did Open Source their drivers there is a chance that some 3rd party company will take the driver and make their hardware work with the same driver. So now you have competing 3rd party product made much cheaper because you as a company paid the for the R&D and they just copied your idea. So From the pool of 3 billion users you may have lost millions of potential sales.

Dear God, if you are a software company and do not write programs yourself, and instead you take other peoples code, you do not get to be 100% in charge of the copyright? That doesn't make any sence...
Seriously if you are a software company and you do everything from scratch then you are not very efficient and you will most likely be replaced by an other company who can get code out faster/cheaper and more stable. Lets use a premade Database Engine vs making one yourself or lets just purchase a pre-made library that handles writing to different file formats. Sure you can make them yourself if you have the time. If you go with GPL code you don't have 100% control of the copyright either. At least if you purchase it you have it on file and they are not normally going to sue a customer for using their code as intended.

Re:ORLY?

[dbIII]

Also, have you actually read the QPL

Which of the dozen or so evolving versions do you mean after the suggested incompatibily came to light? Also note that this doesn't actually have a thing to do with the question above and my reply, you are sidetracking things through details of something where the actual details changed a lot at different time. It became very clear in the discussion over the licence when some parties stated that they refused to even read the compromise amendments that it was an exercise in killing off a rival licence. In the end it was not worth arguing over. I will note that I was just a guy that read the mailing lists and used the software, but the debacle mostly happened where anyone with a web browser could see it.
I use commercial software with far more restrictive licences as do most readers here - think of that before quibbling over items that are in licences that developers choose to use. If it's all your code to start with you get to choose what conditions you distribute it under.

Re:ORLY?

[dbIII]

Cool, but do you remember all the "no I will not read your amended licence" comments of the time by others? That is what I am talking about really. IMHO it showed a not just a lack of respect or trust but a lack of maturity and professionalism. That is why I answered the above question the way I did. Feel free to correct me since you were in the middle of it and not just a slack-jawed observer watching from the sidelines in disbelief in how a simple disagreement between groups with similar goals turned into a debacle that still haunts KDE today.

Re:ORLY?

[dbIII]

Before 2001 obviously.

Re:ORLY?

[fm6]

Gee, I dunno, what did you get? Did you work on the source code as a hobby? Then you got whatever people get for their hobbies (pleasure mostly). But I'm dubious that enough software hobby hours to sustain all the big Open Source projects out there. To get a steady stream of work from people, you usually have to pay them for their time.

I knew a guy who made a hobby of XEmacs. He didn't get paid for his work — until he landed a job with the development tools group at Sun. At the time XEmacs was part of the tools bundle Sun provided, and they paid him a full time salary to work on nothing but XEmacs. Amongst other contributions, he was the Beta Release Manager for XEmacs. (Not for the Sun version, for the whole thing.) As such he had prime responsibility for code integration; he used to complain to me about people who'd save up all their changes and submit them in one big blob, which made integration a lot harder.

Then he got tired of working on nothing but XEmacs and went on to other stuff, but he still uses XEmacs a lot, hacks it a lot, and contributes his work. And he doesn't do it on his own time, so in effect his employer is still subsidizing the XEmacs project.

I suspect that most contributions to OS projects are of that form: people working on them on company time. Possibly some such companies don't realize the extent they're subsidizing OS this way, but many more do know and consider it a necessary expense.

So, you have lots of people getting paid to work on OS code. Maybe not a majority on every project, but in every case I think you'll find that there are crucial roles, such as project management and QA, that are filled by people who are paid to do it. Certainly OS projects that can't find commercial backing seem to wither and die pretty fast.

Lost the point

[MukiMuki]

Keep in mind, the basis behind GPL isn't it just have code that's open, it's to have code that STAYS open.

It's essentially self-perpetuating open source. I don't get all the people who discuss GPL work-arounds. It's really simple. If the GPL isn't for you, look for something with an MIT license, or even something in the public domain, or fucking code your own. The GPL borders on being an ecosystem, and if you wanna plunder it and move on, go somewhere else.

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.

Re:Lost the point

[Timothy Brownawell]

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.

Re:Lost the point

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Lost the point

[greenguy]

I'm not much of a programmer, and I'm even less of a lawyer, but the GPL seems pretty straightforward to me: I get read, write, and execute permissions, and I give others read, write, and execute permissions (on their own copy).

Really... what's so complicated or controversial about that?

Re:Lost the point

[Timothy Brownawell]

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.

Re:Lost the point

[MightyMartian]

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".

Re:Lost the point

[QuantumG]

Some of us find the copyright system offensive.

It's impossible to make a moral argument about which license is more "free". You're both using the copyright system to get what you want.. and in the case of the 3 clause BSD license you're mostly just being vain. How about a dedication to the public domain? It works just fine for Wei Dai, although even he has put together some wacky "compilation copyright" nonsense to cover his ass.. paranoia is contagious it seems.
   

Re:Lost the point

[countach]

They don't claim copyright, the just want something in return. You use my code, I get to use your code. A simple barter system. You don't like the deal, don't use the code.

Re:Lost the point

[Sir_Lewk]

As I understand it, nobody claims that contributing to a GPL project means forfeiting your copyright (now, some projects request that you do so before they accept your patches, a practice which I disagree with but is rather unrelated to licensing I think). In fact, it should be perfectly legitimate to make patches for a GPL project that are licensed entirely differently.e

The issue of licensing comes up when you begin to distribute your code with their code, in which case you need to abide by the distribution license of whatever you're distributing.

Again, correct me if I'm wrong. I personally prefer to usually not really get involved with this crap, much too emotional.

Re:Lost the point

[amicusNYCL]

I'm not much of a programmer, and I'm even less of a lawyer, but the GPL seems pretty straightforward to me: I get read, write, and execute permissions, and I give others read, write, and execute permissions (on their own copy).

Really... what's so complicated or controversial about that?

There's nothing complicated or controversial about that statement. And if that were all the GPL were about, you would only need 119 bytes to store the whole thing uncompressed. But, it turns out that there's actually more to it than read, write, and execute permissions.

Re:Lost the point

[ucblockhead]

This is why a lot of libraries use something else. GPL requires anyone who uses their code to open their own code. BSD style licenses don't. Hence companies that don't want to open their code use libraries using BSD style licenses. Hence projects that use BSD licenses tend to be more popular. (This is also why anyone more concerned with widespread adoption than open source, like a language author or a format proponent, chooses a BSD style license.)

Re:Lost the point

[ClosedSource]

"That is not surprising in the least since the GPL is there for the USER's benefit, NOT the developers or corporations."

So the U-s-e-r-'-s great benefit is the source code they have no chance to do anything with? Why not just pick a few users and offer to add features they might want free of charge?

Re:Lost the point

[Timothy Brownawell]

They don't claim copyright, the just want something in return. You use my code, I get to use your code.

The only way to demand this is to claim that the binary (what you distribute) is a derivative work of whatever (shared) libraries it links to, and that the binary is therefore subject to their copyright.

Re:Lost the point

[RightSaidFred99]

Also, "the employed".

Re:Lost the point

[xigxag]

Nice troll but the GPL doesn't make it harder to write programs. If anything it makes it much easier because you get access to source code that otherwise you'd have no right to.

Re:Lost the point

[Timothy Brownawell]

Claim copyright? What sort of sensationalist dipshit are you? You make RMS look like a mellow, tolerant, effacing individual.

Point out to me, sunshine: Where exactly does the GPL claim copyright over code that wasn't written by the original author? http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt

That would be right here:

If a library is released under the GPL (not the LGPL), does that mean that any program which uses it has to be under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license?

Yes, because the program as it is actually run includes the library.

And from the following question:

A consequence is that if you choose to use GPL'd Perl modules or Java classes in your program, you must release the program in a GPL-compatible way, regardless of the license used in the Perl or Java interpreter that the combined Perl or Java program will run on.

Re:Lost the point

[Timothy Brownawell]

Nice troll but the GPL doesn't make it harder to write programs. If anything it makes it much easier because you get access to source code that otherwise you'd have no right to.

Given that the ancestor post is talking about "GPL is there for the USER's benefit" in the context of "open source license with more generous commercial terms than GPL", the comparison is "GPL vs other open source" rather than "GPL vs proprietary".

And the way I hear things, those other (non-copyleft) licenses are less likely to panic your legal department and don't get rewritten to forbid your business model.

Re:Lost the point

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The strategic question, of course, is whether or not BSD/MIT/Apache licenced projects benefit from their popularity to the same degree that GPL ones do. A user who never releases their changes/bugfixes is not obviously different from a user who never makes any, or even no user at all.

Clearly, at least some BSD/MIT/Apache projects don't have trouble getting enough back but, given the number of times entities using GPL code have to be pressed to live up to their legal obligations, I'd suspect that a lot never makes it back. If the author is ok with that, great. Their code, their choice. However, it isn't clear that all "popularity" is created equal.

Re:Lost the point

[Timothy Brownawell]

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.

Re:Lost the point

[gnupun]

Doesn't LGPL prevent that? Why do we need GPL?

Re:Lost the point

[bonch]

The viral nature of the GPL does make it harder to write programs. If you're going to claim it doesn't, then you're ignoring reality.

Also, LOL at talking about rights being enforced by a copyright license on Slashdot, the most anti-copyright propaganda site on the net.

Re:Lost the point

[Timothy Brownawell]

Yes, but that is a benefit to the users isn't it?

No, because it's so easy to see coming that you skip option 2 entirely (perhaps with "encouragement" from legal or marketing) and if 1 and 3 don't work you go become a florist instead.

Re:Lost the point

[countach]

That's not the only way to demand it, it just happens to be the way it is framed by the GPL.

If you distribute binaries of ANYTHING in ANY WAY, you are subject to the copyrights. If I don't want my code run on any machine that doesn't have every single instruction running on it free and open, I could write that in my license.

If I want to license my code only to people who will run it on PDP-11 and who promise to sing the national anthem and the source code from the top of Mt Fuji, I can do that too.

Re:Lost the point

[ElKry]

You seem to have a serious problem of confusing copyright with licensing.The fact that you link your program with a GPLd library doesn't magically change the copyright on it. Your program would have to be licensed under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license, but it's still YOUR program with YOUR copyright.

Of course, as it has been said countless times, if you don't want to license your program under the GPL, simply don't use GPL code (libraries or otherwise) that would imply you have to do so. I'm sure there will be other libraries with a different license that suits your needs, and if not, you can code an equivalent library yourself instead of complaining that you want to use someone's code but NOT comply with the license they choose for it.

Re:Lost the point

[__aasqbs9791]

And people have the option to not use your code. Why do people not get this?* No one forces anyone to use GPL code. You can always just do the work yourself and then you can license it anyway you want. If people are going to whine about it, they should just rewrite everything that GPL code does and put it under their own license. After all, that's exactly what GNU did. And there are options for non GPL code out there, so there's just no reason for all this GPL hate.

*I know countach gets it, I'm just extending the comment.

Re:Lost the point

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Lost the point

[martin-boundary]

You don't have a clue. The copyright claims in the GPL are only there to cancel out the negative effects of the worldwide copyright system. If there was no concept of copyright in the world, then the GPL would not be needed to cancel this nonexistent concept out.

The GPL ensures that anyone can legally pretend that copyright doesn't exist. This is unlike the public domain, where anyone can impose their own copyright where none is asserted.

Re:Lost the point

[JasterBobaMereel]

If you are the company that wrote a lot of the code, are actively developing it, and therefore are the best people to talk to to implement it, support it, and customise it for the customers needs then surprisingly people will come to your company even though they could just download it....

Re:Lost the point

[chromatic]

GPL requires anyone who uses their code to open their own code.

Untrue. The GPL requires anyone who distributes a derivative work of GPLd code to provide the source code of the derivative work to recipients of the derivative work.

Re:Lost the point

[maxwell demon]

And the way I hear things, those other (non-copyleft) licenses [...] don't get rewritten to forbid your business model.

Nor does the GPL. While there is a new GPL with new restrictions, any software you got under the old GPL you can continue to use under the old GPL. Of course this doesn't protect you from future versions from the same authors to be distributed under another license (and indeed, all software from the GNU project now is GPLv3), but you aren't protected from that with BSD or MIT/X licensed code either. The project owner could at one day decide he wants a completely different license (be it GPL, commercial, or whatever). So if you base your business model on BSD or MIT/X licensed code staying BSD or MIT/X in future versions, you may get surprises later on, too (as Transgaming will surely confirm). Indeed, with GPLed software you are better protected against license changes since for any change not already allowed by the license itself every single copyright holder has to agree to the licensing change. With a BSD license, the project maintainer can e.g. one day go proprietary without asking anyone, because he has the license to do so from any contributor. With the GPL, he cannot. Indeed, unless the licensing explicitly included the "or later" pass (the Linux kernel for example doesn't), he cannot even switch from GPLv2 to GPLv3 without every contributor agreeing (the FSF is a special case because people have to assign copyrights to get their code into GNU projects, so the FSF has greater freedom in licensing; however, the copyright transfer is coupled with a contract to keep the code free, so even the FSF couldn't make that code proprietary without all contributors explicitly agreeing, not even by writing a future "proprietary GPL").

Re:Lost the point

[maxwell demon]

The viral nature of the GPL does make it harder to write programs. If you're going to claim it doesn't, then you're ignoring reality.

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.

Re:Lost the point

[smash]

.. and some people want to actively encourage this to promote the spread of good standard libraries, etc.

How do you think things would have worked out of TCP/IP was GPLed? I'll tell you how - we would not have the inter-operability between many different pieces of network hardware that we have today...

Re:Lost the point

[slaingod]

This is the crux of the issue for me at least: I shouldn't need to become a topic expert to incorporate functionality into my code. Code is like a mash-up or whatever term you want to use for a lot of people, where you take libraries and functionality and string them together quickly and easily to create something new and possibly interesting.

I just want to make something fun and share it, not write my own regular expression parser or RTF2HTML converter.

I had a particular instance last year, where I was working on an Ebook reader application in C# for a WinMo phone. One of the things I wanted to do was have the app be able to open and read MS Reader format files (ones created without DRM), because there are a lot out there and it would be handy to have. ConvertLit is the only pratical solution for doing this currently. It is GPL. I was able to get it to work on WinMo, but I had to keep it as a separate EXE on the device and explode the LIT file to a temp folder, rather than do it in memory.

I absolutely plan on having my source be open. However, some other libraries I might want to use like an RTF2HTML conversion library in C# might be proprietary or not be compatible and there aren't really any other options in C# other than to go take some C rtf2html code and spend way more time and effort than I want to making that work just so I can be compatible with the GPL.

GPL does ensure that your code is free, but it may prevent a lot of source that would otherwise have been created and free from being released as well, because of its strictness. And yet, in the GPL ConvertLIT at least it uses Public Domain code for some CAB file manipulation.

Re:Lost the point

[smash]

There's still an incentive to contribute to BSD licensed code.

What's that you ask? Its the ability to keep updated when the originator of the code updates his source. If you get your changes integrated into the main tree, you don't have to keep re-porting your additions to it, and dealing with the associated debugging, etc.

Re:Lost the point

[MukiMuki]

I do admit that the strictness of the GPL does make the driver situation on Linux difficult, and I can clearly see where both sides have a good point. Some manufacturers don't legally have the right to open their driver (Ati is in that situation with FGLRX, actually), but the community doesn't want any situation where a manufacturer stops caring, drops support, and boom, everyone on the binary driver is now screwed (look up Intel's GMA 500 for an example, tho there's talk of that driver getting open-sourced, which is crazily unexpected). Not to mention drivers that arbitrarily divide market segments for devices. Nobody wants to release enough information to create an open-source driver if that runs them the risk of people buying their $50 devices and getting them to do the work they'd otherwise need the $300 device to do. It's a sad, perpetual, tug of war there.

As an aside, a video card driver is by no means an arbitrary undertaking, especially more recent cards. Mind you, work is being done by developers on Ati hardware, partially because of all the NDA-free documentation that's been released (check out the guy doing Radeon-Rewrite, for example, on pre-R400 hardware). Hopefully we'll eventually see someone join Ati's (Novell's?) team on the open source R500-700 drivers.

Re:Lost the point

[gnud]

Bollocks. It's not like that. Saying that the recipies goes toghether without copying the recipies down is clearly not infringing on copyright. But publishing your own cookbook where you compile the two into one recipie for ribs and beans, clearly is.

If you base you work on another, copyrighted work, you need permission for the original work. And the owners offers it to you, provided you fullfill the details laid out in the license. If you don't want to, then try to get another deal (e.g. pay the authors). If you don't think your work should be considered derivative, then go ahead and publish it without the license. But be prepared for bad karma and legal problems if you're wrong.

Re:Lost the point

[LS]

So is there an analogous situation with web links? I understand that linking binary components is not the same technically as a link from one website to another, but ontologically they are the same, especially when you consider SOS apps built off of several public websites. Can you legally force anyone who links to your site to adopt your license? How is this different from binary linking?

LS

Re:Lost the point

[Pinky's Brain]

That ATI's choice of going open source hasn't pay'd off yet is unfortunate ... but what does it have to do with Linux hardware support? NVIDIA has a closed source Linux driver (with a GPL shim) ya know and it's not like hardware support on the BSD side is better.

Re:Lost the point

[Draek]

Yes, because the users get so much benefit from it being easier for developers and corporations to lock them down into their products.

Re:Lost the point

[Draek]

No, "the employed" would be the 95% of developers writing the 99% of code that never gets used outside of the entity that holds its copyright (ie, the company that hired them).

If you're part of the remaining 5%, well, sucks to be you.

Re:Lost the point

[Draek]

Translating english into lawyerese often increases storage requirements by a couple orders of magnitude. Just look at the BSD license and how many words it takes to essentially say "do whatever you want with this, just don't bother me about it".

Re:Lost the point

[Timothy Brownawell]

The fact that you link your program with a GPLd library doesn't magically change the copyright on it. Your program would have to be licensed under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license, but it's still YOUR program with YOUR copyright.

But since the library authors can't claim any sort of copyright on it, what gives them the ability to demand that it be licensed in a certain way?

Re:Lost the point

[Bluesman]

RMS goes further than even that. Not only do they consider a program designed to link against a library that doesn't use the GPL infringing, they consider a program that links against a GPL library in addition to other, compatible libraries an infingement.

Which means that if your program CAN work with a GPL library, the FSF considers it it's property, even if another compatible library exists. This is tantamount to copyrighting ideas, which is what I thought we were trying to prevent in the first place.

I don't understand how this makes FSF software more "free" than Microsoft's code, other than that the FSF doesn't charge you a fee. The essential message for both is "you may only use our software only if you agree with our EULA."

Similar to Microsoft, the FSF goal is to create a base of software so large and pervasive that you can't help but accept the GPL or have your project be marginalized. This is ostensibly done so that software is "free."

And that's fine for them, but what is this really going to accomplish? If the FSF were to succeed, any company that wanted to write proprietary software would not be able to do so and charge for it (reasonably, forking would be rampant) on open-source systems. There are substantial realms of software that will only ever exist with this incentive to produce it, because writing it and then supporting it is hard, unenjoyable work. So the only platform that these packages will exist on is a closed source one like Windows.

What the FSF is doing, in effect, is ensuring there will always be two software stacks that are wholly incompatible: a proprietary one where you have no ability to change anything but is the only one that runs that one proprietary application that you absolutely need; and an open source one where everything's great until you need that one application that nobody wants to write.

This ensures that free software will always be marginalized because keeping Windows around is the only way to ensure that those proprietary software companies continue to write the software nobody else wants to without a financial incentive.

It's almost as if the FSF is acting contrary to their stated goals by not thinking beyond the immediate effects of their actions, or at least ignoring the reality that there is software that people want but that nobody wants to write for no profit.

Anyway, I guess I believe more in karma, and that changing a culture through legal means like RMS is trying to do is much more difficult than changing it through example.

Re:Lost the point

[Timothy Brownawell]

Saying that the recipies goes toghether without copying the recipies down is clearly not infringing on copyright.

Exactly, just like with code that says "call the function named 'readline' from that shared library".

Re:Lost the point

[Timothy Brownawell]

RMS goes further than even that. Not only do they consider a program designed to link against a library that doesn't use the GPL infringing, they consider a program that links against a GPL library in addition to other, compatible libraries an infingement.

Interesting link, thanks.

Re:Lost the point

[gbarules2999]

And ATI's driver still sucks. Funny that.

Re:Lost the point

[fiontan]

The GPL doesn't actually do this, though. Instead, I use your GPL code, all of my customers get (access to) both. You get nothing, unless you're a customer, and I don't believe I'm under obligation to sell to you.

I agree, it's kind of against the spirit of the thing, and could be considered morally offensive. But personally, I find it morally offensive that you think you have a right to restrict my choice of licensing for my own labour. I will never willingly make such restriction on you, and when I give my code out I'll freely do so, to try to make the world a better place. So you use the GPL, which will make me sad, but I'll move on.

Re:Lost the point

[dfghjk]

Code that is released open stays open. The GPL is about forcing future code to released open.

Re:Lost the point

[fiontan]

That's actually the point. In the context of an application linking libraries (pointing to the function without copying the function), you're pretty much doing the same thing as the GP's recipe example. But under the GPS, merely linking to a library causes the entire work to be considered derivative of that library.

Note that I'm not debating the validity of the GPL. I'm not going to go violating the GPL because I disagree with it, I'm just saying that you need to call it how it is, and don't try to pretend that the license is more reasonable than reality. And for that matter, you're welcome to find the license perfectly reasonable. I personally think it is the least free license available to a developer.

Re:Lost the point

[fiontan]

It makes it much easier for an amateur community to write programs, based on source code available in the communal pool. Some of that software is actually quite outstanding, sometimes to the point of being best in class.

More often, that software is obviously written by amateurs and is inferior to commercial alternatives. If the few good ideas in the software were available for reuse by the commercial alternative... and all competitors, for that matter... then the quality of every alternative goes up. Users win. If the amateur software is GPL, then users have a choice between a poor piece of software with a few good features, or a more polished alternative which is missing those features. Users lose.

Sure, it's pretty arrogant for the commercial entity to lift the features directly out of the community software. But isn't it also pretty arrogant for the developers of the community software to say you can only have those features if you accept our inferior product? Remember that we're currently talking in the context of "for the benefit of users".

Re:Lost the point

[fiontan]

Well, indirectly it makes it easier to write programs, by allowing you to learn from the program's source code.

You're treading a very dangerous line there. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design, you may be infringing on the original copyright if you write a comparable system after having inspected the original source.

Re:Lost the point

[jedidiah]

Yet Nvidia has very satisfying drivers.

So clearly the "open source bogyeman" is not necessarily to blame.

Does that "extensive open documentation" include all of the necessary
details in order to enable something in the open drivers comparable to
the VDPAU support in nvidia's drivers?

Re:Lost the point

[jedidiah]

No it doesn't. Once again you people are willfully ignoring the LGPL. This
form of the GPL doesn't hinder the creation of new programs any more than
any other license. This is why there are applications for Linux that will
cost you upwards of $60K per CPU on the relevant server.

The GPL is only ever a problem if you want to take some bit of code and
pretend you were the guy that wrote it.

The last notable library to be licenced with the GPL as opossed to the LGPL was QT.

THAT was a proprietary product.

Re:Lost the point

[foniksonik]

Regarding Public Domain

Ah but the whole point of GPL is to keep it and any derivatives free and public domain does not do that... it only makes the original free with no consideration for derivatives, so when someone improves upon the public domain version - to the point that their version becomes the defacto standard, the public domain version may as well not exist.

Public domain works well for many things - art, photography, music, novels, poetry, algorithms - ie: anything that is a final work of expression. It does not work for software which is never a final work of expression, which is intended to be modified and improved upon via derivative forks or simply new versions.

Copyright is not a good protection scheme for software as it is too restrictive and public domain is no good as it is too permissive, which is why the elaborate licensing contracts have come about, GPL being one of them.

Re:Lost the point

[Nevyn]

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.

Ahh, yes, the magic BSD world view where it's "good" if someone takes something you've created doing whatever they want with it and giving you nothing in return (possibly including the original work). But it's "bad" if someone dares to share with you, only stipulating that you not screw them over in return.

Re:Lost the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Then again, some folks want to use a tiny bit of code for processing XML files or handling a networking connection in a way that will work on all of their target platforms within an enormous body of code they've had to write by hand which does far more than just send generic packets or read a single data format.

Some folks would be OK with sharing the modifications to that code that were required to make it work with their program, and even the interface used to make it work within their code including the memory structures and processing functions.

However, they don't want to give their entire product away for free because they used a library which used to be delivered under those terms, was switched to GPL, then security vulnerabilities were found which will never be patched within the LGPL versions which make it unethical to use the original code without fixing the vulnerability in the internals. Then those folk are righteously fucked, as any bug fixes will essentially require use of code that is now licensed under a different license which will now infect the rest of their product.

Too bad for them? That seems to be the general idea. But not everybody has the luxury of being able to give away their code for free to the entire world (and, in fact, it may be illegal for them to do so).

Re:Lost the point

[PitaBred]

Man, and all the hoops car manufacturers have to jump through so users can be safe in their cars, too. I mean, it'd be easier to make cars without airbags or seatbelts or bumpers, right? Why do people keep insisting on this manufacturer-unfriendly viewpoint?

Hell, let's bring it back to software... how much benefit do the users get from Wal-Mart turning off their DRM servers? Microsoft locking people into their word processing formats? Internet fucking Explorer? GPL is all about giving power to the users. That is often very much opposed to companies controlling things, but guess what? The individual should NEVER be less important than a fucking corporation.

Re:Lost the point

[Bluesman]

It is a magic world, let me tell you. In my fantasy, I don't deem to tell people what they can or can't do with a gift I give them, because I believe that is rude and an imposition.

It's the difference between treating people by default like criminals who will stab you in the back at the first opportunity, and treating them with respect and decency.

I'm happy to treat others with the respect I'd like them to afford me. I think there was some philosopher who made a magic rule about this, but I forget what it's called.

Beyond that, I believe that people will want to use the superior product regardless of how it was produced, and I want to see what those products are. I'd rather compete on the merits of my work than by coercion.

Re:Lost the point

[ElKry]

Their license does. Again, if you don't agree with the terms of a license you have no right use the licensed works.

If your problem is that you don't like license terms that restrict your usage of the licensed work, then I'm really sorry for you, because that is pretty much what licenses are for.

I think you're seeing this from the wrong perspective: The license is not telling you what to do with your code, is telling you what THEIR code can be used with, in this case GPL-(compatible-)licensed applications. If I decide to license my work saying that it can't be used with commercial applications, for example, then you can't use it with commercial applications, period. If I license it saying you must wear a blue cowboy hat while using it, then that's my terms, and you can't pick and choose what to apply from the license.

Honestly, it seems to me that you advocate being a leech and using people's code disregarding their licensing terms.

P.S. Incidentally, I just realized that I've seen you before elsewhere. Funny little world, the internets.

Re:Lost the point

[init100]

The fact that you link your program with a GPLd library doesn't magically change the copyright on it. Your program would have to be licensed under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license, but it's still YOUR program with YOUR copyright.

Exactly. And I also find this similar to the anti-tivoization clauses in the GPLv3. Detractors claim that those clauses try to extend the copyright of a program to the hardware it runs on. By an analogous argument to yours, this can be shown to be completely off base.

Re:Lost the point

[init100]

Only if you're in the business of selling copies of said program.

Re:Lost the point

[init100]

Remember that licenses must be written in Legalese. Legalese is a very verbose language. What the GP wrote will be much larger when translated to Legalese.

Re:Lost the point

[init100]

Libraries shouldn't use the normal GPL.

Libraries that clone existing non-GPL libraries should use the LGPL instead of the GPL, since there is no point in using the GPL, as users will only use the other alternatives.

Libraries that provide some unique functionality on the other hand, could very well be licensed under the GPL, to encourage wider use of the GPL by possible clients of the library.

Re:Lost the point

[Timothy Brownawell]

Their license does. Again, if you don't agree with the terms of a license you have no right use the licensed works.

That is incorrect.

If I don't accept the license, then I can only do what plain copyright law says I can do (or rather, doesn't say I can't do). The only things it says I can't do are make or distribute copies or derivative works. So unless the copyright holders of the library can claim that my program is a derivative work of the library, giving them a copyright claim over it, they have no say in what I do with it.

The license is not telling you what to do with your code, is telling you what THEIR code can be used with, in this case GPL-(compatible-)licensed applications.

This is incorrect: "You may make, run and propagate covered works that you do not convey, without conditions so long as your license otherwise remains in force.". I can do whatever the hell I want with it, if I keep it to myself.

Honestly, it seems to me that you advocate being a leech and using people's code disregarding their licensing terms.

No, I advocate against claiming control over other people's work.

Re:Lost the point

[amicusNYCL]

There's nothing that says that licenses must be written in legalese, and anyone telling you otherwise is probably a lawyer and has something to gain from it.

If the concept of the GPL was simple enough to fit in 120 characters, then the GPL would be 120 characters. The reason the GPL is longer than 120 characters is not because someone decided it needed to be really wordy because of some arbitrary reason, it's because it's not simple enough to fit into 120 characters.

Re:Lost the point

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

But since the library authors can't claim any sort of copyright on it, ...

"Have you stopped beating your spouse yet?"

As far as I understand it, derived works start out having several copyright holders: The creator of the derivative itself, and the creators of the works that were derived from. Distributing the derivative without a license from *all* these copyright holders can lead to successful claims of copyright infringement.

i.e., if you make a derived or collective work, you need everyone's permission to distribute it.

... what gives them the ability to demand that it be licensed in a certain way?

Copyright law. See above.

Re:Lost the point

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Never mind. I think we might be agreeing with each other.

I hate it when people who talk about copyright licenses as if they have inherent authority, rather than being permissions (conditionally) granted to do things that would otherwise be proscribed by law. It muddies up the discussion.

Bah, I should just stop posting to Slashdot...

Re:Lost the point

[Reservoir Penguin]

Sure as a user I prefer begging on support forums for patches and God forbid software is a few years old, then you better forget about support, go buy the new shiny version instead which mayve fixes more bugs than it introduces. Long live proprietory development! (Currently begging Bohemia Interactive to fix bugs in Arma 2. I understand they are a small outfit and don't have many resources and I bought the game knowing it would be buggy just because I support their team dedicated to milsims, but why on Earth they wouldn't let me and MANY other developers playing their games HELP them is beyond me)

Re:Lost the point

[Reservoir Penguin]

This is how CENTOS killed Redhat business... oh wait???

Re:Lost the point

[True Grit]

is a derivative work of whatever (shared) libraries it links to, and that the binary is therefore subject to their copyright.

No, only the part of the binary that is *their* code, not your code. Your code is always yours.

Re:Lost the point

[gnud]

But under the GPS, merely linking to a library causes the entire work to be considered derivative of that library.

I guess you mean GPL, not GPS, but the point is that linking is considered a derivative by the FSF - not by a court of law. What I tried getting across in my last paragraph was that if you disagree, then you are free to publish your work anyway. The FSF would probably say you were breaking the GPL, though.

But say you use a GNU-specific extension to some Unix library - that would count as a derivative work, wouldn't it?

misleading

[wizardforce]

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.

Re:misleading

[Brent Taylor]

Until we see alternative OSes based on alternative licenses take a bigger spot than LInux, the GPL is in no danger.

It's always annoyed me when people have spoken about the GPL as if it's a living, breathing, entity. It is a license and nothing more, not a culture, nor a way of life.

Unless the GPL is found to not be legally binding, the GPL as a license will never be in danger of anything.

NOTE: Please don't take this as a personal attack. Had I mod points I'd mod you insightful for everything else you had to say.

Re:misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Until we see alternative OSes based on alternative licenses take a bigger spot than LInux, the GPL is in no danger.

So, ignoring Windows and Mac, right? Both are bigger and have alternate licenses.

Maybe this freudian slip actually shows the issues with GPL. Although atomically the GPL is clear by itself, using the GPL with other licenses basically forces the whole project to be GPL.

Then again, at the end of the day, users don't give a damn.

Re:misleading

[amicusNYCL]

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

A business' motivation is not about restricting the user's freedom, it's about making sure that they get paid for the work they do. That's the difference between a business and a volunteer agency, and that's the reason most businesses don't see a good use for putting their work under the GPL. If you want to see the need to turn a profit and keep the business open as the desire to control the customer, that's your thing. If you have a better way to make money using the GPL, go ahead and start your own business and prove it.

Re:misleading

[wizardforce]

you make an interesting point. My intention was not to sound like I thought the GPL would be legally dead, but more like BSD was in the early days.

cheers

Re:misleading

[wizardforce]

self interest governs the behavior of business. So even though restricting what can be done with software in of its self is not the goal of business, if by self-interest the business can make more by doing so it will. In the case of the GPL, it makes sense for a buisiness to cannibalize code already under the GPL if doing so saves on software development from scratch [red hat, novell, canonical etc.] or taking a piece of code that is troublesome to maintain but useful to the company and GPLing it to reap the benefits of collaborative work while reducing costs. It doesn't make sense to GPL code that is cheap to maintain and is also critical to business as is.

Re:misleading

[transiit]

Redhat seems to do a pretty steady business with a lot of GPL'd code, and while I don't care for their main product lines, you'd think them being listed on the S&P 500 suggest that they're at least doing something right business-wise.

Just because the standard "let's hide the secret sauce" model doesn't work well in the context of using GPL'd code, doesn't mean that a business can't adapt to it.

Re:misleading

[wizardforce]

Good point. I did not think of it that way. Although technically all three groups fulfill differing niches that overlap to a varying extent. Windows by default, Mac for high-end and Linux/FOSS for freedom. As long as several entities don't compete explicitly with each other in the same niche the system will likely be stable.

Re:misleading

[maxwell demon]

A business' motivation is not about restricting the user's freedom, it's about making sure that they get paid

Stop here. A business wants to be paid, period. If it needs to do work to get paid, it will do that work. But it will do that work in order to get money, not want the money because of the work. If they can get the money without the work, they will prefer that way (because work costs money). Releasing software under the GPL ensures they have to keep working in order to make money. Releasing under proprietary license means they can rest on the previous work (at least until someone else duplicated that amount of work, which, of course, means those others cannot put that work into innovation).

Re:misleading

[zotz]

"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"

Right, instead, you will choose the MIT/Apache/BSD license for your code as the summary indicates. ???

all the best,

drew

Re:misleading

[dfghjk]

"...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."

More nonsense. The difference between GPL and BSD is what restrictions are placed on developers who make new works based on existing software. A BSD license cannot enable any ability to conceal source that is already revealed.

Re:misleading

[jedidiah]

WinDOS and Mac both predate desktop Linux by about 10 years.

MS-DOS is the direct predecssor of Windows. Both have been dominating
micro-computing since the mid 80s

MacOS was released into the world fully formed 25 years ago.

Linux was first a public development project just to get a booting system.
Jettisoning CDE and building something to replace it took even more time.

Given the age of Linux, the entrenchment of WinDOS and the age and maturity
of MacOS, Linux really isn't doing too badly so far. The fact that it became
something from nothing (even if that something is somewhat meagre) puts it
ahead of MacOS that had plenty of time to make something of itself.

Re:misleading

[amicusNYCL]

It never makes sense for a business to use GPL code if doing so requires the business to release all of their code also, where they wouldn't have had to do that if they did not use GPL code. It makes more sense to write your own version, which is what a lot of companies end up doing if they can't find something with a license that is compatible with their needs.

Re:misleading

[amicusNYCL]

Right, I agree with all of that, which is why it still doesn't make sense for a business to use the GPL.

Re:misleading

[init100]

Maybe this freudian slip actually shows the issues with GPL. Although atomically the GPL is clear by itself, using the GPL with other licenses basically forces the whole project to be GPL.

But how is this relevant to the discussion at hand? Microsoft doesn't seem to be contributing a lot to BSD projects nor GPL projects alike. So using this example to point out so-called "issues" in the GPL gives the logical conclusion that those same "issues" plague the BSD license too.

Control freak

[synthespian]

Editor's note: InfoWorld tried to interview Richard Stallman, who runs the Free Software Foundation that created and manages the GPL, on this issue, but he demanded control of what we published, so we declined.

I LOLed.

Re:Control freak

[MukiMuki]

It's funny, 'cause I think the basis of that was probably, "I don't want to be quote-mined", which ended up happening anyway.

Re:Control freak

[The Bungi]

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.

Re:Control freak

[Squiggle]

RMS actually makes a distinction between different types of information and how free it needs to be. At one of his talks he discussed 3 categories:

1) works of practical use (educational materials, software tools, etc):
        - should be free (GPL)

2) works of testimony (what people experienced or believe):
        - republishing with modification is misrepresentation,
        - commercial use covered by existing copyright

3) works of art and entertainment:
        - commercial use requires permission, personal use is fine

His position is nuanced, not stupid. I actually think the distinction is too difficult to make and it is best to error on the side of freedom, but there are certainly some tricky "moral rights" or artistic integrity issues for categories 2 and 3 with GPL-style freedom.

Re:Control freak

[Timothy Brownawell]

It's funny, 'cause I think the basis of that was probably, "I don't want to be quote-mined", which ended up happening anyway.

It's generally things like "Open Source" vs "Free Software" and "Linux" vs "GNU/Linux" (or even "GNU (plus Linux)" as he presented it in an audio interview I happened to hear, as if the GNU part is all that matters). For audio/video interviews, I think I also remember hearing a requirement about (only?) posting them in ogg (vorbis/theora) or other non-patented formats.

Re:Control freak

[Squiggle]

Hmm, I suppose according to RMS the parent post is messing with his work of testimony. I'm gunna claim fair use while I still have some rights left. :)

Re:Control freak

[ClosedSource]

He was doing it for the users ... and the children.

Re:Control freak

[FishWithAHammer]

The problem with his worldview is that it ignores one very important thing: artists have to eat, too. Take computer games, for example (and as a game developer who wants to bring more than bland oatmeal to the table, I very much do consider it art, but if you don't, entertainment works too). The GPL causes a cost-zero situation because anyone can, and if your product is good enough will, undercut anything you can do to generate revenue.

Sell copies of the game? Well, "personal use" includes giving copies away to everyone, so unless you're selling that first copy for a million bucks, you're going to lose your shirt. (Please don't give me that tired fucking bullshit about "well don't release it until people donate the amount you want," it sounds great if you discount that nobody will actually donate in significant numbers.)

Advertisements in the game to recoup your investment? Well, they have the code, so bye-bye ads and bye-bye revenue.

MMO? All your code's out there, enjoy those free-to-play ad-free private servers killing what little market share you can scrape up.

I can buy the argument, though I disagree heartily with it, that the GPL is useful for low-level tools--operating systems, userlands, etcetera. "Information freedom" is the fastest way to killing the software industries that many people derive a lot of enjoyment from, though, and it's not like you'll be getting Half-Life 2 out of an open source project any time soon.

Re:Control freak

[Timothy Brownawell]

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.

Re:Control freak

[PCM2]

I am curious as to where this is coming from. I've interviewed Richard Stallman for interviews before, and while he set me straight on "open source vs. Free Software" terminology issues, he never expressed displeasure with the result. It wouldn't surprise me if he's been burned by interviewers many, many times in the past ... but refusing to answer any questions seems counterproductive. Then again, the assertion that he "demanded control of what we published" could just be B.S. and a misinterpretation of what he actually asked for; I'd like to find out the truth.

Re:Control freak

[Anonymous Coward]

> artists have to eat, too

So private uncommercial sharing has to stay criminalized just _in order_ artists can earn money from their art? Why do they _have_ to live from their art? Just because someone says so? Cant they just do something else not based on enforcement of a artificial scarcity (copyright) and do their art as a hobby in their free time, like they did for thousands and thousands of years before copyright?

Do we as a society at large really want to support criminalizing our fellow filesharers just in order to enable a certain activity (art) to be performed at a professional, for-profit level? I know the industry wants that, but do _we_, the democratic majority, really want this?

Re:Control freak

[quadrox]

Most people will happily pay for something good, even if it is open source. If your product doesn't earn you enough money, it just wasn't good enough. I know some people like to whine about pirates and stuff, but that is just not the real problem.

If pirates really were that big of a problem, the entertainment industry would long have gone bankrupt because everyone would have refused to pay for anything. Seeing that the entertainment industry is doing quite well on the whole, you're just spreading bullshit.

Re:Control freak

[CarpetShark]

You've been hoodwinked. The article says he "demanded control". Actually, based on his demands for similar publications, he would have simply said that if he contributed information to an article, that information must be available to all under an open license. The real demand is that the publishers don't keep control. The publishers have therefore refused to share useful information openly. In essence, they are a publishing organisation which cannot get their heads around the concept of publishing fairly to all humanity. THEY are the control freaks, not Stallman.

Re:Control freak

[FishWithAHammer]

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.

Re:Control freak

[FishWithAHammer]

I don't agree with your assertion at all, and I will accuse you of spreading self-righteous bullshit designed to minimize your own actions within your own head. But in any case, I wasn't talking about piracy to begin with. I was talking about the non-suitably to RMS's sick little pretend-free software to certain industries, such as video games. I dislike piracy, but I don't think it's an industry-killer unless, as your sibling poster rambled on about, it is taken to the extreme where they kill the goose laying the golden eggs. I think it's distasteful, wrong, and more than a little socially irresponsible, but I don't think it'll kill PC gaming. But, no, most people will not "happily" pay for something good. They begrudgingly pay, when they pay at all. Why else would piracy exist if not to avoid paying for that from which you derive benefit? Some people have an evolved moral conscience to consider it to be a like-trade-for-like, money for the utility (enjoyment) derived from the product. Those people I applaud. But do you know how I know it's utter horseshit? Because the overwhelming majority of open-source projects, even very good ones like Warsow, don't net donations enough to buy a steak dinner.

.

And on your little pro-piracy bit: I dislike piracy from a moral reason far more than a financial one. It is wrong to wrong me by not compensating me for the utility you receive from my work. The money isn't as important as the moral wrong being committed.

You can choose not to like copyright all you want. But it'll be here after we're both dead. The difference is that copyright affords me the chance to profit off my own creative ability and, in doing so, perhaps create something that will outlast me. Could I do so if it wasn't a method of making money? Sure. But the economic incentive encourages specialization of labor: if I can make money off creative work, I can specialize in it and get better at it, rather than splitting my work effort between survival work and creative work. Copyright turns both into the same thing. It improves society's creative arts, and piracy is a negative force on this.

Re:Control freak

[xtracto]

> artists have to eat, too

So private uncommercial sharing has to stay criminalized just _in order_ artists can earn money from their art? Why do they _have_ to live from their art? Just because someone says so? Cant they just do something else not based on enforcement of a artificial scarcity (copyright) and do their art as a hobby in their free time, like they did for thousands and thousands of years before copyright?

Do we as a society at large really want to support criminalizing our fellow filesharers just in order to enable a certain activity (art) to be performed at a professional, for-profit level? I know the industry wants that, but do _we_, the democratic majority, really want this?

You raise some interesting points. I thing what *we* want is a compromise. Everybody wants to get something from their work, whatever that work is. It may be art, science, technology, etc.

The case of "art" is a complex one. Take as an example a Painting. An original painting, say by Octavio Ocampo may sell around 2,000 US dollars. However, the "digital" representation of such work should be free.

In a similar way, in theatre, when someone participates in a play, they should be payed, however, the *digital* version of such play should be free. The first one requires an effort while the last one (digital distribution) is free.

Finally, going into musical art. The live performances should be charged while the recording should be free. The problem here comes with the fact that the authors must make an effort to create the digital version (like studio time and cost). The question is how do we pay that?

The problem is

Re:Control freak

[howlingmadhowie]

If you don't have reproduction rights over digital media, how do you sell performances of photography?

stupid question. but if your question is how do you make money being a photographer: you go to whoever may want to buy the photograph with a copy (or you send them a low quality copy) and ask them if they want to buy it.

Re:Control freak

[spongman]

quality, on-demand art before modern distribution (read: printing press, phonogram, vhs) was extremely expensive and only accessible to the wealthy.

what you're advocating is the eradication of the democratic majority's access to art.

Re:Control freak

[quadrox]

We're both spreading bullshit then.

Anyway, I'm aware that you did not mention piracy, but were talking mostly about OSS. The reason I mention piracy is because it is very similar to not not paying for an OSS product - because you can just get the source. Legally there is a difference of course, but morally I think they are sort of similar issues.

Also, I understand that many people don't want to pay for stuff. Perhaps you are even correct in assuming that this applies to most people. I can't say for sure - but neither can you. But the fact remains, that there seem to be "enough" people who are willing t pay, because in general people DO make money from selling stuff. As I said, look at the entertainment industry and how much money is made from a blockbuster movie.

Yes there are stinker movies that suck and that are no big financial hits. But do you honestly want to blame the pirates there? The same thing applies to the OSS world. If people can't be arsed to pay, then the product probably just doesn't matter to people.

I understand that you may have a personal stake in a project (either as a fan or developer), but you can't force everybody else to feel the same and cough up for it. It's not gonna happen, and neither should it.

I'm not pro piracy as such, I pay for (most of the) stuff I like, but sometimes piracy is convenient to get something quickly and hassle free. I even donate to OSS projects I like.

Well, enough about that.

Re:Control freak

[chromatic]

Why is your probably-not-all-that-useful sort-of-contribution to society rewarded while theirs should not be?

That's easy; someone's willing to pay for my work. Filesharing demonstrate that many people are not willing to pay for the work of others.

Re:Control freak

[shutdown -p now]

That's easy; someone's willing to pay for my work.

And someone is willing to steal it and not pay you anything; quite a few people, perhaps.

Filesharing demonstrate that many people are not willing to pay for the work of others.

Filesharing demonstrates that many people are willing to get stuff for free even if they know it really isn't that, and it's illegal, so long as they know they will most likely not get caught.

The fact that filesharers still bother downloading and sharing those files reflects that there is actual demand for that content (yes, including all the crap modern pop culture produces - just look at top 10 downloads any popular tracker). So the contribution to society is clearly not without value, if so many people desire it.

On the other hand, many people are willing to, and do pay, for the same stuff that goes around on TPB for free illegally.

So... your point was?

Re:Control freak

[orzetto]

Editor's note: InfoWorld tried to interview Richard Stallman, who runs the Free Software Foundation that created and manages the GPL, on this issue, but he demanded control of what we published, so we declined.

Translation for you:

We wanted to ask Stallman some trick question, put a spin on it and make him look stupid. However he figured us out and asked to see the final article before approving it. So we are inserting this smudgy remark that makes him look like a control freak.

Misrepresenting other people's view is not part of your freedoms.

Re:Control freak

[johncandale]

That's pretty much the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time.

Where to start. The only reason old artists were able to do that was because they were part of the repressive noble class i.e. inherited money. Having people specialize into a trade makes them better at it, and gives the world better art.

Why do they _have_ to live from their art? Just because someone says so? Cant they just do something else not based on enforcement of a artificial scarcity (copyright) and do their art as a hobby in their free time

So all actors, directors, writers etc should film the TV shows and movies in their spare time and work a 'real' job for money, because charging for their work is creating a artificial scarcity? I sure hope you get your entertainment from playing Bridge all day.

Re:Control freak

[chrb]

Editor's note: InfoWorld tried to get Richard Stallman to write some content on this issue for free for us, but we demanded copyright and complete control over his content, which he didn't like, so he demanded control over his content, which we didn't like.

Another way of saying the same thing.

Re:Control freak

[brit74]

Why do they _have_ to live from their art? Just because someone says so?

Why do filesharers have to screw over our "common culture" just so that they can get all their entertainment for free?

"Do we as a society at large really want to support criminalizing our fellow filesharers just in order to enable a certain activity (art) to be performed at a professional, for-profit level?"

If you ever want the Godfather, Apocalypse Now, or Star Wars, then YES! If you want to spend the rest of your life getting your entertainment from amateur YouTube clips, then fine - I guess you've got a point.

I know the industry wants that, but do _we_, the democratic majority, really want this?

Yes, it is. I even know filesharers who are aghast at the idea of eliminating copyright. Why? Because the elimination of copyright means that they'll have nothing but amateur junk to pirate.

Re:Control freak

[James Youngman]

RMS holds fast to a number of principles, about software freedom and nomenclature. He is not frequently known to compromise a whole lot (actually it does happen, but most often in pursuit of a more important goal). These aspects of RMS's personality - and the fact that he is apparently not motivated by many of the things other people are motivated by - for example, money - make other people uncomfortable. They don't know how to deal with him, and they don't know what tools to use when negotiating with him (if you want to negotiate, you have to control something the other party wants).

The point many people often miss is that if RMS was easily given to compromise, or if he were not so very determined, then he would have given up long ago. Don't forget that the GNU manifesto was published in 1985. RMS for a long time was a voice crying in the wilderness. Most people would not give up a paying job to work on the "software freedom" thing when nobody else has even heard the phrase. To keep on doing that when everybody else thinks this free software thing is nuts takes a special kind of single-mindedness and determination.

Why anybody thinks RMS would stop being single-minded now is beyond me.

Re:Control freak

[Draek]

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?

We don't. The free market will determine whether our skills are valuable or not, and if they aren't we either adapt or die. No need to bring state-granted monopolies into the equation.

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"?

So? There's plenty of forms of both art and practical works that are simply too expensive to be done in a copyrighted world as well, but you don't seem to care about that. No decision is without consequences, and few have no downsides.

Besides, I don't see what's so special about Half-Life 2 that we need to ensure its existence even at the cost of our freedoms.

Re:Control freak

[SavTM]

Sell copies of the game? Well, "personal use" includes giving copies away to everyone, so unless you're selling that first copy for a million bucks, you're going to lose your shirt. (Please don't give me that tired fucking bullshit about "well don't release it until people donate the amount you want," it sounds great if you discount that nobody will actually donate in significant numbers.)

This is an interesting theory. Given that the number of desktops running Linux is something around 2% (according to the marketing I've read) of all PCs in the wild, what if, after recouping production costs for the Windows/Mac/proprietary version, an LGPL client was released into the wild *and* the ability to purchase a valid, legal, interoperable license to run the software on Linux by:

• buying the boxed/published Windows/Mac/proprietary client and run the free LGPL client
• buying an official 'support license' using digital download of the LGPL client through the production/publisher's official website

There simply are not enough Linux clients to honestly regard piracy of an LGPL client as a threat to sales and yet this would be exactly the reason used to justify not releasing a Linux client or even a legal license of interoperability. Not the dollars/cents of goodwill and possible community interest and publicity it would generate, but the possibility of piracy and, if necessary, also discussing the doomed endgame of LGPL wrangling among the original publishers and forked projects. Isn't it okay that forked projects exist if the game already made money in the process? I mean, if we make the LGPL release contingent on the sales/profitability of other clients, there can be no loss, really. It's acknowledging a small enthusiast market and nurturing it as a wellspring of ideas instead of a threat to revenue streams.

Advertisements in the game to recoup your investment? Well, they have the code, so bye-bye ads and bye-bye revenue.

What's the alternative? I use AdBlock Plus judiciously and if I perceive a site to be 'peddling trash' I exercise my right to ignore their advertisements. Games don't go away, even when the companies and ad-agencies go bankrupt. What's the point? One bad game can ruin a company's reputation forever with a customer. There are too many options to expect a second chance using these methods and foisting (unprofitable, non-opt-in, non-opt-outtable, invasive) advertisements on the game reduces your market to the lowest common denominator of those who will accept them. The people who will not accept them know how to circumvent, avoid or boycott them, if necessary. Why do you care if people opt-out of the ad program they have no intention of validating anyway? They are just trying to enjoy the game and you're removing the acceptable terms of a sale, essentially counting the beans you collect from advertisers instead of placing a cent of value on your customers. Is it a financing problem? Do true fans need to tithe for something they've already purchased? I would still prefer to pay for the choice. How does removing choice benefit the relationship between publisher and customer when there is a precedent of something better?

MMO? All your code's out there, enjoy those free-to-play ad-free private servers killing what little market share you can scrape up.

There's something to be said for an officially sanctioned server as far as revenue models, but I don't think there's a silver bullet here. I don't play any big-name MMOs because I've had too many bad experiences in the past with the companies that run them...from EQ to SWG. If clients can take an active part in testing/tweaking and balancing a time-tested and weathered game experience, publishers would benefit from the ideas and mutual interests of their audience. The way you reference the use of the LGPL it is constraining develop

Re:Control freak

[Jim Hall]

2) works of testimony (what people experienced or believe):
- republishing with modification is misrepresentation,
- commercial use covered by existing copyright

And yet when I gave an interview (via email) to a FSF-sponsored newsletter about FreeDOS, every instance of "Linux" in my interview was mysteriously changed to "GNU/Linux". The writer and I passed about 4-5 copies of the interview and followup back to each other. Sometime around round 3, I noticed "Linux" had become "GNU/Linux". I changed it all back, and asked why that happened. He said it was because RMS prefers that all FSF publications use "GNU/Linux". I said I disagreed with that, would prefer my responses remain "Linux" because that was how I referred to a generic Linux distro.

And yes, I did feel very mis-represented after the interview was published and I saw "GNU/Linux" again. Having me (in the article) consistently using "GNU/Linux" makes it seem as though I support the whole "Let's call it GNU/Linux" thing, which I definitely do not.

Re:Control freak

[zotz]

~;-)

You know, if someone wants to interview me ever, depending on the balance of things, I may just insist that the resulting article be Free and copyleft.

all the best,

drew

Re:Control freak

[machine321]

GPL is dead. Appcelerator confirms it!

Re:Control freak

[locallyunscene]

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?

That sounds like your supporting his position rather than contradicting it. Why do photographers get favored rewards over sculptors or painters?

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.

Maybe single player games and movies are a special case. RMS avoided the question at the last talk I heard which leads me to believe he doesn't have a good answer.

On the other hand people will still want to see movies and play games and be willing to pay for those games even copyright were changed so drastically. In the case of video games look at ToadyOne and DwarfFortress. He manages to develop DF full time off of donations. If the donations were instead considered to be "investment in finishing the game" then you could see a smaller studio would be able to develop a game, even as grand as HL2, assuming they were "able to stand on the shoulders" of those who came before.

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.

The fact that there are millions of dollars being funneled into a "Free as in Speech" product and that other methods than proprietary software sales are used to "recoup costs" sounds to me like you're supporting his point again rather than contradicting it.

Re:Control freak

[init100]

And someone is willing to steal it and not pay you anything; quite a few people, perhaps.

What the GP might have meant is that his works cannot easily be stolen. I work for a company writing software that provides services to users (mostly other companies). We do not distribute any software, so the only thing that you can steal is our web pages. Sure, they can substitute me for another programmer, but they still have to pay someone to write the software that they need to continue to provide and improve the company's services.

Only a minority of the paid software developers work in companies that sell packaged software to customers. Many more work developing software for internal use only, either to provide services to external entities, or to aid internal business processes. Pirating such software is much harder than pirating packaged software available to the entire world.

Re:Control freak

[init100]

The fact that filesharers still bother downloading and sharing those files reflects that there is actual demand for that content

Just remember that demand is highly affected by price, and when the price of a product with even an infinitesimal perceived value reaches zero, the demand will increase sharply. Thus, you cannot reasonably compare demand indicated by download counts at a pirate site with demand in the marketplace where the traded items would actually cost money. Then everyone starts making cost/benefit calculations, and the demand will be very different.

RMS disallows free use of his words

[Anonymous Coward]

InfoWorld tried to interview Richard Stallman, who runs the Free Software Foundation that created and manages the GPL, on this issue, but he demanded control of what we published, so we declined.

Pity RMS couldn't have released his source words under some kind of open license so others could use it.

Re:RMS disallows free use of his words

[CharlyFoxtrot]

You could put it like this : his words are open, so he wanted the article to have the same openness so he could correct obvious mistakes. So RMS open source words are viral, infecting articles with their openness :-)

I never could decide wether he was a genius or a nutjob, so I figure he's probably both.

Re:RMS disallows free use of his words

[chrb]

I'm sure RMS would be quite happy to license his writings under the GPL, but I doubt "Yahoo Tech!" would be willing to incorporate his writings and republish a GPL document.

Re:RMS disallows free use of his words

[noidentity]

InfoWorld tried to interview Richard Stallman, who runs the Free Software Foundation that created and manages the GPL, on this issue, but he demanded control of what we published, so we declined.

I think InfoWorld is twisting "he demanded that we not take control over the text of his interview, so we declined". I think RMS probably wanted to be able to publish the words of his interview in other places without having to get InfoWorld's permission each time.

Re:RMS disallows free use of his words

[init100]

I never could decide wether he was a genius or a nutjob, so I figure he's probably both.

The dividing line between ingenuity and insanity is commonly very thin.

This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[amicusNYCL]

Which side you believe is the side you already believe.

Just to be clear, our choices are fascists, people who share Indians, or businesses, right?

It's difficult to say that the GPL fails to be useful to business because ... it was not written with commercialization in mind

That actually sounds like it's directly contradictory to "business", however you want to define that. If you define business as the pursuit of commercializing a product, then the fact that the GPL wasn't written with commercialization in mind certainly seems like it fails to be useful to a business. At least, no business that is actually writing their own code instead of packaging other peoples' code. If your business involves packaging other peoples' code for distribution then, yeah, I'm sure the GPL is very useful to you. I'm not sure how many businesses need to exist that just distribute other peoples' code though.

If you're talking about developing your own product and then choosing a license, from a business standpoint it does make sense that you would release it under a license that doesn't give everyone else free reign with it. At least not in the short term, once your competitive advantage has worn off with time then it makes perfect sense to give it away for free. See id software for an example on that one.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[QuantumG]

It's amazing that after so many years people are *still* confusing commercial with proprietary. 99.9% of the use of Apache is commercial.. and it aint proprietary. However there are proprietary ripoffs of Apache and that is the problem that the GPL tries to defeat.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[BadAnalogyGuy]

For companies that would otherwise create IP based on GPL-licensed software, there is almost no distinction between commercialization and proprietary. They cannot commercialize their IP because to do so would force them to make the IP non-proprietary. For companies that create products, the two typically go hand in hand.

However, you're completely correct in pointing out that GPL-licensed software can be commercialized. Linux itself would not exists as it is today if it weren't for the commercialization of it by companies like RedHat and Suse (and Caldera, et al). Commercialization has a very big positive effect on GPL-licensed software. It actually funds the development of the product so as to be useful for the greatest number of customers.

But the GPL itself was written to protect software freedom, not specifically to enable (or destroy) commercialization of the software. It prevents the software from being made proprietary, and through prickly requirements like opening of all code which comes into linkage with GPL-covered software it ensures that the software remains free.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Desler]

However there are proprietary ripoffs of Apache and that is the problem that the GPL tries to defeat.

How can you ripoff something that is freely given to all to use as they see fit as long they follow it's simple terms? Ripping off implies that you are taking something without someone's consent which is clearly not the case for proprietary software that is based on Apache/MIT/BSD/etc licensed software.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[the_womble]

The lack of IP protection (nee, the deliberate elimination of IP protection) is not something companies who innovate are likely to embrace.

There is no actual evidence for that - in fact the evidence (academic studies) point the other way. Most of the studies are on patents, not copyright, but it is all the evidence there is.

The GPL protects any actual innovator better than BSD style licenses because it stops free riders. See Zed Shaw's explanation of why he uses the GPL: http://zedshaw.com/blog/2009-07-13.html .

The article gives one actual real life example, and they prefer the Apache license because they prefer the patent clause, not because they want to allow proprietary forks.

BSD style licenses can be better for those who want to accept outside patches and sell a proprietary version (e.g. Django). It is more appealing to the outside contributors than a copyright assignment (like MySQL and ZImbra). In many cases they could also use the LGPL (provided they can cleanly separate the proprietary and open components), and I have no idea why they do not.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[fwarren]

I am not a software zealot.

But I won't contribute my unpaid time to a project unless I know there is 100% chance that it can be forked if the maintainers want to do something different with it.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Anonymous Coward]

In terms of distributing under the GPL, it's true that it's incompatible with (what's seen as) the standard software business model. If my goal is to sell a bunch of copies to separate individuals, it can undermine that if they can just copy from each other.

This focus is wrong, however. More of the for-pay programming in the world is custom software than the "standard" model. Whatever license applies to their software, companies are often still interested in adding features, improving the stability or security of the applications they use, or better integrating software with their particular systems and situation - with the GPL they can do that work (individually, or several companies in consortium) and ultimately everyone can benefit. In this *most common* case, the GPL is actually a preferable license.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[mwvdlee]

Furthermore, it's only a "problem" to third parties.

The developers of Apache certainly have no problem with this, otherwise they would have chosen a different license.

The GPL license is a problem too for many people and organizations. It's a problem when things like "generic" code (i.e. file format parsers/writers) cannot be incorporated in non-GPL licensed code, creating more chance of incompatibility.

One could only imagine how Linux would have turned out with a BSD or Apache license; we might have ended up with a situation where Windows, OS-X and Linux apps were all compatible or atleast much easier to port. Or we might have ended up with one of the BSD's winning and Linux failing.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Ash Vince]

In many cases they could also use the LGPL (provided they can cleanly separate the proprietary and open components), and I have no idea why they do not.

Because the LGPL means you have to constant work within a legal framework that it sets down, whereas BSD licences give developers the freedom to ignore the legal implications of what they are doing and just get on with their job. Laywers are expensive and to constantly have to consult specialist legal consul just to ensure you are on the right side of the LGPL quickly pushes a projects costs up. In the commercial world the BSD licence gives the most freedom to the original creator of the project, yet still lets outside parties contribute.

You might argue that outside would never contribute to a BSD project as there is the possibility their work could be used in closed source projects but that is not the case since plenty of people do. Some people might be put off, but that is a trade off for having the freedom to adopt a different licencing scheme in future without having to trace every contributer to your project and get them to sign a waver saying they will not enforce the GPL over the code they comitted to your project.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Darinbob]

I'm not sure how many businesses need to exist that just distribute other peoples' code though.

This misses much of the problem though. You can create a full application of original code, then be forbidden to statically link with a tiny GPL library or borrow a couple of routines without making your whole product fall under GPL. This isn't a commercializing GPL code or rebundling it.

And yes, many applications must statically link and are unable to use dynamic libraries or plugins.

The result really is that a GPL license is poison to many companies, not matter how trivial the library or routines are you want to use. Even if you find a way to use GPL code properly a lot of companies still won't touch it just out of its reputation and legal headaches. (What's cheaper, buying a third party commercial library, getting the lawyers involved to figure out if the license really isn't a problem, or just going with BSD?)

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Darinbob]

BSD license is also good for people who just don't care about "free riders" or not. They've got a good product, if some leech comes along and sells their own versions and mods, then so what?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[MichaelSmith]

One could only imagine how Linux would have turned out with a BSD or Apache license;

No need for imagination. Just look at the BSD projects and the pathetic support they get from business.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Mystra_x64]

then be forbidden to statically link with a tiny GPL library or borrow a couple of routines without making your whole product fall under GPL

You have an option to write your own tiny library you know.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[julesh]

However there are proprietary ripoffs of Apache and that is the problem that the GPL tries to defeat.

I fail to see how this is a problem. I can still go and download Apache and use it however I want.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[maxwell demon]

This misses much of the problem though. You can create a full application of original code, then be forbidden to statically link with a tiny GPL library or borrow a couple of routines without making your whole product fall under GPL. This isn't a commercializing GPL code or rebundling it.

Guess what: If you intend to make your application proprietary, the GPL developers want you to stay clear from their code. So I'd say the GPL works as intended.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[julesh]

One could only imagine how Linux would have turned out with a BSD or Apache license; we might have ended up with a situation where Windows, OS-X and Linux apps were all compatible or atleast much easier to port.

Or maybe we'd all be running GNU Hurd by now.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Serious Simon]

How can you ripoff something that is freely given to all to use as they see fit as long they follow it's simple terms?

By refusing to follow those terms?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[maxwell demon]

Or we might have ended up with Linux failing, but the BSDs not winning either.
Has anyone ever analyzed why Linux took off and BSD didn't, and what role the license played in this?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[maxwell demon]

Of course you can fork both GPL and BSD licensed projects.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Darinbob]

Guess what, I have no choice! And sometimes even the company has no choice! I've worked on applications where regulations prohibit the end user from making modifications. Not everything is a desktop app.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Darinbob]

Which is exactly what most companies do. Which completely eliminates the "let's not reinvent the wheel" aspect of open source.

Writing these tiny libraries is not so simple, and can be a huge waste of time. The experts in the fields necessary for the application or product are not necessarily experts everywhere. They may not know how to write an efficient compression algorithm and have it debugged by the deadline, or have any familiarity with writing string internationalization routines.

Which is why these companies go to software with BSD or other licenses.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[someone1234]

When you say, you are 'going with BSD', do you mean, your whole application is going under BSD, or just you ninja'd a BSD library?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and no businesses use Apache either!

Oh, wait ...

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[smash]

Exactly. There's a clear difference between GPL zealots and BSD zealots (of which, I am one).

• GPL people want code to be publicly available no matter what.
• BSD people just want the code to be used for the good of society; if you make money off it, so what.

If TCP/IP was originally GPLed, the protocol would probably not have taken off. BSD licensing (or public domain) promotes standards propogation. GPL encourages reinvention of the wheel, when someone decides that (heaven forbid) they want to be paid for their work (be it huge code additions, or just packaging up free code in a nicer package, or whatever).

Me? I'd much rather there was freely available BSD code for whatever problems have already been solved. Commercial products would be free to implement this well tested, standards compliant code and provide additional features that others may or may not be interested in. Those not interested in paying could take the base, well tested code and write their own pretty interface (or whatever) for it.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[teh kurisu]

The GPL is obviously preferable to closed-source software in this case, but I'm not sure how it's preferable to the BSD/MIT ilk of licences. If I'm paying for the development of a piece of software, I don't want to be limited in what I can do with it (including closed-source distribution) by the developers.

From the customer's point of view, assignment of the copyright to the customer would be preferable to any open source licence. The only impracticality here is that the developer should be free to use 'generic' code samples in projects for other customers.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I looked BSD projects do very well. This has several different reasons, but there is one common:

The companies don't want to maintain their own fork. It is expensive to constantly merge the fixes of the original project with your branch.

This is why companies contribute to Apache, the various BSD operating systems, LLVM, etc.

Just take a look at FreeBSD. Consider how many people work on that compared to Linux. I would say those Linux crowds should be very quite given how little more progress they accomplish compared to the relatively few FreeBSD developers.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[makomk]

"Ripping off" in the sense that you're taking someone else's code, sticking your own label on it, and selling it for $$$. It may be legal, but it's not exactly either useful or helpful to Open Source or Free Software. Think about it - if a bunch of companies do this, you end up with essentially a number of forks that can't be recombined, and none of the changes made by one company help anyone else. It's basically proprietary software - with all the downsides of that - given a leg-up by Open Source. Some companies, such as Danger, do contribute their changes back upstream when they're not commercially profitable in themselves, but that's very much optional.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[maxwell demon]

And in what way does the existence of that GPLed code make your work any harder than it would be if the code simply didn't exist? Or if it would exist, but buried deep inside some proprietary application whose source you won't even get to see, much less be allowed to use?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[makomk]

Furthermore, it's only a "problem" to third parties.

Yeah, like the actual users of the code. Imagine you're running a closed-source commercial fork of, say, Apache with one or two extra features you need and a security vulnerability is found and fixed in Apache itself. Now, there's a patch out there for the vulnerability, but since you're using a closed-source fork you have to wait for the company selling it to release a fixed version (if they ever do). As an actual user, you get zero benefit from using Open Source-based software.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[wolverine1999]

You can issue your code under more than one license. A GPL License and a special license to others without the gpl restrictions. nobody prohibits this in fact.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[wolverine1999]

GPL people don't want others to make money off their code.

GPL people can license their code to others, for money if needed. Nothing prohibts the author, well if there are many authors its going to be difficult, I can see that. But if it's just one, there's no big deal and it's easy to do.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Anonymous Coward]

>How can you ripoff something that is freely given to all

By giving it a new name and removing all references to the original authors?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Ciggy]

Take a GPL'd piece of code and remove the GPL - what do you have left? All you are left with is plain old Copyright which means you can't use the code (which was GPL'd) at all without the holder's permission; you could contact them for a licence (so that argument of having to re-invent the wheel is bogus), or get your own code written any way. The only reason GPL is viral or poison is the underlying Copyright - GPL takes Copyright and adds rights you would not normally have; without GPL you lose those right and would be in [danger of] copyright infringement if you were to use it commercially.

As a commercial company your aim is to generate profits which means as low as possible with the costs and as high as possible with the income from sales (whether that be sales of goods, services, etc). Which means that if you need a code library you try to get it as cheaply as possible - ie something like BSD licensed code where you don't have to pay the authors a single cent.

However, some authors object to you piggy backing them and making money off their effort with no reward to themselves; so they insist that the payment to them is that you release any modification to their code like they originally released their code so that others can also benefit from the code (ie GPL). Now if a company doesn't like this way of doing things, they are free to contact the original author(s) to license the code under different terms, one where money would more than likely have to change hands from the company to the author(s), thus putting up the costs, especially if a piece of GPL code has had a few modifications in which case EVERY one of those authors would have to be contacted and a licence agreed between each and every one of them (not needing to re-invent the wheel).

Also, how much can you trust closed source software? Can you be sure it isn't infringing someones copyright?

The only conclusion I can come to is that all those who moan about the GPL are those who would rather not pay the author(s) for their work - get something for nothing. Aaaaarrrrrrrrr, Jim Lad...

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Vanders]

Writing these tiny libraries is not so simple, and can be a huge waste of time.

It sounds like some of those tiny GPL licensed libraries are actually pretty valuable. In which case, you as a software developer will have to pay to use them. The price is compliance with the GPL.

Which is why these companies go to software with BSD or other licenses.

If a non-GPL licensed equivalent exists then your previous argument doesn't apply and the company is welcome to use the non-GPL library at no cost to themselves. That also has no impact on their own choice of license.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[LizardKing]

Has anyone ever analyzed why Linux took off and BSD didn't, and what role the license played in this?

See the Explaining BSD document on the FreeBSD site, particularly the mention of the AT&T court case against BSDI. That said, BSD has "taken off" - it's used in many embedded devices and in many roles as a server OS. For example, Yahoo! rely on FreeBSD as their principal server OS, as do many other companies with large numbers of webservers such as web hosting outfits (Pair Networks for example). Mac OS X undoubtedly bigger than Linux in terms of desktop usage, and is based on a 4.3BSD core which has been updated with code from NetBSD and FreeBSD.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Epsillon]

Of course they have. The main reason BSD got sidelined, after growing very nicely thank you to start with, was the AT&T USL lawsuit spreading FUD and scaring users off. AT&T are not SCO and made for a pretty formidable opponent. By the time the litigation was over (AT&T backed down after it was found that a lot of BSD code had been subsumed into SVR4) and the unencumbered 4.4-BSD Lite was released, Linux had already gained traction (a working TCP stack) and was collecting up a lot of users disillusioned with the AT&T shenanigans. That the settlement was kept secret also added to the FUD and BSD, as a result, was almost left deserted and unloved. The licence and Linux being GPL really didn't make one iota of difference. Even Linus said later that had BSD been available and its status not legally dubious, he probably wouldn't have started on Linux.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[LizardKing]

This is a good point, and probably worth clarifying by linking to one of the many projects that's dual licensed under the GPL and a BSD license. An example is the wpa_supplicant project.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[rtfa-troll]

The GPL is obviously preferable to closed-source software in this case, but I'm not sure how it's preferable to the BSD/MIT ilk of licences.

This depends on circumstances. In most cases the majority of the entities working on the software are not competitors, however competitors also can use the software.

When you release BSD software, you get equal support to all the other people who cooperate with you. However, your competitors have a possibility to get a specific advantage. They can take your software, use it as you do, but add their own proprietary changes which they do not share.

This means that companies should not contribute to BSD projects without considerable care. E.g. if a feature is basic and your competitor already has it in their products you can contribute it because your competitor won't benefit. If a feature is advanced and product differentiating then you should never release it to a BSD project.

With a GPL project, there is another option. You contribute to the project. Any competitors which take that feature change their relationship with you. You and your former competitor cooperate in an open and legal way in one particular area (this is legal because it is directly to the benefit of the consumers / public etc.) whilst competing on others (service ; hardware ; other software bundled etc.).

In theory, this means that BSD software is better for short throw away projects where you will never work with anyone else whilst GPL is better for long term stable projects where cooperation will be most valuable. In practice, things which are planned short term very often become long term. This means it's normally better to use and release GPL software

There is one exception to this. If you are releasing a feature that you want everybody to use, including proprietary vendors, then you might find that the GNU All Permissive License is a good option. At least noticing its existence is quite ironic given the summary on this story.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Znork]

From the customer's point of view, assignment of the copyright to the customer would be preferable to any open source licence.

Not necessarily. Assignment of the copyright might be desirable, but an open source license may be the most cost effective solution either way.

Consider if you pay for the development for a non-strategic part of a product you're producing, say, a fairly simple driver for a piece of hardware you sell.

If you go the closed source way you'll have to pay for any modifications to track your supported platforms revisions, effectively burdening you with extra costs for support and bugfixing. If you go the bsd open way, a competitor would get the code for free and could improve it without contributing back, effectively putting you at a disadvantage. If you go with the GPL tho, you can get the advantage of kernel developers maintaining compatibility through some changes, bugfixes for odd cases from users, and any improvements and/or widened support put into the driver by competitors (who may not either regard it as strategic) or users would be shared back to you.

Different licenses serve different purposes, and the business case varies between sectors, companies and individuals.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[AlecC]

Which is what the LGPL is invented for. The licence for Apps is the GPL, the license for libraries is the LGPL. If you link with LGPL code, you just have to make the source of the library available - in the for you used it. So if you bugfix or enhance the library, you must offer forward the bugfixes - and it makes sense to submit them back, so the community gains. But the LGPL does not require you make public the whole source of your app.

As someone working in in the commercial environment, the LGPL is fine, and my company has published its own LGPL code. It requires a little care in keeping LGPL code separate from in-house code, but is no problem at link time.

The full GPL, however, is untouchable. I have no problem with that - it is designed to achieve a certain effect, at a certain cost. It achieves what it set out to do, and pays the cost that was know up front.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[rtb61]

Of course the apache licence and it's like can still be considered a trap. You take that copy of apache code and some of your code to it and sell that software. Someone copies that software without your permission and you claim copyright, they refute that claim, because they also already own a substantial portion of the underlying code, you are now required to open the code and prove which parts of the code are yours and that you are legally entitled and which parts of the code have to be ignored because they are already ownder by the accused copyright offender.

Now if all you did was say for example alter the look and brading of apache, well guess what, that is trademark infringement not copyright infringement. So called copyright offenders can now claim they already own a substantive portion of the code, use apache and you added only 1 percent of code of the complete project, then legally you can only claim 1 percent of the copyright value of the completed work, as all potential customers already own 99 percent of the code you used.

This also would stretch to BSD licences, derivative works is insufficient, as that code you add is the derivative work, not the code that is already owned by all possible customers. To alter that you would have to try to claim compiling the code, an automated function, as copyrightable.

GPL in reality is a lot clearer licence and BSD et al is legally problematic as everyone else own substantiation portions of software that you are attempting to claim as your own, everyone else also has access to the same code with the same licence.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[mwvdlee]

Or, as an actual user, you could just use the Apache distribution.

As an actual user, you get zero benefit from using Open Source-based software.

The situation you're talking about isn't Open Source. Why should the user expect Open Source benefits from a closed source distribution?

I'm guessing that users that don't use the base distribution do so for very particular reasons that vanilla Apache doesn't address. So they choose to go with a vendor that distributes the modified Apache they need. Had Apache been GPL, the vendor that wants to keep it's features' implementation secret would have chosen a different (possibly less stable) platform.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[donaldm]

>How can you ripoff something that is freely given to all

By giving it a new name and removing all references to the original authors?

If found out the original authors or if GPL'd the GPL can litigation on plagiarism. It could cost said company the company.

When I say found out if one person does plagiarise software then it could be difficult to prove since the source code is kept secret by that one person but the more people involved in the development the greater the chance of been found out. Any business that is in for the long haul would be stupid to plagiarise software since the chance of getting found out increases with the number of developers. You only need once developer with a conscience that recognises the code has been stolen and that company is in a world of hurt.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[ardor]

The price is compliance with the GPL.

This price is often too high, since it demands that the parts you link the library to become GPL, which in turn often encompasses the entire project.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[ardor]

but is no problem at link time

Correction: it is a problem if you cannot use shared libraries or the like, which is common with embedded devices that get their firmware flashed on, because you must link everything statically in the firmware. The LGPL then demands that it shall be possible for others to link another version of the library to the firmware, which usually means you have to release the firmware source, or the object files.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[donaldm]

However there are proprietary ripoffs of Apache and that is the problem that the GPL tries to defeat.

I fail to see how this is a problem. I can still go and download Apache and use it however I want.

You can download the Apache source and do whatever you want with it but try and sell the now modified code as your own then you may find out what the Law thinks of the Apache License. I think the following applies here:

1 You must give any other recipients of the Work or Derivative Works a copy of this License; and
2 You must cause any modified files to carry prominent notices stating that You changed the files; and
3 You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices from the Source form of the Work, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works; and

Yes there is more, allot more, but RTFL if you want more info. :)

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[marcansoft]

The LGPL does require that you use dynamic linking, or that you offer the .o files to link to an alternative version of the LGPLed library. This is at least an annoyance for some uses, and a showstopper for others. For example, you can't use LGPLed code on proprietary closed systems like game consoles (the manufacturer wouldn't be very happy with a license that basically requires letting your users run arbitrary code on a closed and DRM'ed machine - not that I think such machines should be like that). I've seen lots of people miss this point though, I think quite a few people violate the LGPL on a regular basis by linking to an LGPLed library and failing to provide a way of relinking.

Another "interesting" point of the LGPL is that it effectively requires that the user be allowed to reverse engineer and modify a statically linked executable. That also goes against your typical EULA.

Personally, I think using LGPLed stuff in a proprietary application is a huge hassle and not worth it unless you fall into the specific case of being a dynamically linked userland application on a standard OS and the library is a dynamic object residing in a separate file.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[donaldm]

GPL people don't want others to make money off their code.

When I write code I prefer the GPL over other licenses so I don't care if I don't get money from my code. But I can make a considerable amount of money from providing support and consultation for my code and even code I have not written. Sound familiar talk to Redhat and Novel.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Timothy Brownawell]

GPL software(*) are mostly made by end users who know what they want, but not necessarily how to make great code. BSD software are mostly made by people who know how to make great code, but not necessarily what the user needs.

What "made by end users who know what they want" brings to mind for me is Apache, which is neither (but is in the same family as BSD).

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[teh kurisu]

I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I'm not talking about open, community-driven projects. I'm talking about projects where a company (say, A Plc) commissions another company (say, Dev Ltd) to create custom software for it. A Plc would like to be able to use the software they are paying for without limitation.

Dev Ltd is providing a service as opposed to a product, and ideally A Plc would be assigned the copyright for the code so that they could licence it as they wish with no conditions. This approach is undesirable for the developer, because it reduces their ability to reuse code across projects for different customers.

What I'm suggesting is that Dev Ltd retains copyright over the code, but licenses it to A plc using a BSD-like licence. This gives A Plc the freedom to use the code they have paid for as they see fit, but also gives Dev Ltd the freedom to reuse code.

Remember that the reuse of code does not necessarily mean that commercially sensitive features will be transferred from A Plc to another of Dev Ltd's customers, if the customer is responsible for setting the specification. The only effect is that Dev Ltd is able to deliver more quickly.

I don't see how licensing the code under the GPL is any sort of safety net for Dev Ltd in comparison to the BSD licence, given that it wouldn't prevent a potential competitor who might get hold of the code from offering that code under the exact same terms, but without the cost overhead of actually having to do the development work.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[teh kurisu]

That's certainly true, but if the code was provided by the original developer under the BSD licence then you would be free to re-licence it under the GPL if you chose to make it available to the community, and accept modifications under the terms of that licence. Likewise if you own the copyright.

That's surely a preferable situation to the code being covered by the GPL in the first place, in which case it is burdened with GPL restrictions whether or not you choose to accept community-based modifications.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Trahloc]

Do you by any chance have a single court case showing your scenario? One where someone made a substantial change to BSD code? 1% can be quite substantial if its the right kind and then where they were only able to claim 1% of the offenders revenue?

If not, then please don't create strawmen, GPL & BSD are both excellent FOSS licenses. Neither is superior as they serve utterly different functions. Comparing them is like asking what sort of boat gets the best mileage on the highway, it just doesn't work.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[AlecC]

Well, the quoted statement is my opinion, rather than a law. If you are right, they are wrong, in my opinion. The reason originally given for the LGPL was the proliferation of C runtime libraries under different licenses: GPL, BSD, totally free. It was (correctly, in my opinion) viewed as a loss to the community at large to maintain multiple different libraries with the same intended functionality. As well as the duplication of effort, there is a risk that functionality will diverge, and some of the libraries will be regarded as inadequate because of feature drift in the others.

Of course, there are cases where what is more-or-less an App can be released as a Library to allow a configuring front end to be linked on. But I would see these as the exception rather than the rule.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[zotz]

You say:

"If you're talking about developing your own product and then choosing a license, from a business standpoint it does make sense that you would release it under a license that doesn't give everyone else free reign with it"

The story says:

"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.

Somehow, I don't think the people you are speaking of are the ones choosing MIT, Apache, or New BSD over the GPL as those give everyone even more free reign than the GPL. ???

all the best,

drew

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[zotz]

"Which is exactly what most companies do. Which completely eliminates the "let's not reinvent the wheel" aspect of open source.

Writing these tiny libraries is not so simple, and can be a huge waste of time."

Hmm, but surely the first company to do so will then release under a MIT/Apache/BSD and the GPL version will simple fade away?

all the best,

drew

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[packman]

The major problem here is that "the author" of that library might be hundreds of authors which all have to give you their "go". Also, the original library might be a fork of another GPL'd library, which brings you in even messier waters...

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[erktrek]

If you have a service using an opensourced app then either license won't make much of a difference unless said competitor decides to distribute their version. At that point the GPL would appear to be the better choice as you would at least get any changes back.

Isn't it true that GPL (up to v2 at least) code that is "inhouse" does not have to be distributed? That seems very business friendly in this age of "application services".

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[fiontan]

Take a GPL'd piece of code and remove the GPL - what do you have left?

The GP isn't talking about taking a piece of GPL code and removing the GPL, he's talking about licensing the code BSD, or other free use license. Comparing GPL favourably to vanilla copyright is not only an easy comparison, it's way off topic.

so they insist that the payment to them is that you release any modification to their code like they originally released their code so that others can also benefit from the code (ie GPL).

How is this payment to the original author? Notwithstanding if I provide a service instead of a product, then I never have to release anything... but even if I release a product in a niche market, say controllers in medical hardware, using a hypothetical modified linux kernel. I need to make the source for the modified kernel available to my customers, which they are free to redistribute, but the greater linux kernel community has no such right to the source unless they purchase one of the machines. Unless I voluntarily give back the code, or someone wants to pay me for my time by buying one of my machines, the original author never sees any of my changes.

The number of times I see comments saying that the GPL means people have to give back. This is not, and has never been the case.

Also, how much can you trust closed source software? Can you be sure it isn't infringing someones copyright?

So, how much can you trust open source software? Can you be sure it isn't infringing someone's copyright? The answer is usually no, unless you wrote it yourself.

The only conclusion I can come to is that all those who moan about the GPL are those who would rather not pay the author(s) for their work - get something for nothing. Aaaaarrrrrrrrr, Jim Lad...

As a developer, I will never release software under the GPL, but I will release software under actually free licenses like BSD or Apache. Of course, this means that I need to avoid using GPL libraries, because they do not give me the freedom to do what I require with the result of my own effort. Now in your world, this seems to be getting something for nothing, but in my world, it means I am being unreasonably restricted in a way that that would be unimaginable under any other license. Of course, if I find and fix a bug in the non-GPL library that I use, then I will naturally contribute the patch back to the project, and be happy that I could be of help. The GPL library gets no such support from me because I won't use it (if I have any choice).

Just to sum up, I find it completely unreasonable for a GPL library author to request me to release my entire application just because I make use of a supposedly free library. Even the "evil" closed-source commercial proprietary world would rarely put such a restriction on use of a library, and they wouldn't be as brazen as to say they're doing you a favour at the same time.

Now, as someone who moans about the GPL, do I still fit into your world as someone who wants something for nothing?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[jedidiah]

...except this is all one big fantasy.

So the whole issue is a big fat red herring. The vast majority of
all libraries are licenced with the library/lesser version of the
GPL so as to specifically avoid this problem. This is why there
can be a version of Oracle for Linux or some game from EA.

The "problem" doesn't really exist.

People are trying to ignore what's actually happening so that they
can make up some bogus argument.

Once again we have the crux of the anti-GPL whining as such: "why can't I hijack someone else's code".

It invariably happens that some whiner redefines "the freedom to set
the license on their code" as "the freedom to take someone else's work
and treat it as their own exclusive personal private property".

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[teh kurisu]

The GPL does not guarantee that you will get any changes back. The competing developer only needs to share the source with their own customer, and there is no guarantee that that customer will share the code or even take advantage of the offer of the source code at all.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[fiontan]

If you're using a commercial version, then you have a cash hammer. Demand that they update their sources and release you an upgrade, or send your dollars to a consulting company to create the extra one or two features you need as an apache module.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[fiontan]

Agreed. The GPL seems to be a solution, only if you accept that the actual problem is one worth solving.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Eivind Eklund]

(I hope you can read this with a smile :)

Yes, and as we all know, apart from the license, BSD and Linux are *exactly identical*, including having the exact same popularity, features and development model.

I just thought I'd make sure to remind people of this exact equality, just in case they'd forgotten and thereby misunderstood your post as comparing apples to oranges.

It's also true that BSD get no support whatsoever from businesses, and that code contributions like the VM system maintenance and the SCSI subsystem and the netgraph subsystem and various full time maintainer positions *are all lies spread by Linux' enemies*!

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[jedidiah]

The FSF is more radical than the average GPL developer.

This is why conflating RMS with the developer community has always been rather dubious.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[dfghjk]

"But the GPL itself was written to protect software freedom..."
No, it was written to protect "freedom" as the FSF defines it. Software is "free" under a BSD-style license---even more so than under GPL. The GPL was written to effect software that is derived from free software. That software, though, can in no way effect the freedom of anything other than itself. It would be more accurate to say that the GPL was written to EXPAND software freedom. It's easy to see that from its restrictions and the motivations of its proponents.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[jedidiah]

Linux is just the kernel. If you are trying to conflate the developer community of that
last bit of GNU with the entire developer community of FreeBSD then you are trying to
push an obviously bogus argument. Linux in the vernacular is Linux + GNU + a whole lot
of other userland stuff. It's the "whole lot of userland" stuff that's really the most
interesting part and what really determines which approach is more useful.

Sure, a lot (if not most) of the Linux userland stuff is generally exploitable by any
Unix. However, it's the Linux community (users and developers) that the engine that
drives everything.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[dfghjk]

"The GPL protects any actual innovator better than BSD style licenses because it stops free riders. See Zed Shaw's explanation of why he uses the GPL: http://zedshaw.com/blog/2009-07-13.html [zedshaw.com] ."

That is nonsense and, if true, it would be ironic that a license that claims to be the champion of freedoms "stops free riders".

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[mdwh2]

And you could say exactly the same thing, swapping GPL with BSD in your post.

This story is one such example of such a person.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Dragonslicer]

Isn't it true that GPL (up to v2 at least) code that is "inhouse" does not have to be distributed?

The GPL doesn't require that all code be freely distributed. The GPL only requires that anyone you distribute the software to can also get the code from you. Of course, anyone that gets the code from you can then freely distribute it, but it isn't a requirement.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[DrLang21]

In which case, you as a software developer will have to pay to use them. The price is compliance with the GPL.

I would rather have given you $1000. But since it's already GPLed, I'll just write my own.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[SD-Arcadia]

Exactly. Anyone who is railing against the GPL for "not being free enough" should advocate orbit-nuking proprietary software 24/7 or is a hypocrite.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[dgatwood]

GPL takes Copyright and adds rights you would not normally have; without GPL you lose those right and would be in [danger of] copyright infringement if you were to use it commercially.

That argument is rather tired, and rather wrong for several reasons:

• Variants like the Affero GPL massively restrict your rights far beyond what is allowed by copyright, and in ways that affect even people/companies that do not redistribute the software (at least by the traditional definition of redistribution).
• A lot of people wanted the Affero license rolled into the mainline GPL. The "version X or later" clause makes that a bit problematic for those who want to continue using software long term and still get security updates, bug fixes, etc.
• Code under the Affero license can be freely combined with standard GPL works, leading to the possibility that someone may modify the project in a way that would effectively taint the rest of the work.

Even if the mainline GPL doesn't restrict beyond the level of ordinary copyright, the risk posed by the Affero GPL makes GPLed software unacceptable for ordinary use (much less distribution) in many, many corporate environments.

Further, the patent clauses in GPLv3 go way beyond what copyright provides for. As a result, the GPLv3 takes copyright, adds rights you otherwise wouldn't have, and takes away rights you otherwise would. This is why so many people object to the changes in version 3. What you said was correct five years ago and few would disagree with it. In light of GPLv3, though, that whole argument is defenestrated.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[onefriedrice]

So again, how does that apply to companies who try to sell proprietary versions of Apache software?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[kz45]

"However, you're completely correct in pointing out that GPL-licensed software can be commercialized. Linux itself would not exists as it is today if it weren't for the commercialization of it by companies like RedHat and Suse (and Caldera, et al)."

Those companies make money on support and services, not the software itself.

"But the GPL itself was written to protect software freedom, not specifically to enable (or destroy) commercialization of the software."

It does destroy commercialization of the software. If you try to sell GPLd software, your customers have a right to take it and offer what they purchased for free to anyone that wants it. Over time, this would make impossibly for you to sell it (because anyone can get it for free).

You could make money on support, but then this wouldn't be commercialization of the software anymore.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Mystra_x64]

Writing these tiny libraries is not so simple, and can be a huge waste of time.

It is not an excuse to use GPL'd ones. Since, as you mentioned, they can used BSD ones, they should do so.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[compass46]

"That's certainly true, but if the code was provided by the original developer under the BSD licence then you would be free to re-licence it under the GPL"

You cannot relicense someone else's code. You can freely incorporate additions that are GPL licensed but the original code is still licensed under the original BSD license.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Deanalator]

Why should any developer need to write something that's already been written?

The reason I write open source code is to contribute to the global collective of free code. GPL is completely useless for that purpose, which is why I tell people not to use it. Most people, when they hear about the GPL for the first time, don't realize that there is the built in license lock in simply for the purpose of stroking some guy's ego and solidifying his legacy.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Miros]

When you release BSD software, you get equal support to all the other people who cooperate with you. However, your competitors have a possibility to get a specific advantage. They can take your software, use it as you do, but add their own proprietary changes which they do not share.

I may be confused, but I'm not sure that this is even true 100% of the time with GPL'd code. If you improve a package, and then the competition takes that improved package and makes further improvements that it does not distribute outside of its organization, it does not need to share the code back and it gets the same benefit. Is that correct? I'm actually asking here, somewhat curious if I'm wrong about that.

I've also been recently irritated by a select open source project which will not be named (rather small project in the grand scheme of things) whose primary maintainer gains direct commercial benefit from unnecessarily crippling their package in order to encourage sales of overpriced proprietary hardware components, which also rubs me the wrong way. Has anyone out there faced a similar situation and come up with a solution?

I'm curious there because as I see it I have the option to create a series of unsupported patches which will never be merged with the trunk and will gradually become just a serious pain in the ass to maintain, which seriously discourages me from sharing them with the community, and all because of the self interest of a maintainer.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Deanalator]

Blah, of course it would not make it harder than if no code existed, but it could make it significantly easier if a reasonable license was used.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[PitaBred]

THEN DON'T USE IT. I wish I could get a Core i7 for $15. Just because I want things to be that way doesn't mean they should be, or I have the right to be taken seriously when I bitch about it.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[PitaBred]

The GPL pisses off people because they can't just take the code they see right there and use it however they want. Almost like Copyright is a pain in the ass in most instances.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[amicusNYCL]

In a work-for-hire scenario the software usually doesn't have a license at all - it's wholly owned by whoever paid for it, and they don't need a license to do whatever they want with it. That's what work-for-hire means. If a company is not distributing the software that they paid a programmer to create, then there's no point in using the GPL.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[amicusNYCL]

Some people would argue that merely hosting the application for others to use is itself distribution. I've seen that argument brought into discussions over actual usage of the GPL, such as how it relates to the ExtJS project. The fact that the definition of distribution is even a question hints at the weaknesses of the GPL.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[amicusNYCL]

The result really is that a GPL license is poison to many companies

Right, that was my point and you gave a good example. The fact is that any business creating a software product intends to distribute that product, so it doesn't make any sense for the vast majority of companies to spend their capital to develop a product when they would have to give out all of the blueprints also. The GPL is a good social experiment, and it's useful for hobbyist programmers, but it doesn't have a lot of use in the business world unless your business model revolves around distributing GPL code.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[rwiggers]

Good luck trying to get a commercial license for almost any GPL'd code out there. For the sake o exaggeration, let's say we want to get a license to redistribute in binary-only for the linux kernel. Who should I contact to buy such a license?
Nothing is wrong with the GPL. It serves its objective. The BIG wrong here is to assume (and say everyone else is wrong) that GPL is THE THING. It's not. It's just another license. It's not a one-size-fits-all.
GPL is bogus for quite a lot of embedded device development, for example. It simply doesn't apply.
OTOH it, or some license alike, should be mandatory in voting machines, for example.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[amicusNYCL]

Take a GPL'd piece of code and remove the GPL - what do you have left?

Just code. Bereft of legal, social, ethical, moral, or religious responsibilities. Just pure code, the same thing that a lot of programmers produce daily and without any of the political BS that any license brings.

The only reason GPL is viral or poison is the underlying Copyright - GPL takes Copyright and adds rights you would not normally have

No, the only reason the GPL is viral or poison is because if I want to use what someone else released for others to use, now the GPL all of a sudden dictates what I need to do with my code, that I wrote.

However, some authors object to you piggy backing them and making money off their effort with no reward to themselves;

So the GPL is all about benefiting the authors of the code? I mean, they released the code for free, right? They're all about sharing and promoting the free exchange of ideas, but then they want to be compensated if I use their code.

Also, how much can you trust closed source software? Can you be sure it isn't infringing someones copyright?

What, you mean the software I write? I trust it well, thanks, and I'm certain it doesn't infringe anyone else's copyright.

The only conclusion I can come to is that all those who moan about the GPL are those who would rather not pay the author(s) for their work - get something for nothing.

That misses the point more than anything else I've ever seen, ever. Listen up: those who moan about the GPL would rather not have a document dictate to them what they are allowed to do with their product simply because they are using another product covered by the GPL. It's not about getting something for free, it's about the freedom for ME to say how I want to license my code, instead of having that decision made for me. For a recent application, I wanted to use the ExtJS framework because of how awesome it is. This is a commercial product I'm developing. So our choices were to use the GPL license for ExtJS, and release all of our code also, or pay ExtJS for a proprietary license and have the right to do whatever we want to do with our code. We chose the option where we pay ExtJS for their work. I'm happy to pay good programmers for good work, and I've sent the ExtJS team money on more than one occasion.

It's not about wanting something for nothing. It's about the freedom to use the code that I write the way that I want to use it without having another license tell me what I can and can't do with my own code. If you want to somehow twist that around and say that I'm just being greedy, then you're missing the point and you don't understand business.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[amicusNYCL]

Uh, yeah, that's correct, the people I'm referring to are the people who choose not to use MIT, Apache, BSD, MPL, GPL, LGPL, etc. You're correct. All the best.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[2short]

"surely the first company to do so will then release under a MIT/Apache/BSD and the GPL version will simple fade away"

That would be my experience in a nutshell.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[dissy]

The result really is that a GPL license is poison to many companies

Well stop being a thief, and it wouldn't matter if you are allowed or not to steal someone elses code :P

Go write the code yourself, or buy it from a company. Hell, you can even ask the author to sell you his GPLed code under a different license, one very specific to you and your company to allow distribution only by you, and set some form of compensation. Then the GPLed code is yours to use and pay for, but the GPL is not involved in any way/shape/form.

Don't go stealing someones GPLed lib, then getting pissed that the author of that code doesn't WANT you to steal it and make money off his/her work.

You are just being cheap. If you are selling your product, go PAY for the stuff you use in it, and stop complaining that the world isn't giving you for free all the stuff it relies on.

(For the record, I am well aware copyright violations are not theft, but that seems to be what all the trolls on this board call it or understand it as, so wanted to make sure there was no misunderstanding from them of what I meant... In their head, it is theft, and so is this.)

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[DrLang21]

You can actually release software under multiple licenses? This is the first I am hearing of this. And if this is the first I am hearing of it, you can bet almost all of your potential customers have no idea either.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[2short]

"The vast majority of all libraries are licenced with the library/lesser version of the GPL so as to specifically avoid this problem"

But it doesn't really. I can't statically link to such a library, and have a tracking burden I wouldn't otherwise. It's not necessarily a huge deal, but an LGPL license makes the code less useful to me. If I can find a BSD alternative, it's already got a leg up. Even if I find a commercially licensed library I can just pay for, that's better for me.

"It invariably happens that some whiner redefines 'the freedom to set
the license on their code' as 'the freedom to take someone else's work
and treat it as their own exclusive personal private property'."

I want to take someone elses work and be able to treat it as my own property, absolutely. (the "exclusive personal private" part is irrelevant to me, and not true of BSD code anyway) That's the whole point of open source for me; it's just as good as if I wrote it myself, but I didn't have to. Closed source and GPL source are not as good. If you don't want that to happen, don't use a BSD license. Of course, if you don't want others profiting from your work, you shouldn't open source it at all. GPL in no way says anyone will cut you in on money they make off your code, or share improvements they make with you or anyone else that isn't their customer. If that's what you want, go closed source.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Darinbob]

Because the code may actually exist somewhere else other than GPL code. If it does not exist, there may be people elsewhere working to bring it into existence under a different license. That's a lot different than having hundreds of companies reinventing the wheel in isolation.

For instance an older product I was on wanted to use internationalization. The GNU libintl and gettext programs seemed very good for this purpose, and it actually is. The tools can all be used off line to create and manipulate the databases and they're very handy and solve a tricky problem. But the library we had to statically link to for looking up strings was GPLd. I would have taken a too long to reverse engineer an equivalent library (even longer if you try to use a chinese wall). Without that library all those external FSF tools were pointless. But there was BSD code for the same library; someone else had reinvented the wheel and made their work available for all, and that library was maintained.

Whereas if I had reinvented the wheel, I seriously doubt the company would have let me make it available to others even though we weren't a software house. I definitely would have had no time at all to support or maintain it for others.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Darinbob]

I think my point may be missed. I was not arguing that GPL license should be loosened up just because I want free software and no alternatives exist. I'm arguing that the alternative licenses are very useful, and that the GPL should not be the one-size-fits-all solution. Yet the FSF has argued against other licenses, and in a somewhat patronising way as if the users of those other licenses were naive or unenlightened.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Darinbob]

I was not stealing any GPL code, nor was I advocating this! I was saying that GPL is a hindrance to the use of open source in ways that BSD and other licenses are not.

In what possible way could someone confuse what I wrote with stealing?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[2short]

"THEN DON'T USE IT."

We won't. That's the whole point being made here. Frequently, authors of open-source library code would, for whatever reason, like it if that code were usable, and used, by a wide variety of people. A GPL/LGPL license may inhibit such adoption to a greater degree than those authors imagine.

Just because someone says choosing a particular license has cons as well as pros doesn't mean they are bitching. Unless that license is the GPL, which we all know is utterly perfect for all purposes, and no suggestion otherwise should ever be allowed.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[petrus4]

Do you even know what you're talking about, or are you just a troll shill for the fact cats who want to mooch off the table and not give anything back?

You need a new argument. This one is well and truly worn out.

It is predictable also, that this comment was made by an AC. If there is one thing that the FSF's supporters are not known for, it is courage.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[2short]

"'Ripping off' in the sense that you're taking"

No, "being given."

"someone else's code"

code someone else wrote, and freely gave you your own copy of.

"sticking your own label on it, and selling it for $$$"

as they explicitly directed you should be able to do.

I have written code under a BSD license, and if anybody is mananging to do something productive with it, that's great. It is not possible to rip me off, as I do not expect or want anything. It is possible to be nice to me by sending me a fix if they find a bug, but even failing to be nice to me if they have the opportunity is not in any way ripping me off.

"It's basically proprietary software - with all the downsides of that"

Downsides like the food on my table or the time I can spend getting paid to work on open source support libraries?

" - given a leg-up by Open Source"

No. "Open Source" didn't do squat. I did. I wrote the code, and if I want to give it to whomever I please, what business is it of yours? Apparently some people want to give stuff away, but are bothered by the idea that someone else would profit from it. I'm not one of those people.

As a practical matter, I believe that by freely giving my code away, more people will be likely to use it, and whatever fraction take the option to be nice to me will add up to more people than if I put restrictions on it saying they have to be nice (and not even to me, but to hazily defined third parties). But if they don't take the opportunity to be nice to me, that's cool; maybe some anonymous fellow coders life was made slightly easier somewhere, and on the off chance karma exists, I get some. Or not. I'm giving it away. Getting nothing in return is completely acceptable; It is my expectation.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[dissy]

In what possible way could someone confuse what I wrote with stealing?

Just wait until the next bittorrent article, you'll get it.

And to answer: You are making the complaint that you can write an entire application, yet somehow can't also write the same functionality found in 'a tiny GPL library', and so the answer is not to write it yourself, or purchase it under a non-GPL license from the author, or find an already comercial-only library to pay for and include...
Instead the answer seems to complain how the GPL lib somehow hurts you because you can't use it without paying its price.

If there was two libraries, one where the cost is you can't include it in closed source software (GPL), and the other where the cost is say $10,000 (commercial), you have four options:
1- pick one and pay for it.
2- make your own at your own expense
3- pirate one of them
4- do without

Everyone (else, not you) seems to imply all businesses only want to choose #3, but at the same time don't want to get in any legal trouble from doing so, and so they just complain about that fact in guise of complaints against the GPL.

But then your post comes along and reads as if this is a _fault_ of the GPL, instead of the reality that this is exactly the goal of the GPL license.

Oh, and PS, I wasn't accusing you personally of stealing or copyright infringement.. it was meant as a generic reply, but more than that, as a zap at 90% of slashdots readership who don't believe copyright violations exist, but downloading a song is indeed stealing, thus the entire last paragraph of that post...

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[HiThere]

"Were a commercial interest involved, the law of gravity itself would be cast into doubt"
--- (I don't know who said it, but it isn't original. Google returns no hits.)

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[noidentity]

This misses much of the problem though. You can create a full application of original code, then be forbidden to statically link with a tiny GPL library or borrow a couple of routines without making your whole product fall under GPL. This isn't a commercializing GPL code or rebundling it.

And you wouldn't have this problem if you say tried to borrow a few routines from a proprietary library? If your product is closed, why do you expect people dedicated to open products to help you? And if your product is open, what's wrong with having to use the GPL if you use GPL code in it?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[noidentity]

If you link with LGPL code, you just have to make the source of the library available - in the for you used it. So if you bugfix or enhance the library, you must offer forward the bugfixes - and it makes sense to submit them back, so the community gains. But the LGPL does not require you make public the whole source of your app.

However, it does require that the user be able to make changes to the LGPL library and then relink with your program. The simplest way to allow this is to build the LGPL code as a shared library (DLL). I don't think many people realize that they can't just statically-link to an LGPL library from their closed-source program and release the source to the LGPL code, as that is nearly useless in allowing the user to make changes to the LGPL portion of the executable.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[HiThere]

OK. Use BSD then. Most GPL or LGPL libraries have rough equivalents that are BSD. Some of them need a bit of work, but that's expectable, because fewer people choose to work on BSD libraries.

You use what works well for you, and I'll use what works well for me. For me it's GPL. I'll admit I'm still dithering between GPLv3 and AGPL, but if you're going to use BSD my dithering won't affect you.

If you want a different license, contact me. I'll make you an offer I consider reasonable. If you're proposing to publish the code BSD, an my code would be a trivial part of your project, I'll probably just want an exchange (so that I'll be certain I get a copy of your code under a GPL compatible license).

You'll note I didn't mention any names? It seems plausible to me that most GPL projects would reason this way. I certainly would.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[drdrgivemethenews]

Companies that make extensive use of BSD code, or wind up making extensive amounts of money from BSD-containing proprietary code, are often guilted into putting improvements back to the BSD code base, supporting/employing BSD contributors, or in some other way contributing.

Granted, guilt isn't a perfect motivator, but neither is a well-crafted license, as can be seen by the number of Linux scofflaws out there.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[rtfa-troll]

I don't see how licensing the code under the GPL is any sort of safety net for Dev Ltd in comparison to the BSD licence, given that it wouldn't prevent a potential competitor who might get hold of the code from offering that code under the exact same terms, but without the cost overhead of actually having to do the development work.

The trick is that you can use this for price differentiation. Some customers want full control and are willing to pay. Others want the code as cheap as possible and don't care. Give them a discount if they take GPL. That way you can be sure that they just make normal use of it.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[2short]

"OK. Use BSD then."
I do.

  "Most GPL or LGPL libraries have rough equivalents that are BSD."
Yes, that is my experience as well.

" Some of them need a bit of work, but that's expectable, because fewer people choose to work on BSD libraries."

That's the very opposite of my experience, but if you say yours is different, I won't argue.

"If you want a different license, contact me. I'll make you an offer I consider reasonable. If you're proposing to publish the code BSD, an my code would be a trivial part of your project, I'll probably just want an exchange (so that I'll be certain I get a copy of your code under a GPL compatible license)."

If I were publishing it under BSD, you could use it under GPL regardless.

But actually, I'd be proposing to link your code into a closed source project that includes code under various licenses, some of which I couldn't give you source to even if I wanted to. If I had your code under a BSD license and I made fixes/improvements I'd probably share. to be nice and because it's in my interests: you'll get fixes from more people than just me, and put them all together into a next version, and I'll want my fixes in there. But if you were willing to give it to me BSD, there'd be no point in having gone with the GPL in the first place.
    So the other option is for me to give you money for a copy of the code that I promise not to release, and which then becomes part of the couldn't-share-if-I-wanted-to problem. I've actually done this deal with a GPL lib in the past (as well as plain old commercial ones). But you're less likely to get fixes that way. If I pay, you'll more likely just get bug reports.
    It is my belief that many people who use GPL expect it to do things it doesn't, and secure benefits (for them) that it won't. In short, I think for most people GPL walls your code off from use with too much other code for too little benefit.

But in any case, absolutely use what works for you. I don't know you or what you want from your license, so it is entirely possible GPLv3 or AGPL does exactly what you want, in which case you should use them. It's unlikely I'll wind up using your code or contributing to it if you do. I realize there may be considerations more important to you than the theoretical possibility of my contributing to your project (even considering how amazingly fabulous I am) :)

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Vicegrip]

The GPL is in fact quite useful to people interested in charging for the commercial/proprietary use of their work. If that is less accomodating to people wanting a free ride, that's their problem.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[zotz]

"Uh, yeah, that's correct, the people I'm referring to are the people who choose not to use MIT, Apache, BSD, MPL, GPL, LGPL, etc. You're correct. All the best."

Have a good one.

drew

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[LateArthurDent]

THEN DON'T USE IT

We won't. That's the whole point being made here

So both sides agree, why are you fighting? The whole point of licensing your work as GPL is that you're interested in eliminating proprietary software. If you want to write proprietary software, I don't want you to use my code. I'm not "happy" because my awesome work wasn't enough to make you turn away from proprietary work, but I'm ok with that. You're not "happy" because you had to go find an alternate solution either by making it yourself or finding something with a more agreeable license, but you're ok with that too.

We're both ok with the current situation and neither of us would be better suited by changing. I don't achieve my goals by switching away from the GPL because my goal isn't getting proprietary software to use my code. You don't achieve your goals by using my code because you don't want to release things under the GPL. Basically, there's nothing wrong with your decision to not use GPL software and there's nothing wrong with my decision to license software as GPL. Discussion is over, what's next?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[LateArthurDent]

Blah, of course it would not make it harder than if no code existed, but it could make it significantly easier if a reasonable license was used.

So, you write code that is proprietary, but does what I want. I want to use your code. Damnit, your license won't allow me to do so. You will license it for me for lots of cash though, but the cost is too high. I guess I'm going to have to go write my own, but gosh darnit, it would make it significantly easier if you had chosen a reasonable license. It's exactly the same situation as the GPL, but in that case the "cost" is not directly monetary, but instead a requirement of open sourcing any derivative code you distribute.

Listen if EVERYONE were required to make their license BSD, there would be no need for the GPL. As it is, your complaint that code has already been written but you can't use it is precisely the reason the GPL exists. It's trying to ensure that if you write code using it, that everybody else can make use of it as well. If you make it proprietary, the code has been written, but nobody else gets to use it. That's a situation Stallman didn't like, and apparently neither do you, so what exactly is it that you dislike about the GPL?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[jeanph01]

No that's not it. I program little apps for my work. These apps are for internal usage only. When I'm in trouble i look into Google for example of code that resolve the problem I have. I have to be extra careful when I copy-paste that solution to be sure I don't infringe on anybody right or license. In this case, I do not know if I can take the GPL code or not so I do not take it. Am I right or not, I don't know.
If I can take the code, then that is not clear in my mind. If i can not, then my move is correct.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[LateArthurDent]

BSD people just want the code to be used for the good of society; if you make money off it, so what.

That's fine with me. What I don't get are the anti-GPL BSD people. So you have a goal, the other developers have the goal of promoting code to be publicly available no matter what. They're different goals, there should be different licenses.

I also remember the fiasco a while back when BSD people got up at arms when some wireless driver code got placed in the Linux kernel under the GPL. So it's ok to take the code, create a derivative of it and re-license the derivative with a proprietary license, but you can't take the code, and re-license the derivative as GPL? What gives?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[socceroos]

"Free to be abused" and "Free" are two entirely different things. Contemplate them.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[smash]

I guess the point of that is - why relicense it under the GPL? There was no need, as BSD code is permitted to be used anywhere be it in GPL products or commercial.

It was already BSD licensed, all relicensing under the GPL did was take away people's ability to use it in commercial products - which is NOT what the original author and copyright owner intended.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[PitaBred]

Dude. Read the license. The GPL only applies if you distribute the applications... if it's internal use only, it doesn't matter. It's a very simple to read license... it's meant to be accessible to everyone. If there's a chance you think your company's gonna try to sell your work you might think twice, but there's no reason to not use GPL code if you're just solving a problem. The only thing you have to do with the GPL is let anyone that gets the end executable also have the source code. That's not a horrible thing.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[dave87656]

the article is right. There are many software/hardware product companies who are shunning Linux and the GPL.

That's the beauty of Open Source. You can choose the License which is best for your needs.

The lack of IP protection (nee, the deliberate elimination of IP protection) is not something companies who innovate are likely to embrace.

That's true, but only if you choose to use GPL'd code. You can't have it both ways -- free lunch and then charge others (or restrict others) for the free lunch you got.

But, if you need an OS which doesn't encumber you, you can use FreeBSD.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Daniel Phillips]

As a developer, I will never release software under the GPL, but I will release software under actually free licenses like BSD or Apache.

Suite yourself, however let me provide just one data point: the two best open source version control systems, Git and Mercurial, are both released under GPL, while the relatively lame Subversion is released under Apache license. Why do you suppose that is?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[jeanph01]

thanks for the input!

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[solferino]

Which side you believe is the side you already believe.

No, which side I believe is whichever side gets their facts right. Which certainly isn't you. Let me address some errors in your first paragraph:

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.

No, they don't because they would never call the GPL an open source license. 'Open Source' is a term used by a group who came after the FSF and who want to distinguish themselves from the FSF mostly by playing down the idea of freedom. No Free Software 'zealot' would describe the GPL as an Open Source license. That you conflate the two movements show you haven't done your homework.

They frequently point out problems they perceive with other licenses like BSD without conceding that their perspective may not be applicable/correct/logical/reasonable.

Your very next sentence and you are wrong here too. The FSF maintains a list of licenses on their website and give their analysis of each one. They categorise the BSD license as a Free Software license and a perfectly acceptable one to use. From their discussion:

Modified BSD license: This is the original BSD license, modified by removal of the advertising clause. It is a simple, permissive non-copyleft free software license, compatible with the GNU GPL.

And then you finish your paragraph with two incendiary sentences:

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.

Yeah great, anyone can describe someone as a fascist. It's a great word to spit out. But do you have any concept of the history of the word and the basic political position it describes? Because if you do, I would like you to show any one way in which the FSF could be described as fascist (hint: show that they are in favour of a high degree of co-operation between corporate interest and government). And no they do not work for the greater good of the OSS movement because they were around more than ten years before that movement and its aims are not theirs. And finally to describe their actions as only self-serving would be funny if it wasn't so deluded as they have clearly served the whole world by making a massive library of software free to use without anything asked in return. Anything at all.

People like you who want to attack the FSF should first get your facts right. It is tiresome to see the FSF continually misrepresented. They have pages and pages of text on their website, clearly and rationally spelling out their position. Are you just simply too lazy to read it? Either that, or would you like to declare a personal interest? Because you have provided absolutely no rigorous argument against any of their positions.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[True Grit]

I'll admit I'm still dithering between GPLv3 and AGPL

Hi,

I'm just curious about why your dithering. From my quick look at them, isn't AGPL3 and GPL3 almost identical except for section 13, and since the same section in the GPL explicitly allows the combination of GPL & AGPL in the same project, it almost doesn't matter which one you use? Or are you just referring to which one you would automatically use as your "default license"?

Is there some other significant difference/connotation that I haven't noticed between them?

Thanks,

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[dpastern]

The only reason why Apache, MIT and BSD licences are becoming popular is because greedy large corporations can see the ability to rape the code for no cost and not have to do anything in return. Of course the corporations love it and say that these licenses are friendly to them! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see which one the greedy bastards will go for.

The GPL keeps the bastards honest and they don't like that.

So, before you spew your bullshit propaganda out, think about your logic first.

As to IP, software patents are illegal, but have been largely ignored by the corrupt US processes. Software is mathematically based, and the law clearly states that mathematically based items cannot be patented. If only a US government had the balls to actually do something about it. But then, most of the large software companies in the world are US owned, and US based, and it benefits the US economically to support software patents and shove them down the rest of the worlds throats. Well, the rest of the world that doesn't have a spine that is. The US is nothing but a political, economical and physical bully, doing things to ONLY suit its own greedy needs.

Dave

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[True Grit]

guilt isn't a perfect motivator, but neither is a well-crafted license

Guilt doesn't have the power of copyright law behind it....

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[fiontan]

Correlation is not causation. Skill as a developer is not related to skill in choosing distribution licenses.

But to extend your argument, why do you suppose even better version control systems, AccuRev and ClearCase (before IBM got it), are released under proprietary licenses? Assuming the quality of the product is at all related to the purpose of the license.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[True Grit]

For a recent application, I wanted to use the ExtJS framework because of how awesome it is. This is a commercial product I'm developing. So our choices were to use the GPL license for ExtJS, and release all of our code also, or pay ExtJS for a proprietary license and have the right to do whatever we want to do with our code. We chose the option where we pay ExtJS for their work.

You may not realize this, but in this example, the GPL worked exactly the way the ExtJS developers intended it to.

It's about the freedom to use the code that I write the way that I want to use it without having another license tell me what I can and can't do with my own code.

This is exactly what you got in this example. You paid them for a different license to get the freedom that you wanted. You got your freedom, they get to keep their freedom, so what exactly are you complaining about?

Are you complaining that the ExtJS devs *also* released under the GPL so that anyone willing to abide by its terms could use their stuff without paying? Is that not their *own* freedom to do so? Are you placing your own freedom over theirs? Is that fair?

then you're missing the point and you don't understand business.

If you put yourself in the shoes of the ExtJS devs and thought about it from their perspective, maybe you'd begin to understand why some people use/prefer the GPL

Besides, judging from the ExtJS website, and the fact they made a nice chunk of change out of their transaction with your company, they also seem to understand business... yet they obviously aren't afraid of the GPL.

I'm sorry but I think you need to polish your anti-GPL argument some more, and FYI, next time don't use as an example GPL software that has been successfully commercialized by a for-profit company.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[amicusNYCL]

You may not realize this, but in this example, the GPL worked exactly the way the ExtJS developers intended it to.

Yeah, I know. I didn't say the GPL doesn't work, just that it doesn't work for business. We're a business, and it made more sense not to use the GPL. I guess you could also say that the GPL does work for business because it encourages business customers to pay for a different license instead of using the GPL.

This is exactly what you got in this example. You paid them for a different license to get the freedom that you wanted. You got your freedom, they get to keep their freedom, so what exactly are you complaining about?

I'm not complaining at all. I'm trying to illustrate why the GPL does not work for business purposes. Almost everyone who uses the GPL version of ExtJS does so on a private project or personal site, not for anything they intend to distribute to customers that pay for their work. Personally, I love ExtJS and plan to continue using it with anything I can. If it's a commercial project, I'll pay them again for another license. I have absolutely zero problem doing that, I would actually prefer to pay them for their work instead of taking it for free just because I think their work is of such high quality.

Are you complaining that the ExtJS devs *also* released under the GPL so that anyone willing to abide by its terms could use their stuff without paying? Is that not their *own* freedom to do so? Are you placing your own freedom over theirs? Is that fair?

..welcome to the Twilight Zone. No, I love the fact that anyone can use ExtJS without paying for it. I use it on several smaller projects under the GPL. I also love the fact that, as a business, I'm not required to use the GPL. Not being required to use the GPL is a good thing. Having the freedom to also use the GPL is also a good thing. Again, I'm not complaining about anything, I'm explaining why businesses do not use the GPL for things that they want to distribute and make money on. ExtJS recognized this fact and offered a proprietary license in addition to the GPL.

If you put yourself in the shoes of the ExtJS devs and thought about it from their perspective, maybe you'd begin to understand why some people use/prefer the GPL

Good god. Again, I use the GPL is non-commercial projects. Works great, I get other people's changes, other people get mine. For commercial projects on the other hand, the GPL doesn't work. This is the reason why ExtJS offers a proprietary license. If the GPL worked great for commercial products, ExtJS would not need to offer a proprietary license, would they? This isn't about being afraid of the GPL, it's about knowing when it works and when it doesn't.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[True Grit]

How is this payment to the original author?

They get modifications and improvements to their code contributed back to them. Is that really so hard to see?

I need to make the source for the modified kernel available to my customers, which they are free to redistribute, but the greater linux kernel community has no such right to the source unless they purchase one of the machines.

Or one, just one, of your customers uploads a copy of your source to the net somewhere, which they are free to do.

Yes, your example is theoretically possible, but it obviously isn't a common occurrence. A much more common example is modified GPLed stuff being used in-house, and thus never released because its never distributed, and yet that has not hurt the popularity or use of GPLed software either.

I see comments saying that the GPL means people have to give back. This is not, and has never been the case.

Does finding a (rare) exception to a rule, automatically invalidate the rule? If this were true then the more common exception I gave above would have already invalidated it.

So, how much can you trust open source software?

More than closed source, since at least I can read it.

Can you be sure it isn't infringing someones copyright?

If I can read it, so can others. If there's a problem, it is much more likely to come out eventually.

The answer is usually no, unless you wrote it yourself.

Even writing it yourself isn't a guarantee you won't be sued. See SCO v Linux.

As a developer, I will never release software under the GPL, but I will release software under actually free licenses like BSD or Apache.

That's called freedom of choice, and yes, its a good thing... unless you object to others choosing differently.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[HiThere]

If your code is publicly published, then I agree, the BSD license does what you say. But just as with the GPL, BSD code doesn't always end up publicly published.

I can't speak as to how "most people who use the GPL" expect with any authority. I don't know most of them. In my experience most of the developers I know/have known that develop code under the GPL expect continuing access to updates. I'll agree that the GPL doesn't guarantee this, but it makes it a more reasonable expectation.

Projects generally have an optimal number of contributors. What the optimum is depends partially on the managerial skill of the directors and partially on the technical skills of the contributors. And a whole lot on the degree of agreement over goals of the project community. At the moment my project appears to me to have an optimal size of 1. I don't have the code is good enough shape that I can demonstrate what I'm trying to do, and I keep changing my mind about details of implementation to achieve the goal. Fundamental details.

I *would* like to be able to talk about it with others, but I don't know any place where I can. My friends all seem to end up being system administrators or mathematicians, and I can't really talk about it to them.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[True Grit]

Because the code may actually exist somewhere else other than GPL code. If it does not exist, there may be people elsewhere working to bring it into existence under a different license.

This is just a variation of the GP's point. If the code is under a license you can't use, then it effectively doesn't exist, and with a proprietary license that you couldn't afford, you'd have exactly the same problem.

That's a lot different than having hundreds of companies reinventing the wheel in isolation.

Guess what hundreds of companies did back when there was no open source software community at all?

The current state of affairs is at least a major improvement.

Whereas if I had reinvented the wheel, I seriously doubt the company would have let me make it available to others even though we weren't a software house.

If your company wasn't in the business of monetizing software, then they shouldn't have had a problem using GPLed software. I think you've left something out of your example, because as it stands, I can't tell what the problem was.

I definitely would have had no time at all to support or maintain it for others.

There is *no* FOSS license that requires the author to provide support or maintenance. How is this a GPL-specific problem?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Darinbob]

If your company wasn't in the business of monetizing software, then they shouldn't have had a problem using GPLed software. I think you've left something out of your example, because as it stands, I can't tell what the problem was.

This was for embedded systems; these still go out to customers. Even though this may not be from a software house that sells CDs in a box, products are still sold and the end users are not allowed to see the full source code which contains trade secrets, and for various reasons may be prohibited by law from modifying the operation of the devices. The source code is all statically linked together, essentially making the LGPL nearly as restrictive as full GPL.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[True Grit]

I didn't say the GPL doesn't work, just that it doesn't work for business.

http://extjs.com/company

Any more overly-broad, sweeping generalizations that you want to make?

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[amicusNYCL]

Yeah. Clint Eastwood sucks.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[mcvos]

When you release BSD software, you get equal support to all the other people who cooperate with you. However, your competitors have a possibility to get a specific advantage. They can take your software, use it as you do, but add their own proprietary changes which they do not share.

This means that companies should not contribute to BSD projects without considerable care. E.g. if a feature is basic and your competitor already has it in their products you can contribute it because your competitor won't benefit. If a feature is advanced and product differentiating then you should never release it to a BSD project.

What you're saying here is that GPL is similar to proprietary software: it protects the original creator of the software. But as a customer, I don't care about the original creator; I care about myself, and my abiliy to hire people to change my expensive custom software in whatever way I need. If the code I want added to it is only availlable as proprietary code, then I still want that option open (athough a BSD/Apache style license is ofcourse preferable because it gives me more freedom over future changes). GPL seriously denies me full control, which makes GPL very unsuitable to many businesses.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[mcvos]

Now if a company doesn't like this way of doing things, they are free to contact the original author(s) to license the code under different terms, one where money would more than likely have to change hands from the company to the author(s), thus putting up the costs, especially if a piece of GPL code has had a few modifications in which case EVERY one of those authors would have to be contacted and a licence agreed between each and every one of them (not needing to re-invent the wheel).

Well put. That's exacty why GPL is not suitable for many business enironments. BSD or Apache keeps the power with the customer, which means they're more suitable for expensive tailor made custom code. GPL is better for stuff you want to give away for free and never expect anyone to make money on (although I'm sure some people still manage to do that).

It's exactly the viral aspect of GPL that makes it unsuitable. It directly disqualifies lots of other software from working with it, and that restricts the freedom of the customer.

The only conclusion I can come to is that all those who moan about the GPL are those who would rather not pay the author(s) for their work - get something for nothing.

No, you said it better before: the problem is that paying for existing GPL code is too complex. But the real place for open source commercial code is code written specifically for a customer. That customer already paid for it, and wants freedom to use it the way he likes, including combining it with software that may have a different license. GPL doesn't allow for that, other licenses do.

Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[Deanalator]

I publish under different open source licenses. To me, GPL code is just proprietary code that I am able to read, but not use.

How is that any different than Microsoft's open source licenses? If I want to see how an app works, lack of source code isn't going to stop me from just reversing it, and getting a general view of the code structure.

It just annoys me that people say that GPL is more free than public domain code (which I hear a lot).

Commercial != Proprietary

[Anonymous Coward]

"...one of the many organizations now offering an open source license with more generous commercial terms than GPL."

How can there be people yet that confuse the terms? Repeat with me: GPL license is commercial-friendly, GPL license is commercial-friendly, GPL license is commercial-friendly. (I can sell the software, sell services... in the end, commercial revenue). Didn't you want to say "proprietary" instead?

Re:Commercial != Proprietary

[Hangin10]

And then a bigger company comes along, does what's allowed in the license, and makes all the money while giving you none because they have a far greater ability to market YOUR product.

Re:Commercial != Proprietary

[julesh]

How can there be people yet that confuse the terms? Repeat with me: GPL license is commercial-friendly, GPL license is commercial-friendly, GPL license is commercial-friendly. (I can sell the software, sell services... in the end, commercial revenue). Didn't you want to say "proprietary" instead?

From the point of view of the ISV, the two equate to the same thing. It's very hard to profit from selling software if you can't make that software proprietary, because otherwise your potential customers will just copy it from each other.

Re:Commercial != Proprietary

[stephanruby]

Yes, but then the phrase would read "more generous [proprietary] terms than GPL", and that just wouldn't sound good.

Re:Might as well say it first

[Hangin10]

* standard libraries always linked dynamically.

I'm totally to brunk to post on /.

Here is a comparison table for those interested

[bogaboga]

Folks at KDE have a comparison table for various software licenses. The table might throw some light on the reason why the GPL is where it is today.

Re:Here is a comparison table for those interested

[CarpetShark]

That looks like an outdated version of the comparisons that have been available for a long time at GNU.org. But no, taken out of context like that, they're not very informative at all. Simply saying "allowed" beside an attribute is pointless if you don't discuss the pros and cons of that attribute. Try gnu.org/philosophy, and compare with the license percentages from TFA for a better explanation. GNU licenses have about 60+ percent, whilst the nearest rivals have about 9%, for good reason.

Erroneous article

[pnot]

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

False; they simply have to make it available.

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.

False; RMS himself used to charge $150 for tapes of the GNU system. The GPL FAQ specifically states that you may charge for software under the terms of the GPL. Here's a current example of GPL software being sold for money.

So in short: either they didn't do their homework, or they're deliberately spreading FUD.

Re:Erroneous article

[FishWithAHammer]

It says that you can charge for it, but that doesn't make it at all effective.

RMS charged for tapes when it was impractical to toss around the programs in no time flat via the Internet. Now, unless you charge a million bucks for that first copy, you're going to lose your shirt if just one client decides to pass it around.

Re:Erroneous article

[matria]

That doesn't change the fact that there are outright false statements here.

Re:Erroneous article

[FishWithAHammer]

No shit. I didn't say they weren't false.

Re:Erroneous article

[julesh]

"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."

False; RMS himself used to charge $150 for tapes of the GNU system.

OK, so the sentence was badly phrased. What he should have said is "you've got to let other people give it away for free, and you've got to give other people the source code so they can give it away for free as well." It makes no practical difference.

Re:Erroneous article

[chrb]

It makes a huge difference. There are companies out there that charge thousands of Euros for GPL software, and are highly profitable (e.g. custom GCC chain. That wouldn't be possible if Kiewe's statement that you "have to give it away for free" were true.

Re:Erroneous article

[GWBasic]

False; RMS himself used to charge $150 for tapes of the GNU system. The GPL FAQ specifically states that you may charge for software under the terms of the GPL. Here's a current example of GPL software being sold for money.

How long did it take RMS to make the tapes? Was it a case where he just didn't want to go through the trouble of making lots of tapes?

Re:Might as well say it first

[QuantumG]

Yeah, cause all that litigation that the SFLC has done has been for big business.

Idiot.

Alex King is a freetard moron

[ZakuSage]

"Adam King said... matthews, Make a post on one of those accounts right now and I will believe it is you. "

Re:who gives a fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true. The only thing I love more than sharing code is sharing my ass.

Let's guess who the poster is...

[True Grit]

Lesse, midnight on a boring middle-of-the-week Wednesday, just got through watching an old rerun of Clint Eastwood in A Fistful Of Dollars on the WGN Late-Nite-At-The-Westerns, but there's nothing good on now, and nothing else to watch on DVD, so what is kdawson's answer to this dilemma?

"Eureka! A flame-fest between the BSD Zealots and the GPL Fanatics, that ought to keep me entertained for the next 4 or 5 hours!"

[rummages through the inbox looking for good dry kindling, a match, some dynamite, and ...]

Come on, Guys and Gals, this is a setup piece for a flame-war, if I've *ever* seen one, you've *all* been had...

stop whining and respect their wishes

[speedtux]

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.

This is commonplace in the commercial world. Sun, for example, was making such claims for years for anybody who downloaded the Java source code. The GPL's claims are quite mild in comparison.

And why is it that people whine so much about GPL'ed software, something you get for free and with the best of intentions, but you don't bat an eye when companies do this for their overpriced and proprietary software.

Re:stop whining and respect their wishes

[Magic5Ball]

And why is it that people whine so much about GPL'ed software, something you get for free and with the best of intentions, but you don't bat an eye when companies do this for their overpriced and proprietary software.

In part because the proprietary motive is clear (it heavily/exclusively favours the publisher) and most proprietary software publishers make no complex and often unclear moral claims about being freerer than software licensed under the other free and non-free licenses. By contrast, discussions such as this one among individuals who are exceptionally well versed in software licenses (as compared to the vast majority computer users and administrators) provide continuous evidence that GPL is not yet a known, stable quantity for many potential users.

Like proprietary licenses, MIT/BSD licenses (heavily/exclusively favouring the user) get little debate because they are unambiguous in both their intents and their effects.

Re:stop whining and respect their wishes

[maxwell demon]

Well, the GPL is quite easy:
1. Don't restrict usage in any way.
2. Restrict redistribution and derived works in a way ensuring point 1 holds also for redistributed and derived works.

Re:stop whining and respect their wishes

[gbjbaanb]

Like proprietary licenses, MIT/BSD licenses (heavily/exclusively favouring the user) get little debate because they are unambiguous in both their intents and their effects.

I think they get little debate because people who want to use them do so, the GPL gets debate because people who want to use it don't want to have to pay the price demanded for its use, you'll notice the debate always revolves around "but why can't I just", "why should I have to GPL *my* changes" etc, always forgetting that they're happily taking someone else's code.

Re:stop whining and respect their wishes

[fiontan]

The nethack license http://www.opensource.org/licenses/nethack.php seems to do this fine, without appearing viral.

Re:stop whining and respect their wishes

[init100]

Like proprietary licenses, MIT/BSD licenses (heavily/exclusively favouring the user) get little debate because they are unambiguous in both their intents and their effects.

I don't really think that the many heated debates over the GPL is due to any ambiguities in the license, but rather because of very different opinions on copyleft and other aspects of the GPL.

Re:Might as well say it first

[Hangin10]

A) First time I've ever seen this SFLC. (Can you point me to other /. articles about this SFLC. I wiki'd, but it reads like an ad).
B) Seems like an assumption that they would choose to help. After all, they can only help so many, and its not like they get paid (unless you pay them with winnings or something).

Re:who gives a fuck?

[V!NCENT]

First they ignore you, then laugh at you, then hate you... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMzJo_q2vhk)

We're now at the fighting part. That's the last milestone according to Red Hat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBUgEx_91BU) at least. It won't be long until FLOSS wins.

Just. Give. It. Up.

Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[NotQuiteReal]

Fascism come from the opposite direction from where you would think...

True freedom will leave me alone, and it will leave it to me to do what is right. If you tell me what is right, it is not. When you cram-down-my-throat, what you think is right, well, that, prima facie is, just wrong.

If you invent the knife and then tell me I can only use it if I don't draw blood, why give it to me? I can decide if I am fighting off a wild beast to save my children or carving art with it.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[ogl_codemonkey]

If you invent the knife and then tell me I can only use it if I don't draw blood, why give it to me? I can decide if I am fighting off a wild beast to save my children or carving art with it.

Perhaps I think it is the wild beast's right to eat your children. Would you still rather carve your art with a splintered rock? The point at hand, however, is not what you may or may not use the knife for; it's how you can modify it, and if you need to show other people how to do that if they think your modifications are useful.

If I come up with an easier way for making knives, and show you how - I'm sharing my idea with you, for whatever reason; but let's just say that in whatever society or tribe this is, we live better if more people can have knives. What would piss me off, in this situation, is if you came up with a way of strapping my knives to a stick to fight with less danger to yourself; but wouldn't show me how.

If you then start selling your 'my-knife on a stick' (okay, let's call it a spear) because you can make knives easily using my process; but hide how the knife is reliably attached, you've created a competitive advantage for yourself based on my work.

Lets say that a third person comes up with a stronger, lighter stick. He wants to put a knife on it, to make Spear 2.0, and I show him how to make the knives; but he doesn't know how to attach them. I don't know how, either. In fact nobody does; but you.

Now, we have the opportunity to make a better weapon for everyone, but nobody wants to ask you how to bind the knife to the stick, because you're likely to rip off the new stick idea as well, and you probably wouldn't show us the right way, anyhow, because you want to be rewarded for other people's work.

The rest of this really hinges on you. You could share the information, and we'd all live better because we'd be the best armed tribe in the region. There'd still be work making the spears; and since you've been doing this the longest you can probably still make the most money or whatever if you want.

You can derive whatever moral from this you like; but the upshot is that ultimately we're going to rally the tribe to snatch you in your sleep and torture the information out of you with blunt sticks and short knives; err, I mean, get everybody to use a system of interoperating open source software components.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, I don't get the business with the sticks and knives.

Could you repost this using a car analogy?

Thanks!

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[rohan972]

Nobody is going to put you in the GNU/Death Camps.

So you admit they exist then.

You are correct, nobody will put you in them. Indeed, you must assemble the GNU/Death Camp yourself. The chain-link fence, razor wire, etc. are available for you to use under the terms of the GNU/DCL. If you are having trouble with assembly or use of GNU/Death Camps, don't even think about posting questions here unless you've RTFM, googled it and searched the mailing list archives.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[chrb]

Sounds like you just summed up EULAs and copyright law in general.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[wolverine1999]

In fact nobody forces the developer to use the GPL. If I'm writing code I'm free to choose whatever license suits me.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[ceoyoyo]

If it was just a matter of the GPL existing, it would be fine.

The problem is, there are a bunch of zealots behind it who think that anyone who DOESN'T use it is a fascist, and are more than willing to go around saying so. Stallman has said that he considers anything other than the GPL to be unethical. If he had his way everyone would be FORCED to use the GPL.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[FlyingBishop]

It's just a Death Camp. All the GNU yahoos did was put together some basic tools that help you put it together. If they had actually put the effort into making the chain-link fence, razor wire, etc. no one would have had to put a death camp together. But unfortunately, 20 years since Stallman started building the first one, and all we have is the Hurd Hut. The thing doesn't even have a furnace. I mean, really, how can you kill anyone with that?

Stop this nonsense, and just call them death camps. Those idiots over at the FSF don't deserve one tiny bit of credit for this. Anyone can put one together, it's actually building the materials that's the real work.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[halivar]

You must be using Gentoo Death Camp. I suggest a prepackaged distro. Don't even think about Death Camp From Scratch; you have to make the chain-link fence yourself from metal wire.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[jedidiah]

"The hairy scary man was mean to me, waaahh!"

You sound like some crackpot from the Family Research Council.

They make lots of bogus noises about oppression too.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[ceoyoyo]

Wow. You win the day's contest for most useless post. Do you have an actual argument and can you express it coherently without resorting to idiotic insults?

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[david_thornley]

Have you gone to the Gnu site and read the philosophy columns? They read to me like rms wrote all of them. He's got a distinctive style.

In those, he discusses other licenses, and under what circumstances he recommends you use them. In the GPL FAQ, there are several answers that say you might as well use another license.

It is true that the FSF and Gnu project strongly prefer the GPL and variants thereof, but that's their practice.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[ceoyoyo]

I have yes. I've also read the essays, clearly written by Stallman (his name is at the top as the author) that basically say anybody writing proprietary software is an evil, unethical bastard. (yes, he's slightly more subtle than that)

It appears to me that Stallman has softened his approach somewhat over the years, so maybe you're reading later essays and I was reading earlier ones.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[Deanalator]

It hurts the greater free software community by being an exclusive silly hats only club that doesn't even share code with other free licences.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[jedidiah]

My "pointless drivel" is a pretty good summary of the relevant whining.

Being criticized is the price of living in a free society.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[ceoyoyo]

And having your post that consists entirely of name calling called pointless drivel is the price of writing pointless drivel and pretending it's a rebuttal.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[rohan972]

The thing doesn't even have a furnace. I mean, really, how can you kill anyone with that?

killall -9 anyone

RTFM. People like you drive me nuts, if you can't be bothered to do anything to solve your own problem why should I help you for nothing. Don't bother me with any more questions like this.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[david_thornley]

Ah, I was unclear. Stallman, to the best of my knowledge, still considers proprietary software to be evil. However, I don't see that he's ever complained about there being other free software licenses.

What you had said was that Stallman thought everybody should use the GPL, which isn't true. He does want everybody to use a free software license.

Re:Yup, beware of fascists... they are over THERE!

[ceoyoyo]

Yes, in an ideal world where Stallman won and making proprietary software was punishable by slow death, I think he'd be just fine with everybody using whatever free license they wanted. But in the meantime I think he's warned against using non-GPL style licenses (and even the LGPL). Releasing code under licenses without the GPL open source derivatives requirement is aiding and abetting proprietary software makers, after all.

Indian Giver? You insensitive clod!

[Weedhopper]

My mother was an indian giver, you insensitive clod!

Re:Indian Giver? You insensitive clod!

[Anonymous Coward]

My mother was an indian giver

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

And, um, what's your mom's number?

Re:Might as well say it first

[Sir Homer]

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...

[julian67]

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.

Open Core License

[blackorzar]

In the debate between BSD like licenses and GPL licenses, we have to look a new way to license commercial GPL software: A limited functional GPL version without commercial support plus a full-featured commercial version with support.

Let's remember the most succesful open source database software (and commercial) is GPL: MySQL.

The MySQL model have been changing to a somewhat popular dual-license style, that is been called open core license, you can read an excellent article from Mathew Aslett here: http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2008/09/01/andrew-lampitt-defines-open-core-licensing/

The described model is used on some open source projects like Hyperic, Zenoss, Groundwork, Mindtouch and more coming.

Re:Might as well say it first

[Hangin10]

"Big business historically have been the target of GPL lawsuits."

That is exactly what I meant in that most people can't afford to sue. I don't dispute your last paragraph, but it still means you need to be large company to accomplish such a feat. Otherwise you are, at this point in time, rather better off staying completely proprietary and creating a coolness cult around your product (even though Apple uses plenty of free software themselves. portions of LLVM come to mind.).

Moderate Article As Troll -1

[bmo]

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

surveyed some two dozen software vendors!?

[ysth]

Why, oh why would you choose a license based on a popularity contest? Pick the licenses that meet your legal needs.

Re:All-or-nothing mentality of the GPL is the prob

[Desler]

But companies also want to integrate their freely-licensed software with their commercial software.

And what would stop them? The copyright holder to GPL code can do whatever they hell they want to do with it. The terms of the GPL apply to third parties who use the code.

Just wanted to point out...

[bonch]

Just wanted to point out how interesting it is that Slashdotters defend the GPL copyright license in GPL articles but bash copyright in piracy articles. You even use the word "plunder." Where is that pro-copyright attitude when it comes to defending the rights of content creators whose materials are being pirated via torrent sites?

Re:Just wanted to point out...

[iplayfast]

Maybe that's because there is more then one person writing comments.

Re:Just wanted to point out...

[Magic5Ball]

There's no internal contradiction. Both positions favour wide-spread copying and the rights of the content consumers to do things with the copyrighted materials. Externally, both positions have the effect of minimizing the production cost at the expense of greater transaction costs.

Re:Just wanted to point out...

[martin-boundary]

That's because piracy articles don't generally argue for the GPL. If they did, slashdotters would be praising them instead (BSDers wouldn't, but they're just grumpy by nature ;).

Re:Just wanted to point out...

[mpe]

That's because piracy articles don't generally argue for the GPL.

There's also the matter that articles about GPL violations tend involve commercial piracy. Whereas "piracy" articles tend to be about non commercial activities. This being a distinction copyright laws tend to make too.

Re:Just wanted to point out...

[jedidiah]

Let's see:

        Allows for unlimited non-commercial exploitation while limiting commercial exploitation.

Now what does that describe?

        1) The GPL?
        2) Current copyright?
        3) Slightly out of date Copyright (1970)?
        4) 1 & 3

Re:Might as well say it first

[Madsy]

I hope what you just wrote was a joke. In that case, disregard this post.

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.

Re:percentage of GPLd projects is irrelevant

[McSnarf]

Many business types can't get their brain around the concept of cooperation.

...while many hobbyists don't understand business. A lot of the discussion above reminded me of tree-hugging eco zealots. Living in their small, limited world, believing in what they do, even if they studied liberal arts (and try to turn "life sciences" into liberal arts).

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"?

Re:percentage of GPLd projects is irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:who gives a fuck?

[dword]

Hey, put down that chair!

Oh yeah?

[BlackSabbath]

It seems to me that some very successful companies are happily using GPL and LGPL in concert with commercial licensing. In fact, one company was so successful that they were bought by Nokia (I'm referring to Trolltech - developers of Qt):
http://qt.nokia.com/products/licensing
http://qt.nokia.com/about/open-source-business-model/open-source-business-model

Me thinks someone is stirring the pot and flinging the FUD around. There are those whose interests are best served by the free- and open-source movements eating each other. Don't get sucked in. ALL licenses share the same fundamental freedom which is: DON'T LIKE IT? DON'T USE IT!

Re:Oh yeah?

[itsybitsy]

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.

Red Hat?

[asdfndsagse]

Umm... Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) is in the S&P 500 and has a business based largely on GPL licenced code. I smell bullshit.

Re:Red Hat?

[brit74]

Red Hat makes money through support, training and consulting services. Sure, they write code, too, but their business isn't really based on writing software - except to the extent that it supports their other activities. The only reason their model works is because they're providing support for a complex software. What percentage of all software is complex enough that you can charge for support for it? Less than one percent?

Re:Red Hat?

[True Grit]

makes money through support, training and consulting services.

That does not contradict the GP's statement at all:

a business based largely on GPL licenced code

'Generous' commerical terms?

[IBBoard]

...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."

Surely that depends on your definition of "generous". The GPL is the most generous when it comes to commerce as a whole - anyone who makes a change and redistribute it then contributes to the world. That's very generous. It may not be profitable to the company to make its work public (assuming that it's using the wrong business model) but it's certainly generous to commerce and non-commerce alike.

Incorrect

[tlambert]

"If there was no concept of copyright in the world, then the GPL would not be needed to cancel this nonexistent concept out."

Incorrect. The GPL requires copyright to keep the source code available. Without the license, one of the ways people could pretend that copyright does not exist is by making modifications, compiling a binary, and not giving out the modified source code.

I personally happen to believe that this is largely unnecessary, since it's in a businesses long term self interest to give source changes back to the public maintainers in order to offload ongoing maintenance; otherwise, they're spending all their time playing integrate-the-changes. I typically pick the BSD license, which is as close to public domain as you can get while still avoiding the tort consequences that would otherwise attach without a hold-harmless. This is mostly because there are no civil protections for people who put things into the public domain directly.

But make no mistake: the GPL is more dependent on copyright law than the BSD license.

-- Terry

Re:Incorrect

[martin-boundary]

I disagree. Without the GPL in a copyrightless world, anybody could "steal" the modified source code as well, without legal repercussions. The closest example we have in our world are trade secrets. Protecting modified source code from prying eyes would be very expensive, causing a company to weigh the costs of protection against the consequences of sharing the source. With no laws to back prosecution, I contend that most software would fail the test.

Personally, I believe the BSD license makes sense for standards work. For example, it helps interoperability to have available implementations of complex protocols that companies find no objections to using. I consider authors of BSD software similar to philantropists, who instead of spending money spend their time and expertise in the hope of seeing a technology used widely.

But make no mistake: the GPL is more dependent on copyright law than the BSD license.

I agree, but only because the GPL attempts to subvert the spirit of copyright law much more than does the BSD license.

You can't have a lollipop!

[ZarathustraDK]

If you don't like the smell stay out of the kitchen.

Nobody is forcing you to use GPL except your own infatuation with certain GPL'ed libraries, so suck it down, or code it yourself.

The whining is tantamount to you creating a chassis for a car, then bitching at the local car-dealership because they refuse to let you sell their cars with your new chassis for your own profit.

Re:You can't have a lollipop!

[fiontan]

The whining is tantamount to you creating a chassis for a car, then bitching at the local car-dealership because they refuse to let you sell their cars with your new chassis for your own profit.

I don't get it. You can actually do this. If the dealerships refused to sell you cars at the normal price, then they are probably breaking the law.

The problem is not whether or not I need to use a GPL library, I'm more than happy to continue avoiding them. The problem is not whether you have the right to restrict my choice of license on my own work, the text of the GPL is reasonably clear on that. The problem is the attitude that you think you are doing the right thing by taking away my right to license my own work as I see fit. Really, the problem isn't a big one, but it does make the world a slightly sadder place.

Re:You can't have a lollipop!

[petrus4]

If you don't like the smell stay out of the kitchen.

Nobody is forcing you to use GPL except your own infatuation with certain GPL'ed libraries, so suck it down, or code it yourself.

This is an attitude based primarily on fear, and the predictably resulting malice.

Fortunately, there are enough people who are not sufficiently afflicted with blind terror of corporations, that the BSD and similar licenses are able to survive.

Ask yourself; if FOSS is really as vulnerable as the FSF believes, then how come the BSDs themselves have not yet been destroyed by corporations?

GPL is the kiss of death for commerical software

[djelovic]

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

Really bad example ...

[Pinky's Brain]

The Qt license in no way resembles MIT/X/BSD/Apache licenses ... it's basically the GPL to begin with, just intentionally made in such a way that it is almost impossible to create a fork with.

Re:Really bad example ...

[dbIII]

That misses the entire point - it was a rival licence from a small not paticularly influential group so there was no downside to attacking it. The actual content did not matter to those that never read it. The old KDE mailing lists and all the gnu stuff and the early gnome formation rants are still all on the net for anyone that is really interested in reading about this storm in a teacup of the embarrassing situation of attacking those that were with the open source movement instead of those opposed to it. What we saw was really just grubby academic politics that escaped out of the staffroom.

Licensing of news articles

[janwedekind]

I think he just wanted Infoworld to license their article under the Cc-by-nd license. Even the BBC agreed to grant him his wish.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7487060.stm

Re:GPL is the kiss of death for commerical softwar

[xororand]

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.

That's what the LGPL is for.

Who are the proponents of the GPL?

[pembo13]

> The proponents of GPL like to tell people that the world only needs one open source license

Who is this referring to? THE FSF alone suggests 3 different licenses. And I do not believe that you can simultaneously tell people the world only needs one license while suggesting 3.

In other news

[janwedekind]

Open source effectively prevents businesses from making money by giving away the code for free, says Fun Underberg, a lawyer specializing in law. We believe in a mixed-source environment and in a healthy coopetition. There is a healthy discussion to be had about software patents and intellectual property. With GPL software you can't keep selling copies and reaping the benefits of our programmers' creations. We tried to interview Richard Stallman and sell his article (not even his source code) but he refused flat-out and wanted to take control of his work. Does GPL still matter? Well, not to us! With the Apache license it is much easier to understand how you can make money without working.

Mischaracterisation of business

[akc]

The article mischaracterises the term "business" to mean the selling of software. In the sense that the GPL prevents one from making a varient and then selling it under a proprietrary licence that is true.

But what if your business is a user of software and not selling software (which I think is more true of business as a whole), then the GPL actually helps you, because it discourages (prevents) small proprietary forks, instead encouraging an ecosystem in which the majority of the effort goes into improving the public common base of software. So as a business user of software that business benefit more than it would if effort were drained of into lots of incompatible proprietary versions.

.

Re:percentage of GPLd projects is irrelevant

[howlingmadhowie]

this argument isn't particularly convincing. i find it hard to believe that a larger company couldn't make the product more cheaply if they wanted to. it is more likely that the larger company just thinks the market isn't lucrative enough to bother with.

Did you read the article?

[argent]

Those people who think they might be able to corner a market and get rich from their monopoly want you to use the BSD so that they can steal your code to use in their monopoly.

This article isn't about the Eclipse guys saying "hey, we want you to use X" (BTW, it's the Apache license, not BSD, they use), it's about the eclipse guys saying "hey, we want to use X ourselves". But that doesn't fit into your scare tactics so well.

Analogy Fail

[raehl]

Your analogy assumes the only options are GPL and Copyright - for sake of analogy, let's call them mushrooms and dirt. If you are hungry, and your options are mushrooms or dirt, mushrooms will look pretty good. But what if your options are mushrooms, dirt, chicken nuggets, BBQ ribs, or steak? Sure, if you're a fascist vegetarian, you might still go for the mushrooms, but no one is going to take you seriously if you just run around screaming about how all anyone should eat are mushrooms, because they're much better than dirt.

If copyright is the least free, then licenses like BSD are *MORE* free than GPL, because they grant an even WIDER license to use the software than the GPL does.

Re:Analogy Fail

[HiThere]

The catch is, more free to whom?

The BSD license is definitely more free to the person who accepts the source code under that license. But any freedom given to subsequent recipients of that code is strictly under the good wishes of that recipient. (I'm presuming that he's made changes that are significant enough that you can't just go to the original source.) The GPL, by disallowing the restriction of the rights of those later users is definitely restricting the recipients of the code...the restriction is that they must pass on the code (with any modifications) only if they also pass on all the rights under which they received it.

Sorry, but to me the GPL looks like a better trade-off. In most cases. It's the license that I'll use, and you can contact me if you want my code on other terms.

N.B.: MySQL did reasonably well under this arrangement for over a decade. (I don't know how much over, and I don't know whether it will weather it's current troubles.)
(I picked MySQL over Red Hat because Red Hat is primarily a distributor, whereas MySQL is primarily a software author. But there *were* other choices.)

Re:Analogy Fail

[zotz]

"If copyright is the least free, then licenses like BSD are *MORE* free than GPL, because they grant an even WIDER license to use the software than the GPL does."

Right, but what *important* rights/freedoms do they grant that the GPL doesn't? The right/freedom to get your users to eat dirt? That's the major one I keep seeing people wanting.

all the best,

drew

Re:percentage of GPLd projects is irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Missing the point

[chabotc]

There is a difference between the motivations of a community driven and corp initiated open source project.

A community is more likely to appreciate that the (L)GPL provides some guarantee's on contributions flowing back and the software not being used to fabricate commercial products that are without open source goodness.

Companies on the other hand often release the source code to something to drive adoption of the technology, if someone would go and do their own modifications and ship it in a product without contributing back, it's still a win for driving the tech.

With that in mind it's a fair statement to say that companies are more likely to go for a BSD/MIT/APL style license

Re:All-or-nothing mentality of the GPL is the prob

[zotz]

You are the first person I see that is making a point in keeping with the thoughts of the summary re the choosing of one of the three licenses over the GPL.

all the best,

drew

Re:Might as well say it first

[Otto]

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.

No, what's ridiculous is you thinking that you have the right to take other people's work (the GPL library) and use it however you damn well please without paying those people for their hard work.

The form of payment they want just happens for you to release your own source code too. If you don't agree to their terms of payment, what gives you the right to steal their hard work? Why do you want to be a thief?

So you're asking for a free lunch?

[Xenographic]

> If copyright is the least free, then licenses like BSD are *MORE* free than GPL, because they grant an even WIDER license to use the software than the GPL does.

As your own analogy points out, the people who hate the GPL are mad because you won't give them a free lunch. If that were not the case, they'd make their own damn lunch instead of complaining that you're a "fascist vegetarian" because all you have are mushrooms in the fridge when they want steak.

The GPL is about sharing: you have to share back. Why are we always being called selfish by the people who want something for nothing?

Re:So you're asking for a free lunch?

[dgatwood]

As your own analogy points out, the people who hate the GPL are mad because you won't give them a free lunch.

Not at all. Even among companies that never take anything from open source without giving back the changes, there's still an almost universal preference for the BSD license because the GPLv3 license has the potential to creating a patent loophole so big you could drive a truck through it.

The problem is that the patent loophole created by GPLv3 is not just for your legitimate customers, but also for anyone who gets the source from them, including those who get it solely for use as a patent shield.

Let's say company A is suing company B over patent infringement. Company B points out that they took one line of code (a comment, perhaps) from a GPLv3 project C that company A redistributed. Company B claims that because this uses project C source code, it is protected by company A's patent license. And this is the sort of thing that companies do to each other. Although company B is technically on the hook for a GPL infringement, it also knows that one line of code is unlikely to be sufficient for a copyright claim, in practice.

Another problem with that clause is the risk of changes to the project causing it to kick in unexpectedly. If a company develops a technology and patents it, then distributes a completely unrelated GPLv3 project, that GPLv3 project could add similar functionality that violates the patent. If the company doesn't notice the inclusion of that infringing technology before it distributes a new version that contains the infringing code, for all practical purposes, that company has just lost control of the patent. This means that a company with patents would have to perform a complete patent review every time it ships a new version of any GPLv3 package. That's an expensive proposition, and would quickly exceed the cost of rewriting most software from scratch.

It's not about not wanting a free lunch. It's about the GPL massively overstepping and posing a perceived risk to unrelated intellectual property.

In my experience, the GPL almost never causes a company to push changes back if it otherwise would not. Many such companies ignore the license; the rest simply reject the software and rewrite it. Either way, a company either contributes back to open source or it doesn't, and no license is likely to cause a company that doesn't to do so without a fight. As a result, in the projects I've looked at, the GPL has consistently led to less sharing than the BSD license; companies see too many red flags, so they end up recreating equivalent functionality themselves, and in the long run, the GPL project languishes while another, more liberally licensed project gets all the attention. This helps no one.

Case in point: GCC vs. Clang/LLVM. Apple and Sun have active LLVM developers, FreeBSD announced plans to switch entirely to Clang/LLVM, and NetBSD and OpenBSD are similarly working on getting their code to all build, leaving Linux alone with its inferior GPL-licensed GCC. Samba is next.

Re:So you're asking for a free lunch?

[HiThere]

Why do you appear to suppose that Linux doesn't support the LLVM? This is incorrect.

As to inferior... LLVM is, as it's name implies, a virtual machine. As such it's probably slower than good assembly code of a particular langauge written for a compiler that was customized to produce code targeted to the hardware on which it runs.

I *do* understand that LLVM is considerably faster than the JVM. That doesn't mean it's as fast as good native code. And it definitely doesn't mean that it has less overhead.

(It also appears to use GCC as a front-end for it's C compiler. Just FYI.)

Re:So you're asking for a free lunch?

[Timothy Brownawell]

(It also appears to use GCC as a front-end for it's C compiler. Just FYI.)

There are two front ends (plus I think some for other languages?). One is GCC-based, and the other is a work-in-progress that mostly works for C and mostly doesn't work for C++.

Re:So you're asking for a free lunch?

[dgatwood]

True, Linux could move to LLVM/Clang. The point was that distros that choose to stick with GCC will be stuck with something inferior in the long run.

Regarding performance, you couldn't be more wrong. Although LVVM can be used to build code for a virtual machine environment, LLVM can also generate native code just like GCC does. More to the point, its x86 native code generation results in code that is generally at least as fast as code generated by GCC, and often faster.

I'm also told that LLVM is significantly more maintainable, extensible, etc. because the design is much cleaner. Thus, it is easier to add further performance optimizations to LLVM than to GCC.

Regarding the GCC front end, as has already been noted, there are multiple front ends. Clang is well on its way to supplanting GCC as an LLVM front end, at least for C code; its C++ support still has a long way to go.

Re:So you're asking for a free lunch?

[HiThere]

You are clearly an ardent supporter, and I'm largely ignorant. All I know is what I read on the llvm web page...and past experience with virtual machines. (If it generates native code, that takes it out of the virtual machine category, though.)

You may be right. Certainly D has an llvm compiler coming along, and the gcc one seems to have gone into stasis. (Since, however, the gcc based D compiler had only one maintainer, I don't consider this significant evidence.)

When the D based llvm compiler starts supporting D2.x (the development version) then I'll start seriously looking at llvm.

OTOH, why is llvm better than Parrot? (Can Parrot generate x86 code? Don't know why it couldn't, but perhaps it doesn't.)

There's more things to be looked at than there's time for looking in any detail. But nobody's going to be "stuck" with gcc. At each major release cycle they can choose whether to use gcc or something else as their major compiler. So far nothing's been a credible contender against gcc...that didn't BECOME gcc. (Here I'm thinking of EGCS.)

Its Ironic don't ya think? Brilliant

[MrShaggy]

"The GPL was conceived as a way to ensure complete redistribution of intellectual property, notes Howard Kiewe, an analyst at Info-Tech research group. "That's no longer a suitable arrangement for many business-oriented licensees," he says.

[ Editor's note: InfoWorld tried to interview Richard Stallman, who runs the Free Software Foundation that created and manages the GPL, on this issue, but he demanded control of what we published, so we declined. ] "

mod parent +1 informative

[fiontan]

I wish more people got this.

Re:They aren't getting all their entertainment fre

[jedidiah]

The main thing is that forcing them in some way to stop pirating won't yield artists any more money.

The best you can do is satisfy some notion of artistic megalomania.

That is the BEST possible case assuming that draconian copyright enforcement
doesn't have nasty side effects based on what it allows governments or
corporations to do or get away with.

Re:percentage of GPLd projects is irrelevant

[fiontan]

It may be a good idea to build a cooperative community around the software, but the GPL is not an option, let alone a good one. Mr Liu is worried about larger companies getting the software, but if it's GPL licensed, then every owner of his oscilloscope has access to the source code. If he were to go into cooperation with the other developers, then the GPL is possibly the worst license they could pick... based on Mr Liu's reasoning of course.

Re:Might as well say it first

[fiontan]

Nobody's saying that the GPL doesn't work as it's intended. Obviously, if you include anything with a GPL license in your application, then your application must also be GPL licensed (loosely speaking). The ridiculous part is the sense that you're in the right by restricting the licence choices of your downstream users.

Commercial?

[dandart]

"Generous commercial terms"? There's nowt stopping you from using GPL for commercial use.

"EULA - sharing is evil. BSD - sharing is not evil. GPL - not sharing is evil" - @mattl

My immediate reaction

[petrus4]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqgLxfjJK6k

I have said it before, and I will say it again; for me anyway, BSD UNIX represents the manner in which God intended man to use a computer. I continually hope that the day finally comes when these systems, and their license, are given the recognition they deserve.

I will not attack the FSF or the GPL, here; I will merely focus on the object of my own love, as it pertains to this article.

The BSDs are going to grow to be the foundational light of the Aquarian Age; and I look forward to watching it happen. I have seen the hand of God in them before, and I have at times been moved to tears because of it.

Never Shake Hands With GPL Dude & this is why

[itsybitsy]

Never shake hands with GPL dude Richard Stallman and this is why. What other surprise horrors lurk in the GPL? Does anyone see that Richard Stallman is no longer qualified to lead the Free Software Foundation as a result of his disgusting public act (linked above)? If you think he should still lead the GPL and GNU and FSF as a public figure then does that mean that you support people doing what he did in public (or even in private)? Maybe it's time to publicly rebuke Richard Stallman for his actions in the above linked item. Shivers. Get some manners Richard, please.

Re:Might as well say it first

[Otto]

Nobody's saying that the GPL doesn't work as it's intended. Obviously, if you include anything with a GPL license in your application, then your application must also be GPL licensed (loosely speaking). The ridiculous part is the sense that you're in the right by restricting the licence choices of your downstream users.

Really? You think that that is ridiculous? What a massive sense of entitlement you have!

Somebody gives you something (that you find valuable) for free, and you still somehow figure out a way to complain that it isn't free enough for you to make it less free to some other people later.

People never cease to amaze me. You're basically saying that you feel restricted because you can't take this free software you got and use it in something else which you want to make non-free. I mean, you basically are saying that you want a handout, like some bum on the street corner asking for change.

Seriously, man. Have you no self-respect?

P.S.: Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth

[HiThere]

I absolutely HATE the current preview mode. By eliminating paragraph spacing it renders the post unreadable. So I usually don't preview successfully. Like this time.

Change:
publish the code BSD, an my code would be a trivial part of

To:
publish the code BSD, and my code would be a trivial part of

Re:percentage of GPLd projects is irrelevant

[GWBasic]

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"?

What if he allowed people to buy a GPL version at a very, very, very high price? Could time the sale to allow him a form of early retirement?

Re:GPL is the kiss of death for commerical softwar

[An Onerous Coward]

If you have a software product and publish any of its libraries as GPL, then your product must effectively become GPL'ed.

You're saying that you wrote a bunch of libraries yourself, included those libraries in your own commercial products, then released them under BSD because releasing them under the GPL would have forced the GPL-ification of the products?

That's not how it works. You own the copyright, you can use the code as you like, including packing it into proprietary products. The hoops you're complaining about having to jump through are imaginary.

If Microsoft shareholders profit to an infinitesimal amount from something I gave away for free, I don't really give a fuck.

It's one thing to be okay with others making money off your code. It's another thing to be okay with another company pulling an "embrace, extend, extinguish" on you, effectively ripping your work out from under you and everyone else participating in the ecosystem you created. If you're okay with that as well, then BSD or MIT licensing is fine.

Re:Might as well say it first

[init100]

Big business historically have been the target of GPL lawsuits.

Of course, unlike other copyright infringement lawsuits, GPL violation lawsuits usually don't ask for any monetary damages, except for litigation costs. They ask for compliance with the GPL, and an injunction if the defendant won't/can't comply.

What you do is charge a fee for people who don't agree to the GPL terms.

That requires you to own the copyright on the complete source code of the project. This is why e.g. MySQL asks for copyright assignments or other waivers before accepting contributions from external parties.

Anti GPL hipocrital logic.

[Requiem18th]

You can't use the GPL because you have no right to tell me what licenses I can't use.

The GPL is against the principles Open Source because it doesn't not help me to sell Closed Source Software.

Re:Might as well say it first

[Hangin10]

But you also can't improve GPL'd things and give other downstream from YOU more freedom (ie, here I've followed the GPL, but I'm making my mods MIT).

A rule of thumb

[Mateo_LeFou]

I stop reading any of these posts when I get to the word "zealot". Saves a lot of time.

One is not a zealot for thinkng that copyleft is a good mechanism for making sure that software remains free.

Parent is the best and most succinct encapsulation of the sensible-people-vs-"zealots" confusion I'v seen in awhile.

Great-great-great granparent, which I stopped reading at the word "zealot", is dead wrong about

"the fact that the GPL wasn't written with commercialization in mind certainly seems like it fails to be useful to a business"

Sounds so logical but is false. Usefulness-to-business is an unintended conquence of thousands of things, including lots of free software.

Re:Might as well say it first

[Otto]

But you also can't improve GPL'd things and give other downstream from YOU more freedom (ie, here I've followed the GPL, but I'm making my mods MIT).

How is that "more" freedom, exactly? By wanting to change the license, you make the software less free to downstream users, since somebody could then close the source in their own product.

Re:Might as well say it first

[fiontan]

Why do you insist that I have a sense of entitlement? How do you know I am planning on violating someone else's license? I have no intention of doing so.

I am just saying, that someone is wanting to release some work to the public, and they want it to be open/free. They look through the various licenses, and see an MIT/BSD license, which is basically "free to use", then they see a GPL license, which is basically "free with conditions". Now that person has put his own time into his work, and if he thinks the GPL license is a better fit for his wishes, then he should absolutely use that license for his work. But he should not consider his work more open than if he'd used the MIT license, by definition it comes with more restrictions.

I personally feel no restriction, because I still have a choice of not using his work. Or am I still somehow saying that I want a handout, in your world?

Re:Might as well say it first

[fiontan]

It's more freedom because the code can be used in more ways than the GPL code.

Even if someone *did* take the source and use it in their own closed source product, the code is still out there, it's still free, on the MIT license. The source hasn't been closed, it's been incorporated.

That's freedom, man.

Re:GPL is the kiss of death for commerical softwar

[djelovic]

> That's what the LGPL is for.

That's what almost any open source (plus numerous closed-sourced) license except GPL is for. But the topic of this thread is GPL, so I was commenting on that.

Dejan

Re:GPL is the kiss of death for commerical softwar

[djelovic]

> You're saying that you wrote a bunch of libraries yourself,
> included those libraries in your own commercial products,
> then released them under BSD because releasing them under
> the GPL would have forced the GPL-ification of the products?

Yes. Ditto for anybody else who wants to use my libraries.

> That's not how it works. You own the copyright, you can use
> the code as you like, including packing it into proprietary
> products. The hoops you're complaining about having to jump
> through are imaginary.

Not really if I'm reading GPL correctly. What I _think_ you are saying is that since I'm the one writing the code and setting the rules for the license I can put out a license saying "this is under GPL for anybody but me" or something to that account, but that's not really GPL but a modification or a dual license.

But more important, people that use my library would effectively be forced to use GPL. As somebody that creates and sells software, that's exactly what I don't like done to me. I never was one of the kids to take their ball and go home because they don't like how the game is played. (And yes, I do send patches back to any libraries I use even when they are not GPL.)

> It's one thing to be okay with others making money off your code.
> It's another thing to be okay with another company pulling an "embrace,
> extend, extinguish" on you

People here use that phrase a lot, but I think it's an oversimplification. While I have seen MS do crazy shit (the original MFC license comes to mind), in the case of the browser, people forget how shitty Netscape was. IE won because it was a better product at that time.

Also, embrace & extend is a pretty good page for any software shop's playbook. For example, adding load & save for competing (closed source) product file formats to Word and Excel was a stroke of brilliance. FireFox, for example, did a similar thing when they supported IE's shortcut keys from day zero, and I applauded that move when switching to it. I wish more open-source GUI products did the same thing when trying to compete with the market leader.

But back to my main point: I don't spend one moment thinking about MS or Apple when releasing a library. Why would I screw all the people trying to make a living selling software just because of two companies?

Dejan

Re:GPL is the kiss of death for commerical softwar

[An Onerous Coward]

>> Not really if I'm reading GPL correctly. What I _think_ you are saying is that since I'm the one writing the code and setting the rules for the license I can put out a license saying "this is under GPL for anybody but me" or something to that account, but that's not really GPL but a modification or a dual license.

No, no, no. The GPL is an agreement between the author and another person. The GPL does not prohibit the author from making any other agreement she wants with any other person. You can license it to Barry under the GPL, to Bill under the MIT license, to Mabel under the super-top-secret-you-will-not-admit-to-having-seen-this-code-under-penalty-of-death license.

It's your code. You can do absolutely anything that you like with your own code. The GPL only restricts the recipient. That means you can even go so far as to release your entire app under the GPL, then sell an enhanced shrinkwrap copy for $50 a pop. Nobody else can without your permission, but you absolutely can.

A dual license means that you grant the recipient the option of using one license or another. It doesn't mean they can pick and choose terms from both licenses, and it doesn't mean they are forbidden for requesting the same code under a different license.

[note: in such a case, you'd have to be very careful about accepting patches, and require that the submitter assign you the copyright.]

>> But more important, people that use my library would effectively be forced to use GPL.

You don't want to license your code under the GPL, because it would force the recipient to abide by the terms of the GPL? Okay, I'll grant that one.

>> As somebody that creates and sells software, that's exactly what I don't like done to me. I never was one of the kids to take their ball and go home because they don't like how the game is played. (And yes, I do send patches back to any libraries I use even when they are not GPL.)

>>>> It's one thing to be okay with others making money off your code.
>>>> It's another thing to be okay with another company pulling an "embrace,
>>>> extend, extinguish" on you

>> People here use that phrase a lot, but I think it's an oversimplification. While I have seen MS do crazy shit (the original MFC license comes to mind), in the case of the browser, people forget how shitty Netscape was. IE won because it was a better product at that time.

That's not "embrace, extend, extinguish." The browser wars were mostly a case of "leverage monopoly X to increase market share in an unrelated field." Which is illegal under antitrust law.

The only part of the browser wars that were really EEE were the ActiveX debacle and the various formatting differences.

>> Also, embrace & extend is a pretty good page for any software shop's playbook. For example, adding load & save for competing (closed source) product file formats to Word and Excel was a stroke of brilliance. FireFox, for example, did a similar thing when they supported IE's shortcut keys from day zero, and I applauded that move when switching to it. I wish more open-source GUI products did the same thing when trying to compete with the market leader.

Also not examples of "embrace, extend, extinguish." Here.

In EEE, you (E1) take a popular protocol, one that allows several products to interoperate happily. You release your own product using that protocol. Next, when your market share is great enough, you add undocumented "features" (E2) that make your tools more useful, while causing competing products to go "WTF?" Finally, you hope, people start using your product exclusively (E3), in order to ensure that everything works.

Microsoft did it with Kerberos, they did it with ActiveX, and they're even now trying to do it with ODF.

>> But back to my main point: I don't spend one moment thinking about MS or Apple when releasing a

"anybody could "steal" the modified source code"

[tlambert]

"anybody could "steal" the modified source code"

Not if it's never published after it's modified, they can't.

Protection of a Trade Secret is not expensive, so long as it's never published to anyone other than "a select group" (the specific legal term for selective disclosure). The civil penalty for a judgement of disclosure is treble damages for the loss incurred.

While it's true that Trade Secret was the main case point in the AT&T vs. UCB Regents lawsuit over the BSD 4.3 (Net/2) source code, the disclosure occurred under a Western Electric license which did not specifically prohibit disclosure, and the initial disclosure was in the Jeffrey Lyons book at the University of New South Wales. Once disclosed, you can not recapture a Trade Secret, so the case was lost at that point. UCB Regents additionally counter-sued for Copyright violation based on removal of the UCB license from published AT&T source code in SDKs which were not protected as a Trade Secret under license to a select group, meaning they were fair game as fodder for the court; it was likely this, more than anything else, which forced them to not try to use their money and the legal system as a bludgeon for what was in fact legal republication of already disclosed Trade Secrets.

However, had AT&T been able to legally pursue a Trade Secret claim, they could have collected on their losses, and UCB Regents had the deep pockets necessary to make good the loss.

The primary risk, then is disclosure by someone without deep pockets. Which is why the lawyers get to decide who is and isn't a member of the select group in the first place. So it's possible to legally cover your financial assets in such a way as you might actually prefer that disclosure happens. But that makes the Trade Secret a no less effective mechanism.

As an example of successful use of a Trade Secret, Henry Bessemer (of the Bessemer Steel Process) had an early invention for making the machines to make the brass powder which was used in the manufacture of the first "gold" paint; the means of making the machines were a Trade Secret, which was closely held in the family for many years, which is how he made his fortune which allowed him to pursue his other inventions.

More recent examples include the formula for the manufacture of Coca-Cola syrup, and the spice mixture used in Kentucky Fried Chicken, both of which remain trade secrets to this day. Here is the reference for the KFS recipe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KFC

-- Terry

Re:GPL is the kiss of death for commerical softwar

[djelovic]

> No, no, no. The GPL is an agreement between the author and another
> person. The GPL does not prohibit the author from making any other
> agreement she wants with any other person.

I'm not sure I'm reading GPL the same way you are. To me it seems like a contract between code producer(s) and consumer(s). AFAIK the law doesn't really make much difference if the two are the same, though that's a rather rare case (the notable case happening a few months ago when Wells Fargo sued itself).

But that's academic. As you noted, as long as you are the only one creating and using a library, you don't really need a license. But if you release a library as GPL, then accept somebody else's patch that patched code is GPL. And you can't use it in your own non-GPL product.

> You don't want to license your code under the GPL, because it would
> force the recipient to abide by the terms of the GPL? Okay, I'll grant
> that one.

Phew, thanks. :)

But seriously, yes, that's my main point here. I don't like when GPL is sprung on me, so I don't spring it on other people.

> That's not "embrace, extend, extinguish."
> ...
> In EEE, you (E1) take a popular protocol, one that allows several
> products to interoperate happily. You release your own product using
> that protocol. Next, when your market share is great enough, you add
> undocumented "features" (E2) that make your tools more useful, while
> causing competing products to go "WTF?" Finally, you hope, people
> start using your product exclusively (E3), in order to ensure that
> everything works.

For me that's no different than what FireFox did to IE with the, for example, Ctrl-K shortcut that takes you to the search bar. Only we are talking mindshare, not protocols, but IMO that binds even stronger.

(Side note: when I tried to use IE8 for a few days I got frustrated because Ctrl-K doesn't do the same thing as in FireFox. I found it amusing that Microsoft got their tactics turned on them and made the same mistake WordPerfect and Lotus made in not emulating the better sides and UI of their competitor but instead decided to create their own standards. Good luck with that.)

> Microsoft did it with Kerberos, they did it with ActiveX,
> and they're even now trying to do it with ODF.

ActiveX is the main reason why I think embrace & extend is overplayed here. The playbook is:

1. Use a protocol or something.
2. Become dominant.
3. Extend it.
4. Fuck over all the others that don't know how to reverse engineer it or are too proud to do it.

But #2 is overlooked here, or done with handwaving about monopolies. And while Microsoft's distribution channel used to dominate before the age of the Internet (and still does for operating systems), it can't make an inferior product dominant. ActiveX clearly demonstrates that.

Also, if you remember the late nineties, the Java guys and the Netscape guys were all saying that Microsoft is dead because the web is the new OS (whatever that means). So what do you think Microsoft should have done? Suck Sun's and Netscape's dick or fight back?

> Because the GPL would be a good defense against them storming in
> and wiping out your entire niche? MS has done it several times,
> and tried it a dozen more.

Dude. I run a small software shop. I'm not on Microsoft's radar. So you are saying that out of some fear of them I should screw all other programmers like me who are trying to make a living selling software?

> But you should at least understand what the GPL is before you decide
> whether to use it (or, more to the point, before you go on a public forum
> and spread misinformation about the GPL in the course of explaining why
> you won't use it)

I think I did understand it. Possibly I'm wrong. Your scolding above seems to indicate that you hold no such reservations. Funny, that.

Dejan