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LLVM & GCC Compiler Developers To Begin Collaborating
An anonymous reader writes "While RMS is opposed to LLVM over its BSD-like license rather than the GPL, LLVM/Clang and GCC developers have agreed to try to start cooperating in an "open compiler initiative" to jointly tackle common issues that plague both compilers and issues that can be better served by working together rather than creating fragmentation between the two popular open-source compilers."
I'm pretty sure this is not about sharing code, but about collaborating on needed features via a shared spec. So both compilers implement something a standard way instead of coming up with new features independently.
Actually, no. You may use GPL'd code any way you like (that's freedom 0) and share with others (freedom 2). You can likewise modify the software any way you like (freedom 1). And all this time, you need not release source code. The condition to release the source only kicks in with freedom to distribute your changes (freedom 3), so only when there is a third person involved with your derivative you have to grant them the same freedoms you've been given by the original author.
In fact, this was a problem with SaaS: You could've modified free software, and run it in the back on your servers, and say that you're simply providing a service to the end user, and since he's not getting the modified program, he doesn't get to have its source either. This is what AGPL is designed to address, and thus it's mostly used for web software. So with AGPL, as soon as you use a program, whether you have a copy, or are executing it online, you get access to the source.
Neither the BSD nor the GPL remove (not can they remove) the aspect that copyright requires that a person must get permission from the original copyright holder if they are creating a derivative work of something copyrighted. In that light, both the BSD and GPL licenses essentially state that everyone who adheres to the terms of the license is free to create derivative works, thereby effectively granting such permission... but still only to people who adhere to the terms of the license.
Of course, the terms of the BSD license are pretty lax in comparison to the GPL... the former being not much beyond keeping the copyright notices in header files intact, while the latter license requires that the derivative work be released under the same license.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
First off the author always has the freedom to do whatever they want (assuming they haven't transferred copyright to someone else), the license only applies to *other* people. If you're the author of a derivative work and feel you should get to claim credit for the whole of "your" work, then by all means feel free to replicate the no doubt trivial amount of labor put into all those libraries you used.
BSD grants essentially unlimited freedom to developers directly downstream, but makes no attempt to preserve those freedoms for anyone further downstream.
GPL grants somewhat restricted freedoms to downstream developers, but in doing so they ensure that everyone further downstream continues to get the same freedoms.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.