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On Being Pro-GPL
just_another_sean writes: Christopher Allan Webber, recently returned from OSCON, shares his thoughts on the GPL and why he dislikes people pitting one type of software license against another. He says, "I am not only pro-copyleft, I am also pro-permissive licensing. The difference between these is tactics: the first tactic is towards guaranteeing user freedom, the second tactic is toward pushing adoption. I am generally pro-freedom, but sometimes pushing adoption is important, especially if you're pushing standards and the like. But let's step back for a moment. One thing that's true is that over the last many years we've seen an explosion of free and open source software... at the same time that computers have become more locked down than ever before! How can this be?
And notice... the rise of the arguments for permissive/lax licensing have grown simultaneously with this trend. ...The fastest way to develop software which locks down users for maximum monetary extraction is to use free software as a base. And this is where the anti-copyleft argument comes in, because copyleft may effectively force an entity to give back at this stage... and they might not want to. ... Copyleft's strings say, 'you can use my stuff, as long as you give back what you make from it.' But the proprietary differentiation strategy's strings say, 'I will use your stuff, and then add terms which forbid you to ever share or modify the things I build on top of it.' Don't be fooled: both attach strings. But which strings are worse?"
And notice... the rise of the arguments for permissive/lax licensing have grown simultaneously with this trend. ...The fastest way to develop software which locks down users for maximum monetary extraction is to use free software as a base. And this is where the anti-copyleft argument comes in, because copyleft may effectively force an entity to give back at this stage... and they might not want to. ... Copyleft's strings say, 'you can use my stuff, as long as you give back what you make from it.' But the proprietary differentiation strategy's strings say, 'I will use your stuff, and then add terms which forbid you to ever share or modify the things I build on top of it.' Don't be fooled: both attach strings. But which strings are worse?"
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Why all the angst and false drama?
Just look at whats happened in the hardware arena. We've ended up without sources because we've let the non-free proponents in.
You didn't "let them in", you started using their products because you couldn't make your own and now you complain that they don't subscribe to your free software ideology.
Cutting edge hardware certainly seems to be incompatible with that "free software ideology", I say "seems" because you can pontificate about how it could theoretically work but we've had 30-odd years of FSF and still it's just some free software running on proprietary hardware often with proprietary firmware and proprietary drivers. If you want a free stack then you need to get cracking on hardware, but applying the free software model to hardware does not appear to be viable.
That's not how it works at all, and that's how FUD starts. If you use inkscape, you don't have to give away your drawings. If you use Linux, you don't have to give away stuff you do with the OS. Hell, even if you use GCC, your code is still yours.
And if you put something on a server (minus Affero), you still don't have to give anything back.
No, the only people who have to give back are those who write something that can interoperate in certain ways with GPLed software.
Because the number one thing openness generates is chaos and multiple competing claims about reality. Say, many Linux distributions, each claiming to be great, and in fact, many variants of Linux distributions often with many versions and many wrinkles, and many varations of packages, libraries, and so on.
If you want to build or customize things, openness is great. If you just one to pick something up, use it, and move on, a huge amount of confusion, overhead, and pain is involved in trying to pick the "right" version (particularly if you're unfamiliar with openness and wrongheadedly looking for the "real" version, as many early Linux dabblers were) and get it to work quickly and easily.
There is thus a huge amount of value added by anyone that quells the chaos—even in a tiny sphere or product—and that can quickly, clearly, and succinctly explain to users just what their version does, without ambiguity either within itself as an instance or over time. The nature of the beast—this value is the result of "closing the openness," if you will, means that it can't be opened, or the value will be lost.
End users want operating systems and devices that are not open systems with unclear edges that bleed into the ecosystem, but rather a single, coherent, object or product that they can acquire, use in predictable and stable ways, and then lay down once again. They want systems and devices about which books can be written (and bought, and referred to months down the road) without quickly becoming obsolete, and with the minimal risk that this book or that add-on that they purchase will fail to work becuase they'd misconstrued the incredibly subtle differences and variations in product naming, versioning, and so on.
In short, massive openness is incredibly generative and creative, but leaves in place a systems/software/hardware version of the "last mile problem" for computing. Having a fabulous network is one thing, but consumers just want one wire coming into the house, they want it to work, they want it to be predictable and compatible with what they have, and they want to know just where it is and what its properties, limits, and costs are. They are not interested in becoming engineers, the technology they use is only useful to them as a single, tiny, and managable facet of the larger ecosystem that is their life.
This "last mile problem" cannot be solved with openness in hardware or software any more than the last mile problem for wired providers can be solved by opening up all of urban geography to any comers and saying "lay all the cable you want, anywhere you want, to and from any building or system!" First off, it would result in a mess of wires (not un-analagous to what we see across much of free software's development space) and next because most consumers wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of it, much less make a choice, and they'd probably resent the complexity in their backyard and try to do away with it.
Openness leads to closedness because to the extent that openness dominates in the development and engineering space, closedness increases as critical need for carrying whatever is developed to the average consumer space, in precisely the same measure.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
The fundamental misunderstanding people have is that the GPL is a distribution license, not a use license. That's why it's called a "copyleft" and not an "end user freedom agreement." The GPL is exactly not an end user license agreement. There are no terms of use for GPL software, and the OSI's definition of Open Source explicitly prohibits that.
Technically, all those GPL Windows programs that make you click "I agree with these terms" during install for the GPL are wrong to do so. The GPL requires that the user be notified of his or her rights and obligations with the GPL, but users are not required to accept the terms of the GPL because the GPL only applies to persons distributing the software. The installers should require no agreement checkbox, and the button should say "Next" and never "I Agree".
You can do whatever the hell you want with GPL software -- or, indeed, any OSI approved license, AFAIK -- and if you don't try to give it to a third party you don't have to publish squat. It's perfectly legal to have proprietary modifications to GPL code. You just can't distribute that software to anybody else without giving them the ability to get your code modifications.
This is how Google is able to run a custom version of MySQL for their search engine and they don't have to show the code to anybody. They don't have to do that because they're not distributing Google Custom MySQL to anybody in any form.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.