Slashdot Mirror
Toward a Better Open Source License
With the success of GNU/ [?] Linux in the hacker community, and it's subsequent notice by the mainstream, there has been a rapid attempt by many businesses to "cash in" on the free (as in beer :() software phenomenon. This has led to the euphemization of free as "open source", and a plethora of so-called open source software licenses, that are almost, but not quite, as free as the GPL. With business being what it is, this should come as no surprise.
The trouble with many of these open source licenses is that they tend to be received with less than abundant enthusiasm by hackers -- the very people that business is counting on to debug, extend, and support, some latest software venture, all for free, while someone else makes a profit. If that isn't enough to discredit any semblance of inherent fairness, many of these licenses have been denounced as unfair by Richard Stallman, architect of the GPL. Many heed what he has to say.
The definition of fair in an exchange depends on both parties believing themselves better off with the exchange than without it. In theory, at least it is possible that while the above situation might be viewed as "fair" by somebody, it isn't very likely. So, the hacker community loses the opportunity to work with more software, and business loses in not having the support of this community. There must be a better way.
If the NPL were modified so that some limit was placed on what could be folded back with Netscape's proprietary code, this would be a start. But, who should decide what that limit is?
Clearly, anyone who comes up with an open source license can establish such a limit, even if only to say there is none. However, this does not make the license popular. Business will always want to "have it's cake and eat it too" and it should come as no surprise that present open source licenses suggest that the "cake" be pretty big. We can either wait for some company to come up with a fairer open source license, or we can respond with an alternative of our own, that need not be equal, but that many of us think is fair. To gain rapid acceptance, it would probably have to have Richard Stallman's approval (or at least be free of his disaproval), because of the respect he commands.
Here is one proposal, to put the ball back in the court of business, as it
were:
the Transitional General Public Licens (TGPL).
The TGPL is the same as the GPL, with two important exceptions:
- The originator may combine distributed derived works produced by others and released under TGPL with the originator's proprietary code and redistribute the result.
- The producer of a derived work may elect to distribute it under the TGPL, or the GPL, at their discretion.
Basically, this is the NPL in spirit, except the "in perpetuity" bit is cut off at a point decided by members of the community at large, in effect letting the originator have his pound of flesh, but not one drop of blood.
Obviously, an entire class of open source licenses can be thought of, that permit release of derived works either under the existing licence, or the GPL. The fairer the license, and the greater the value of the work released, the more likely it is that the originator will be granted his "edge" by grateful people who produce derived works. Furthermore, such community support encourages even more code to be released this way. That can only be a good thing.
Opinions are welcome, and openly solicited. Send them to rhollan@flashmail.com.
C.
I sometimes write stuff
>1.The originator may combine distributed derived >works produced by others and released under TGPL >with the originator's proprietary code and >redistribute the result. Is "the originator" the original author of the code that was being derived from? Or is he writing "original proprietary code" and combining TGPL'ed code in with his "original proprietary code?" >2.The producer of a derived work may elect to >distribute it under the TGPL, or the GPL, at >their discretion. So if I take a TGPL'ed original piece of code I can make my modifications be under the GPL which are then non submittable to the original TGPL'ed source tree.
First off: who is the originator? The company that produced the first version? The individual who re-tooled the entire thing over night, re-wrote it in C++ and added a GUI? Who?
;-)
Second: If I (say, Sun) can pull the code back into my proprietary source, what happens when someone makes a change (say, writes a driver for Solaris) and I then pull that back into my source tree. I add features, I bug-fix, I embrace-and-extend. Why should I show the world what I've done? I'll release those changes as one big wad next major release, stomping on the existing source-code base, and pretty much guaranteeing that no one will try to fork their own version of my code (say, Red Hat Solar-OS for Alpha
I don't mind that companies will do this. This is called capitalism, and I'm a fan of that model. However, I refuse to call that Open Source, and think its a bad idea to start getting people used to the idea of a GPL--
If companies want to release source "a little" and go half-way, let 'em. In the end is business-model vs. business model. I think the one that attracts the most developers will win, but perhaps I'm wrong.
I'm not sure I understand - does clause 1 mean that the originator of the work can take other people's changes, incorporate them into the work, and distribute the new combined work under any license they want to? That's my understanding of the NPL - the originator of the code has special rights.
That would solve a big problem I have. I'm releasing some code I wrote under GPL. However, I already have other obligations to people to give them the code under another license. So if someone contributes a GPL change back to me, I don't know how I'm going to manage incorporating it. I don't want to have to maintain two source trees, one GPL, one that I can distribute with my other special license.
I don't understand why the second clause needs to be there - why would anyone choose to distribute something under GPL, if TGPL is available to them?
I like the idea of a transitional license that is more commerce-friendly, but still encourages people in the direction of using a true GPL distribution, but I think this particular concept is flawed.
If I grabbed the sources to a TGPL program and made some enhancements, I could decide whether to release this as TGPL or GPL, right? But if I went for the TGPL, _I_ wouldn't get any of the special benefits from this license, because those would go to the original company. This being so, I very much doubt that anyone would use it: we would all just put derived works under the GPL, which would essentially fork the project. This might work as long as the originating company was very active in development so that other people felt it was worth merging their changes back into the original source tree, but as soon as some other company made more substantial changes (which is exactly the situation that some licenses are trying to protect against), they would go for the GPL option. I think this would result in a lot of confusion, while simultaneously failing to protect the original company or feel truly free to the hacker community...
People are always complaining about the quantity of OpenSource licenses out there. Would it be possible for the OSI or someone to develop a single license with 5-10 "optional clauses" that an organization could add or remove when they release their software.
Presumably, in it's stripped-down state, the license would barely meet the Open Source Definition, and this would be the standard license that most companies would go with. People could then add clauses to make it similar to BSD, or the GPL if they are feeling very generous.
When an organization publishes the software, they can include the full license with it's clauses, but in press releases and such they can say "This code is licensed under the Flexible Public License, amended with Special Clause A, F, and H" or something like that.
I would think it could eliminate some of the bickering about licenses, some of the confusion about what one license offers that another doesn't, and also allow us to reduce the legal hassles involved in checking all these new licenses.
Is this even remotely feasible?
i like the license. especially the first new 'rule.' :)
ive always wondered about what how the GPL would play into a case of 2 open source programmers fighting with each other for using each others stuff. i never thought it would be too big of a deal since most programmers seem to be nice guys. but its good to clear that up for future reference! hopefully this is approved, imho
tyler
I think this is a great idea. The GPL has been great for the community. But now that businesses are starting to get into the movement we really need a license that fits in with both our and thier goals. So far a few companies have started opening their source or releasing software for free. They've bended for us, now we need to meet them half way if we trully want our ideals to thrive. -Mr H
I'm thinking that the whole idea of companies trying to release code that they wrote to take advantage of a bazzar while still trying to create a proprietary product is a bad idea. I personally think that one of the most important principles of the bazzar idea is that no one person or company has any special rights vs the others involved. Otherwise, the development will be done by those who have the most to gain, while others will tend to stand aside and let them do it.
But a deriver of a GPL'd work can already agree to allow the originator to use his contribution in a proprietary version.
I suppose this makes it a bit more straightforward, though.
I doubt RMS will go for this one. TGPL source is _not_ free, it can be imprisoned at whim (forgive the anthropomorphism). Free software isn't about programmer freedom, which is obviously less under GPL than BSD.
Moreover, software companies will be fearful that the source will get GPL "contaminated" immediately. They like the NPL bargain "I'll let you have my code if you let me have yours". They don't see the critical importance of "Here's the code. It's free (speech)."
The GPL is very virulent. A softening is to allow the modifying coder an easy way (TGPL?) of granting a _second_ licence if s/he wishes back to the originator for the mods. The originator would then have to sift through unproprietarizable GPL'd mods, and proprietarizable TGPL mods. Not an easy task, but easier than asking permission much later.
-- Robert
The same reasons that make people and companies sign over ownership of changes to gcc to the FSF, and that make them contribute changes to software under the BSD license back under the same license, and that make them publish new modules for Mozilla under the MPL.
To avoid paying the stupidity tax. The stupidity tax is a term invented by the Mozilla team to describe the cost of having to constantly merge back changes from the mainline sources into your own project. The cost are very real, companies like HP pays significant amounts of money to Cygnus in order to have Cygnus merge their functionality back into the official product.
Of course, the stupidity tax only works when there are active development on the main code, so there _are_ changes to merge back. If a company have no intension of putting more effort into the code, they cannot rely on other people contributing their changes back to them.
Its true that companies are getting into the 'open source' area but allmost everyone passes the GPL and uses some licence of its own. IMO simply due to the fact they want to protect their business. I don't think this new licence will make a difference, if I got it right and your idea is to let companies use this license when they are 'publishing' their software. Not one company is the same and all companies have different priorities. Things that one company wishes to protect in a licence means nothing for another.
A couple of possibilities, if you look at the price of software (assuming it is a manufactured product) then we would have components like
+------------------+----------+----------------
| Development cost | Know How | Marketing Hype |
+------------------+----------+----------------
Now from the OpenSource community, amortising the development cost over a wider base and eliminating the hype and know-how (ie stupidity tax for not understanding how it all hangs together) creates cheaper and more robust solutions. Would it be fair to say that all the community really wants is the source but not the hassles of marketing, distributing and supporting the product? If so, then value in excess of potential "lost profits" can be restored via:
In essense, this is looking at the GNU license and seeing what areas could be temporarily weakened without losing the principle of OpenSource. If people think hard enough, perhaps they can come up with other win-win scenarios. A trade is not a deal unless both sides can benefit.
LL
Redistribute under what licenses? If a patch is submitted without specifying whether it's for the GPL'd or TGPL'd fork, does it automatically go into the TGPL'd fork?
And I say "fork", because that's exactly what will happen the instant the code is released. Someone will grab it, rename it, put it under GPL, and isolate all further improvements to the GPL'd version. Which leads one to wonder why you wouldn't just create the fork in the first place by simply dual-licensing it.
Better would be a license that creates a publisher/author relationship, where copyright of any modifications is automatically assigned to the originator. Some sort of "good faith" enforcement clause would be needed to ensure that redistribution rights are not terminated. The FSF has this written into their charter. If they decided to revoke the GPL for every GNU package and turn it into closed-source commercialware, the rights of the consumer (redistributor) under the GPL would be upheld because the FSF would be acting in bad faith. Well, probably: "good faith" is always a judgement call. And they can play with the license as they please, within the boundaries of good faith: they OWN every line of code in official GNU software thanks to the copyright assignment agreements they require.
The charter of the KDE Free Qt foundation would be one place to look for a charter spelled out explicitly. If Troll ever goes out of business, Qt becomes BSD licensed.
But all this said, licenses are not computer programs. They are subject to interpretation, loopholes, and flat-out nullification in the case of bad faith, violation of existing law, invalidity under statutes of contract law, or just the amount of money one can spend on lawyers. If you do not trust the license issuer, you cannot ever really trust the license.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on Slashdot.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
All my apologies if I sound a little bit thick-headed, but why on Earth create another licence?
If you feel like helping every single one of your fellow humans (including Bill Gates and Steve Jobs), please use a BSD-style licence. No strings attached whatsoever -- only the simple requirement that people mention your name as the original developer and don't sue you if the darn thing does not work. The worst that can happen is that someone may have to fork the source tree if Big Greedy Corporation Inc. has decided to steal your work and make $$money$$ out of it.
If you feel like you need to protect your software forever and make sure it's never used by big greedy corporations to rip an unsuspecting public, use the FSF GPL. This way, you contribute to a growing pool of free(-speech) software that is usable by everyone for little or no charge. What is even better is that future versions will *have* to be free as well.
Anything else (and I mean *anything* *else*) is just a half-baked attempt by Big Greedy Corporation Inc. to rip-off and exploit the open-source community. Just say no to that type of licence. Just say no to proprietary software and to half-closed licences.
A TGPL is redundant and (in my book) a rehashing of ideas that have been better expressed and better thought-out before.
This opinion is, of course, worth exactly what you paid to read it.... =)
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Something that I've noticed from my exposure (as it were) to the OS model of development:
/. had a spill chucker...
For a project to be effectively GPL'd, it needs to have a single person to own the code.
Think about it. Linus owns Linux (I'm using Linus as an example because Linux is the project I'm most familiar with). All changes are made at his sole discrestion(sp). There can be no possibility of a fork, because of the amount of support that he, and he alone, has for Linux.
Look at Mozilla. A wonderful idea, but owned by a company. A collective of persons(drones. Think Borg). Because the program is owned by a nebulous entity, changes are approved with an eye towards shareholders, as opposed to code usability and spirit of Free Software.
This can never work fully, IMHO.
Unless you have one person who is responsible for the entirety of the codebase, the codebase will be only as strong as the most conservative person in that group. The individual may have to answer to the shareholders, but that puts the individual in the position of power.
Untill something like Java or Solaris is owned by a single person responsible for the well-being of the code, corporate OS attempts will fail.
--Wishing
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
The difference is that with the LGPL ANYBODY can link their program to your program/library.
/. is a great place to discuss (and hop, some shoe-waxing for Rob ;-)
With the TGPL this is the same as the GPL, that is only GPL compatible software can reuse/link to your code except that the originator can double license it to make it proprietary again.
I would like to have a TGPL license, this would help people to realease copyleft software. The scenario would be: You have a great software/library. You want to open it but you need to gain some money from it in order to live.
If you use the BSD/X license type you can make it proprietary but everybody else too, so if someone come with big bucks he can use your work, improve it quickly than you then outspace you technologically and you are stuck.
If you use the LGPL anybody can use/link to it and you will need to make money on support, which can be harder (because you're on quite the same level as other companies).
If you double license and use the GPL for the open license you probably will have some contribution for the GPL part which will become better than the closed part (because the claused part need to reimplement all the GPL contribution in a proprietary fashion) and the hassle to support both version can be very high (they risk to fork very quickly).
If you do like Aladdin (cf Ghostscript), you use a proprietary license and release the old version with the GPL you have the same risk (the GPL version overthrow yours).
BUT
If you use the TGPL license you have the same effect of the GPL (only GPL projects can use your code) but you can still relicense it under a proprietary license for your products without having the risk of the open version to cut your revenue because everyone use it. This is possible because the license allow you to incorporate the changes made by other into your product under your license. You then can release a proprietary version with all the features of the GPL + some feature you add to attract customers.
The problem with the TGPL as she stands is the second part: like other people said, if someone else can change the TGPL to the GPL for their derived work, then you risk to have the same problem you would have by using the GPL. I think this would be better if only the originator could switch to the real GPL.
The other problem is (like other pointed out) "who is the originator?". If I do a software under the TGPL but stop to develop after version 1.5 because all the feature i wanted are in and almost all bugs are out, will I still be the originator? If somebody else take the lead to the project and produce version 2.0 that is a 80% rewrit eof my crappy code, should I still be the originator? Shouldn't the new maintener be the new originator? Idem if somebody fork with my project.
I think the originator rule should apply while somebody is "actively" maintening a project. If they stop and somebody reactivate the project then they should find a ground to transmit the originator rights.
But this risk to shift the problem to the definition of actively. Am I still active if I contribute a small patch here and there while other are doing huge improvements?...
Ok, I'll stop here because I have to go but there are a lot of questions to talk about this subject, and
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Ok... Here's my question. Can someone release patches to the code base as complete separate entities under the GPL?
The patch would not need to contain any code from the original code base. It could be written as replacement files, or as a set of lines to be replaced/added in each file, without having any code from the original code base in it.
This would in effect allow the changes to be used by the "Free Community" as they could get the Sun SCSLed code and then apply the GPLed patches. But it would prevent SUN to roll up the changes into one bundle and ship it as a propriotary product. They could of course ship the GPLed patches separately.
One of the things that you risk doing if you try to continually build a better wheel by redesigning licenses is adding more and more complexity.
/.'s readership is the hardcore suit type, but for sake of argument, I'm assuming that most of us are hackers here.
We're all talking about licenses, ostensibly primarily as hackers, not as businesspeople. That may be a bit naive of me, since I don't know what percentage of
I personally despise working with the low-level details of how I can prevent myself from being ruthlessly exploited by consciousless corporations, and I don't enjoy reading, writing, or dealing with legalese, which licenses pretty much are by default. Of course, licenses are a necessary evil, but I'd prefer to avoid wading through legalese if given the chance.
The GPL, as licenses go, is rather simple. It has a conceptual framework of freedom, which it fleshes out with specific clauses in the dreaded legalese. (i.e. This work of text, hereafter referred to as "The Post", and so on) One of the problems that I see with complicated commercial licenses, whether they're technically open source, free software, or fuware, is that the more business interest a company has to protect, the more complicated and opaque the licenses get.
I like to think of myself as a hacker, and I like to worry about hackish things rather than legal things, which I frankly find rather boring. I look at the GPL, I see it, I know it guarantees me my freedom, I know it works, and I know it has the support of the FSF. Some may think RMS is crazy, but if push comes to shove, you can be damn sure that the FSF will fight like rabid wolves to protect the freedom of a package.
David Allen
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
The problem with any dual licensing scheme that includes the GPL is that any third-party patches have to be dual-licensed as well. This isn't going to happen automatically, and the license itself cannot require this. (If it did require this, the second license wouldn't _be_ the GPL.)
That last question is the entire point of this response. It seems to me that the businesses that would benefit the most from Opensource software is the large businesses. I make this statement from the evidence, look who is doing Open Source now: Corel, IBM, AOL(sorta), etc. Where is Ma and Pa's Software Company? Maybe small businesses have already been opening their software but the advantages seem to be exponentially less. One of the assumptions of the Open Source development model is widespread distribution. Surely Corel and IBM will get plenty of users but what about Ma and Pa's? Be? Opera?
Now for Part B of my argument. The biggest reason I use free software is that I no longer need to be spoon-fed by big businesses. It is nice. I can update when I want, check the progress of various software packages, and and recompile if I want. This is freedom people. I have grown tired waiting for Press Releases and exlusive Beta software to find out what is happening with the software I used to use in Windows Land. Now I can get a good idea by going to mailing list archives or web forums. Heck, I can even ask someone if I was really interested. But most of all, there is no need for buzzword features to get people to upgrade. Next buzzword: Open Source.
The effort the Open Source Movement has done to cater to big businesses really scares me. I still say we don't need to be spoon-fed by businesses.
--
Loss of control over the evolution of the software and revenue potential is the source of corporations' fears. What we are witnessing is the jockying by corporations to come up with the perfect 'get what we want from the free software community, retain rights and make all the money' licenses for their products.
I find this insulting to my intelligence, and to the collective intelligence of the very community that they attempt to tap while keeping their gold.
I have no pity for companies that do the license shuffle. This is what separates the greedy from the good.
It may be concidered a leap of faith to most corporate types, but that is what's required.
To the corporations:
If you want to reap the benefits of the bazaar, participate under the already proven methodology and ideology of the movement.
see: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
Contact successful OSS companies such as Redhat and ask them for advice on how best to give it all away and still make your money.
Ultimately it boils down to a company's true motives. Is your corporation opportunist or do you really buy into the movement? The truth is in your liscence, plain as day.
So basically the Transitional GPL sits in between the GPL (requirement of open distribution) and the LGPL (allows bundling with non-open code), by allowing authors of modifications/additions to decide whether they want to allow the company to profit from their changes or not. Sounds good to me.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
damn slashdot stripped all my
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Hmm.. Be gentle.. or not.. I'm delirious today.. ;)
At this point I'd like to extend a big thank you to ESR and OSI.. real swift going, guys.
Hackers.. not as stupid as the suits seem to think. I swear each new "open source" license feels like a direct insult. Makes me want to strangle the legal team who wrote it up and the people who set them loose on such an unholy task.
Ok, I'm sick of looking for quotes, so the rest of this is going to be off the top of my head (be afraid.. I just woke up..).. Do we really want to make "big business" all warm and fuzzy? It seems to me that if they want to survive in our little part of the software community, they need to find a way to do it themselves, without trying to compromise our integrity (screw us over with stupid licensing) or insult our intelligence (think we'll get a nice warm and fuzzy feeling because they used the words "open source").
Coining the term "open source" was entirely so it would not be threatening to businesses. Look where that "intelligent" decision got us.. I'm not so sure why everyone thinks we need to bend over backwards to get commercial support. We certainly don't need a whole lot of help producing quality products (a lot of GPL'ed alternatives blow the traditional software out of the water), nor do we need to do much of anything to have commercial support (I don't think we had to hold Red Hat by the hand to get them to participate.. do you?). The question being, I suppose.. what the hell do these companies who are scared to death of the GPL really have to offer us? And why are we trying to seduce them? Why does that even make sense to anyone? Someone care to explain this to me..?
Look, if you want to "play nice" with business, use a BSD- or X-style license (give up hard work to be popular if someone wants your work), or the LGPL (keep hard work free (speech) and still let it play with the "slaves"). Otherwise, why not stick to the GPL? I see no need to reinvent the wheel. If businesses want to make an "open" license that allows them to bundle stuff back into a proprietary ball, screw them. I've got better things to do than help someone make a buck without making some money myself. If they want to make it convertible to the GPL, guess what? I'm going to do so and they can just about kiss my ass.
Why are we constantly reinventing the wheel just to screw ourselves? Using the term "open source" instead of "free (speech)"? Trying to think of idiotic licenses that don't serve to fill any real niche in the world? Argh.. Brain.. hurts..
~ Kish
There a a bunch of licenses certified as "opensource" - how about a license that says,
"if you want to redistribute the software, it must be under one of the open-source licenses as approved in opensource.org"
This way, we can create a bunch of licenses thru an open license creation effort, in the "family" of opensource licenses. Developers can then choose one that makes the best sense to them and redistribute the code.
Real programmers don't worry about these definitions. and guess what, it takes a real programmer to write open-source. So instead of griping about it, why don't we all shut up and code? Any programmer who wants to give out his source should come up with his own license that suits him. If you don't want it don't use it
The recurring references to "free software" and beer, phrasing which seems to have originated with Mr. Stallman, are as specious as the slim distinctions between the various acronyms discussed above. The only "free licenses" that exist are the UC Regents BSD and releasing to the public domain. The other licenses mentioned above are simply various means of maintaining control. Mr. Stallman, while loudly (and lengthily) proclaiming his eschewal of monetary gain from programming, certainly seems to enjoy the miniscule kernel of power his GPL licenses have given him.
There is a class of human, Stallman and Nader among them, who bypass money as a means of keeping score and get right to the heart of the matter. They seek to self-aggrandize and accrue as much power, within their limited sphere of influence, as possible. Fortunately, the spheres are usually rather small. Al Gore is an exception to this; he seeks a rather larger sphere.
BSD projects, notably *BSD OS's, seem to get along just fine without the accretive GPL. When the dreaded "forks" have occurred, (i.e. when Theo de Raadt correctly insisted that FreeBSD was insecure and orchestrated the OpenBSD variant) the community of users and developers has benefited and acquired more choices.
The manner in which a developer releases his or her work is irrelevant to me. Do whatever you think is best for you or satisfies your priorities. But please, lose the pious, sanctimonious and hypocritical tone of these arguments. State plainly that you wish to maintain control and prevent others from acting contrary to your wishes. Any other discussion smacks disgustingly of lawyers and pinhead-dancing angels.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
Wow. Lets take TGPL source, change some stuff, release it as gpl and WOWIE! Any further changes after that cant be used as tgpl because gpl cant roll into tgpl. This is uselesss and thats what NPL is around for, companies who just want to rape us of our work and make money.
-- dieman - Scott Dier
Check your facts. Linus Torvalds does NOT own
Linux. He owns the brand name "linux", sure,
but not the actual code or programs.
GPL is excactly the opposite of what you are
trying to say. NOBODY(or everyone) owns GPLed code, that's the whole point.
However people tend to respect the views of
Linus Torvalds, and thus makes him in control.
I could however just take the linuxcode, put
my own name on it..call it "Gautux" and develop
it in a totally different direction than linux.
It would most assurably suck, but that's another
story.
Have you watched the development of Mozilla lately? No?
If things produced by big companies never had
any quality, then this world would look quite
different, I assure you.
I though of some kind of licence for some time right now.
It's goal : promote some open sourceness without forcing companies to open everything in a given product.
Imagine you want to provide (sell) a product with some parts based upon a (L)GPL source. From what I understand of (L)GPL you cannot, unless you open everything.
But some might want to improve the based source. Some improvements may be ok for everyone, but some others might be very valuable competitive assets. Therefore you might not want to give away these.
The result is you cannot use the source and the community will never gain anything.
The solution is a licence that gives you the possibility to tie your closed code with open sourced code at the very condition that you give back something to improve the open sourced code.
Of course the community will not gain as much as if the company give everything, but on the other way the the company uses its own stuff (not the open sourced) the community will not gain anything either.
The second advantage is to establish really opened protocol/formats/packages.
The 3rd advantage follows the 2nd one : products differenciate on services and new features (not on unslaved formats/markets).
You could object that one corporation could tie its own closed format. But my answer is since its competitors will use the same basement, they will give the community the code to that format, just in order to break the advantage of the first. So that we will not be tied up by a closed format.
your comments...
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
>The only "free licenses" that exist are the UC >Regents BSD and releasing to the public domain
That's hogwash. I concider the GPL free, and BSD liscence is also good. If you want to pick at straws, the only free liscence is no liscence at all.
By the way, what compiler do you use on your BSD box?
>There is a class of human, Stallman and Nader >among them, who bypass money as a means of
>keeping score and get right to the heart of the >matter. They seek to self-aggrandize and accrue >as much power, within their limited sphere of >influence, as possible.
This is also bunk.
Explain how my liscencing something under the GPL gives Richard Stallman any real power.
>Any other discussion smacks disgustingly of >lawyers and pinhead-dancing angels.
Well, thank you very much.
From your point of view, I'm sure it does.
The output of GPLed programs does not fall under the GPL, unless that output contains parts of the program itself (in translated or untranslated from; in other words, only those things that would constitute a "derived work").
In any case, this bit is only an issue for parser generators like bison and so forth, and IIRC, bison's license makes specific exceptions for this case.
Berlin-- http://www.berlin-consortium.org
DNA just wants to be free...
X-style license, LGPL, MPL, etc. are all just as free as the GPL, even according to RMS. These licenses vary along other dimensions than freeness.
On the other hand there are indeed "confusion licenses" such as Sun's Community Source License.
It is a widespread misconception that RMS or anyone else considers non-GPL free licenses "less free." They just consider them "less good at promoting free software."
May seem like a nitpick, but you have to understand this conceptual issue to understand free software licensing. It is important to know that non-GPL licenses are still part of RMS's "GNU system" or the Debian distribution or any other 100%-free system.
You just have to make sure that other people
_can_ take it back to the main tree or any other
tree if they want to.
I can do whatever I want with the linuxsource,
as long as I publish it under a different _name_
after I fix it. I can't call it linux unless
Linus approves of it, but I sure can take it
and make my very own unix-clone: "gautux".
What makes you think that? This has not happened with any of the major BSD/X/Apache-style licensed programs (has it?), and those licenses are much less protective of your contributions than TGPL.
If Netscape had had the courage to put something like TGPL on Mozilla, I sincerely doubt that any serious GPL-only fork would have occurred. There's no real incentive to do so unless you have some grudge against the originator. The TGPL gives the world practically every benefit of the GPL, and developers would shun a GPL-only fork as an act of meanness against a company that has done a good thing.
Don't be too cynical. :-)
If you want your contributions to be incorporated into our source-tree, please include one of the following statements into your submission:
I hereby assign all rights of the submitted material to [originator], provided that he will release this submission under the GPL; all other rights of [originator] esp. the right to make additional licence agreements shall be unaffected.
The submitted material is (c) by [contributor] and may be distributed according to the terms of the GPL. I addition to that, I hereby grant [originator] the exclusive permission to additionally licence this submission under arbitrary terms.
A simple script at the submission-account can check incoming mail for these notes and reject submissions that don't comply. In the end, you get the same effect as the proposed TGPL without having to deal with yet another open source licence.
The special benefit that contributors get for matching the original licensing terms, be they GNU+BSD, GNU+Artistic, or TGPL, is that their work gets incporporated into the main version.
As Eric Raymond has pointed out, as long as there's an active maintainer, there are excellent reasons not to branch development. The pure-GPL option is what I'd take if I want to branch off my own version and take over maintenance.
It's very important to have this option, even though it's infrequently used. This is why more restrictive distinguished-owner licenses like Sun's SCSL are considered non-open. But as long as the maintainer doesn't give me reason to exercise that option, I'm unlikely to mind giving them some extra rights to my bug-fix.
It is true that this does increase the chance of me wanting to branch the code somewhat, but that's just incentive to the maintainer to do a good job and keep me from wanting to.
The nice thng about this is that it allows merging TGPL-licensed works. If the two maintainers can agree, then the merged code can remain TGPL (an incentive for the maintainers), but if they can't, there's no barrier to taking the pure-GPL option. This addresses an important balkanization problem that is usually caused by distinguished-owner licenses.
So I Like It. Even the name is good. Probably, the original maintainer wil eventually want to abdicate and the code will transition to pure GPL. But there's no hurry to get there.
I have RH6.0 here. Let's imagine there are 46 packages licensed under your "fair" scheme.
Red Hat sold the CD to their distributor for $50, I bought it for $75
How much money does Jim, who wrote "Slightly Better FTP", included on the CD, get for his 1.0%
Does he get $0.50? $0.75? $0.01?
Actually, he'll get nothing, because no-one's going to pay $000s to figure out how much to pay Jim for his tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of an almost free product.
Trying to make money by charging everyone a penny just makes accountants and lawyers richer.
What all the posters seem to have missed is that this new licence is not necessary, given copyright law.
Fact is, for any major free software project, copyright assignment is necessary to cover everyone's behind against stupid lawsuits. That's why the FSF insists that copyright for GNU software is assigned to the FSF - you can make your own version, but the changes won't be merged in unless you sign legal papers. Cygnus does the same. I know that Linus doesn't insist on copyright assignment to him personally for everything, but nonetheless he has to be careful that none of the copyright holders will launch frivolous lawsuits, which means restricting copyright holders to a small number of trusted people.
So, given that copyright assignment is legally necessary for any large project, you can do everything that the TGPL does using just the GPL - no need for another licence.
That is:
The 'GPL-with-copyright-assignment' is the same as the GPL, with two important exceptions:
The originator may combine distributed derived works produced by others and *where copyright has been assigned to the originator* with the originator's proprietary code and redistribute the result.
The producer of a derived work may elect to assign copyright back to the originator, or to hold the copyright and distribute under GPL, at their discretion.
This is exactly what Cygnus does with Cygwin. It's released under GPL. If you make a modification, you have the option of either assigning copyright to Cygnus - allowing it to be included in the 'professional' edition - or just releasing it under GPL, in which case Cygnus can't release it under a proprietary licence.
(N.B. in this case, 'proprietary' means 'offer an option to paying customers to link their software with Cygwin without having to GPL their software', since Cygwin is a library. I expect that it will always be offered under GPL as well as the paid-for licence.)
If the community decided that they no longer wanted to let Cygnus use their contributions in this way, people could just refuse to assign copyright.
The same model could easily be used for any other project. There is no need to add Yet Another Licence to do this.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
If big business wants to play, it's on our terms. Not theirs. I steadfastly refuse to accept any new license. Why? Because it could only do what the GPL does, only worse. Wow. Pardon if I don't get all excited about that ..
Big business will be forced to play along whether they like it or not. They can adapt.. or die.. While I don't usually agree with ESR, I do in the following case:
Damn right. As it should be. Anyone who disagrees.. Obviously isn't very into free software..
Besides, software companies will produce products for Linux simply because of its growing popularity. Otherwise they miss out on a new market oppurtunity. And the vendors who put together distributions of Linux don't need any "coaxing". They see a chance to make a buck, and take it, and don't try to introduce some new screwy license. Point is, we don't have to pretend to be their "bitch" in order to get companies on the ball. If you think so, there's no point in using the GPL, or inventing a new license. Just use BSD- or X-style licensing. Real simple.
~ Kish
Well, if Be gets classified as Ma and Pa, so should Redhat. Since the stock market acts to discount the future value of both companies, we can just compare the market capitalizations of both companies to see if it makes more sense for Ma and Pa OS company to build their business model around Open Source or not. Checking out quote.yahoo.com:
BEOS: Market Cap 250 Million USD
RHAT: Market Cap 5.9 Billion USD
That's a factor of 23, folks ...
As an outsider, and one who has been burned twice by 'freeing' source code to less than reputable persons, licenses will destroy the OSS movement for all but the core elements of an operating system.
The needs of business and the wants of GNU pioneers cannot coexist. There is an uneasy truce, now that one company, Microsoft, lords over all elements of computing and dictates the future of business all around them. Mozilla was the last gasp effort of a failing company to spit into the eye of the aggressor. IBM couldn't make a dime in the PC software business and doesn't need to. Sun has only released under a peek-a-boo license: look but don't touch.
What do you want from a license? If you want free software, get together with a few like-minded people and write it. Release it under whatever license you desire. Profit or charity, either is fine.
Do not, however, believe that these sorts of idle machinations on better and fairer licenses can convince businesses who rely on selling software, or locking you into a specific platform to 'free' code they have invested time and money in developing. Why do you want them to do this? So you can make the code better. Hah! A few very smart people might want that and be able to do so, but the majority of people who would be the beneficiaries only want 'free beer.'
I think some of you are missing the point, either because you are fed up with the plethora of licenses out there that complicate things (when we spend more time worrying about licensing than coding, we really have lost our hackerdom), or because you see any compromise on the GPL as a weakening of free software. But the point of this proposal for the TGPL is, as I see it, to *discourage* big business from using all of that semi-free "Open Source" licensing BS that's getting thrown around these days (a la SCSL or MPL). The point is that it is clear that some companies don't want to give up control of their projects (Netscape & Mozilla, Sun & everything they release). This *could* be the community's response, saying effectively that we will play ball with companies using the TGPL, but that more restrictive supposed "Open Source" licenses will not be received with enthusiasm. Now, I'm not saying that the idea of the TGPL is thrilling, as it may discourage full-out embracing of the GPL, but it does offer big business an alternative to using some half-baked licensing scheme that they pay their lawyers a fortune to cook up. The great part about this would be that other GPL projects could nab code willy nilly from a TGPLed project (and simply GPLize it). On the whole, I like this idea despite the problems some have already mentioned about determining who is the originator, etc. Whether or not RMS would call it Free, I'd like to see some company pick up the TGPL instead of MPL, SCSL style licenses.
One of the lawyers actually complained that the GPL was too hard to understand, get this, because it wasn't written by a lawyer.
purty funny, methinks.
This looks like another Stinky Public License.
The language of a politician or con artist. USA is 100% free because no one is in chains outside a jail. The BLM lands of the US west are 100% free because no one owns them. The coffee is 100% free if you just buy the meal.
I have been working out an alternative to the LGPL with the primary goal of being shorter and easier to read; and secondary goals of cleaning up some housekeeping issues that always bugged me with the LGPL and GPL.
Follow the link above, and mail me any comments you have.
The housekeeping issues dealt with: ensure that the original author receives changes (LGPL does not); prevent creating a non-free library or application builder to wrap the functionality of the code in a proprietary shell; move jurisdiction to the author's state or province, in case of a legal battle; and ensure that copyright credits actually appear in the primary documentation, rather than buried in the code somewhere.
Again, the primary goal is simplicity, the rest of it is just nice to have. The SPL is two pages as opposed to the LGPL's eleven.
The SPL has been reworked several times in response to comments, and the current version is about to be reviewed by a lawyer--though there is still lots of time to change.
The one thing I'd like to do is extend it so it works just as well for scripts as for compiled code.
http://vsdl.com/SPL.html
Simple Public License:
I have been working out an alternative to the LGPL with the primary goal of being shorter and easier to read; and secondary goals of cleaning up some housekeeping issues that always bugged me with the LGPL and GPL.
Follow the link above, and mail me any comments you have.
The housekeeping issues dealt with: ensure that the original author receives changes (LGPL does not); prevent creating a non-free library or application builder to wrap the functionality of the code in a proprietary shell; move jurisdiction to the author's state or province, in case of a legal battle; and ensure that copyright credits actually appear in the primary documentation, rather than buried in the code somewhere.
Again, the primary goal is simplicity, the rest of it is just nice to have. The SPL is two pages as opposed to the LGPL's eleven.
The SPL has been reworked several times in response to comments, and the current version is about to be reviewed by a lawyer--though there is still lots of time to change.
The one thing I'd like to do is extend it so it works just as well for scripts as for compiled code.
http://vsdl.com/SPL.html
I don't know about the TGPL, but I want to comment on your questions about the originator. These are my own thoughts and do not apply that this is how the TGPL works.
I believe that if you start a project and produce TGPL code you should be the owner and be the only one to re-release it under GPL. The TGPL should stay intact until the owner relinquishes it. Even if you don't support it anymore, but you should have the option of transfering ownership to someone else. If you enhance the code (even rewrite most of it) it stays under the TGPL. If you are going to rewrite most of it, might as well rewrite the whole thing under your own license.
This is how I view GPL. If I want to continue a GPL product, I will write on top of it. If I don't feel I want the GPL license, then I will start from scratch. I find that the biggest complaints about the GPL is that it "restricts" from using with non-GPL licenses. I don't feel that this is a case. I only restricts those who did not create it. So it restricts those who want to profit off of someone elses work. The GPL is like a gift from programmers. But you cannot abuse that gift. If you use it and change it, you must also give it away (as in rights, not giving away free beer). If you use a GPL product and enhance it, give it to someone, you can charge for any more enhancements. But you can't restrict your customers from going to someone else, or doing it themselves. TGPL seems like it allows the creator to incorporate any changes that the customer has done (and released) or from anyone else.
I like this idea, because it still allows for a freedom of source, and it gives you away of being one up from it. So the community will support you as well as everyone else. But if you stop the support and don't transfer ownership, I don't see how that will be a problem because the product is still out.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
If I understand it, what this license does is reserve the right held by the original author (``originator'') to re-appropriate derived works into their own proprietary product. However, the people creating derived works can effectively hamper this because they can choose to redistribute using the GPL rather than the TGPL. The way I understand it, only the TGPL'ed modifications can be re-appropriated.
I think that the same effect can be achieved by offering the code under two different licenses, like the GPL plus something more restrictive. This would eliminate the complication in the TGPL in that it explicitly has to give a choice between itself and the GPL.
Thus the TGPL would simply by the GPL with a clause saying that the author can take back the modifications and use them. And the author would offer the code either under TGPL or GPL, with your choice as to which one you choose to agree to and use for subsequent redistribution.
Place Free Software into a matrix defined by "pro-user/pro-originator" and "copyleft/copyright". Copyleft, for this definition, is software that must be free in every incarnation. Pro-user/pro-originator means who is in control of the software development.
:-))
We get:
Pro-user/Copyright: BSD, X
Pro-Originator/Copyright: NPL
Pro-Originator/Copyleft: GPL
(Some of the existing licenses like LGPL or QPL don't fit neatly. I'm not claiming this as an accurate model of reality
Obviously, what's missing is a copylefted pro-user license. We need something that is like BSD but can't be made closed. We also need something like GPL that isn't exclusive. The Proposed TGPL is neither, and in my opinion, very wishy-washy.
I want my source code to always be free, but I have no desire to tell the end-user what he can or can't do with it.
I propose a license based upon the GPL that allows:
1) Linking or the use of trivial portions (to be defined) by anyone. We want a single license, not one for apps and another for libraries.
2) Inclusion of software or non-trivial portions within other "copyleft" projects. If your license can guarantee that my code will be Free in all instances, go ahead and use it. This enlarges the number of compatible licenses.
This new license will have to define "trivial" and "copyleft", but that shouldn't be too hard. Alternatively, the Artistic license could be "tightened" up and released at AL version 2.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
A HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO
Suppose that one day, all government protection for intellectual property were to disappear. Trade secrets would still exist. License fees previously collected under patent and copyright law would end, and information disclosed under patents and copyrights would become public domain. It would no longer be possible to remove something from the public domain. Invention-based monopolies would be enforceable only by maintaining trade secrets.
In the absence of government protection, it would seem that inventors would keep inventions secret forever, hoping to maintain perpetual monopolies. Obviously, innovation would grind virtually to a halt. The government's solution has been to implement a body of law, patent law, which uses government force to enforce monopolies provided the inventor willingly discloses his invention.
The inventor's interest is served by concealing his invention because there is a differential advantage in maintaining a monopoly, compared to competing against many other vendors, all familiar with the invention. This differential advantage, summed over the entire future, is a finite amount of money, and the inventor will usually be willing to disclose the invention in exchange for that amount of money. Since money in the present is more valuable than money in the future, the inventor will likely disclose the invention for a smaller amount.
DISCLOSURE TRADING
Suppose an inventor wants to borrow against the future value of his monopoly. He prints shares, or contracts, saying that either he will disclose his invention on a particular date, or he will pay a predetermined penalty to the share's bearer. He sells these shares to anybody willing to buy them.
To his customers, the shares represent a promise that he will disclose the invention, reducing its cost. Disclosure benefits the customers, so they will start buying the shares. They are willing to pay some money now, so they can save some money in the future.
The cost of shares fluctuates as the market's estimate of the secret's value goes up and down. Many purchasers will buy shares just to try to make money on price fluctuations. The price will tend to track the market's estimate of the future value of the monopoly.
If the inventor ever succeeds in buying back all the shares, then he is relieved of the need to disclose the invention, since he would only be paying penalties to himself. If he sells only a few shares, he may decide that paying a few penalties is worthwhile in order to maintain the monopoly.
I've assumed here that government intervention isn't necessary to enforce contracts. There is some good evidence to support this assumption. Most business contracts these days (the sort under discussion here) are privately arbitrated and privately enforced.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TODAY?
In reality, there is an essentially-zero probability that government protection of intellectual property will cease. In a world with patent and copyright protection, can disclosure shares do anything useful?
Some ideas that originated as oddities of libertarian thought have gradually trickled into the mainstream. Among these are privatized mail delivery, education vouchers, and private arbitration and enforcement of contracts. One might hope that if enough functions of government are obsoleted by free-market replacements, the government might eventually dry up and blow away. Not likely, but we can always hope.
One place to experiment with disclosure shares is the world of proprietary software. Software companies are tinkering with the idea of open-sourcing their efforts (or at least some of their efforts), with varying degrees of success. Netscape's Mozilla project is probably the most famous example, the one everybody hoped would succeed, and which has run into grave difficulties.
If Netscape had chosen instead to sell disclosure shares, things might have gone easier for them. Share sales would represent income, at a time when they were having trouble finding income. By tracking the price of shares, they could have measured the market demand for an open-source browser. This might have provided better information for committing resources to the Mozilla project.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
I totally agree with your vision of the GPL, this is the way I feel about the GPL/BSD license. But the fact still is that the GPL restrict you to use it with other license, that is the whole point of the GPL: Thou shall not enslave the code I gave you. The BSD is about the programmer freedom, the GPL about the program freedom.
After a second sought that is true that there is no problem if the originator keep his rights even if he do nothing to the source code any more. After all, if he do nothing the other people still have the same rights as with the GPL.
But I think that there must be a way to give your originator's rights (or, why not, sell them).
If you don't contribute to a codebase you may not be forced legally to give your rights but you may want to do it "morally" because you think that the new maintener deserve the rights you had over this code.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
"You just have to make sure that other people _can_ take it back to the main tree"
I never said anything else (but I may have expressed myself badly, since English isn't my natural language).
"or any other tree if they want to."
As long as the tree is under the GPL.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Once you include others GPL only contributions, or take code from others GPLed products, your work is forever bound by the GPL, and the GPL alone. If you've commited to provide other's GPLed code under a different license, then you've breached the GPL and have no right to use license. If this is the case, get a lawyer because you've created an actionable liablility for yourself. In short, you've sold sold something you don't own.
Take a look at http://php.net/license.html for an idea of what might be done. Make it clear that you will only accept patches that are offered under compatible terms, right in your LICENSE file. Make people sending you patches affirm that 1) they are the original author (did not use GPLed or other people's code); and 2) they grant you all the rights you need to execute your commercialization license.
Once they agree to allow you to commercialize their patch under the second license, you can re-release it to your clients under seperate terms.
Of course, some hothead could fork the code under GPL alone. Or, you can become an Arse and somebody will de-Arse you by forking under the GPL. If this happens, you can never re-integrate the fork with your dual-licensed code base unless you agree the re-integrated version is GPL only. You'll have to maintain your own code tree, and the fork maintainer will maintain theirs.
The expected benefit of this new license is almost exactly the same as my licensing plan for libart. I'm just doing it using existing licenses.
Specifically, I'm releasing the code under GPL, but I'm also holding onto the copyright so I can license it to proprietary customers. I ask people to assign copyright over to me if they want their work to go in my relase. This creates a nice balance of powers, and gives me incentive to be a "nice guy." If I stop doing my job of maintaining libart well, then anyone who wants to is perfectly free to continue development under the GPL. Similarly, people are also free to fork if they feel that what I'm doing is unfair. It's in my interest to avoid a fork, so I better play nice.
Actually, while libart as a whole is released under GPL, large chunks (basically, everything used by gnome-libs, including gnome-print and the Gnome Canvas) are released under LGPL, to make it even more friendly towards people with alternate licensing arrangements. This may increase the fraction of proprietary users who can just use it for free and not pay me any license, but that's ok. It still gets libart out there and used, which is no doubt good for business.
This model is pretty simliar to what Sleepycat is doing for their Berkeley DB code. The main difference is that they have YAOSL, which imho is not quite as friendly as using the existing LGPL and GPL licenses. In particular, they had to grant Gnome a special one-off license to use DB safely in the Gnome libraries, which is obviously not needed for LGPL stuff.
I'm not advocating this model for everybody, but I'm expecting it to work well for libart. I think everyone benefits: I get funded, which means that I can eat and afford to put a lot of work into making libart great, and the free software community gets a well-polished graphics library without encumberance.
Isn't this supposed to be an important aspect of the programming art, to make best use of existing tools rather than trying to create a new set of tools for every possible use? In any case, I cringe every time I see yet another goddamn open source license.
LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs
For the success of a new license two key conditions must be fulfilled:
- full compatible with GPL (for acceptance by Open-Source community, RMS and for
... some GPL fundamentalists) - profitable for the company (they are not interested in the success (survive) of their software in brutal OS and MS world without having a single penny profit
.
So the proposition of a new (c)GPL license: basicly it is a GPL with an exception from restriction of using it in non-GPL or non-(c)GPL code; this exception apply only for the copyright holder:- copyright holder is allowed to incorporate the (c)GPL software in a proprietary version (which i.e. can be sold for use with non-GPL or closed-source software) as long as it is distributed also in (c)GPL version (so the modification author is guaranteed that it will be available for the public not only his contribution, but also the full featured version of the software to which he is contributing to)
- if the third party author do not wish to allow the copyright holder to incorporate his changes in the proprietary version, he have(when distributed to public) to separe his GPL modification from the main code (i.e. patches, separate files...). This should prevent the mixture of different-licensed codes.
Hopefully such a license would- allow to use, link (both statically and dynamically if it is a library) with (c)GPL, GPL and GPL-like code
- modify the code as (c)GPL; this should prevent fragmentation of the code (only the (c)GPL-ed modifications will be accepted for the main branch, so modifier will rather obey (c)GPL if he wants to include his contribution in the future versions)
- still allow to make stand-alone "pure" GPL extensions if they are significant enough to be kept in separate files or packages
- make a company profit by selling the software to companies (or persons) which cannot accept (c)GPL license.
The (c)GPL version probably should be directly connected with corresponding GPL version.Roman
How about a source only public license? Make it so only the orginator of the code can distribute binary copies of the code but the acutal source can be freely distributed. That would make it so that people willing to compile source (hackish types) will get things for free while the general populace will have to pay.
If you want the benefits of something like TGPL, you can release your stuff into the public domain and get even more out of it.
Public domain source can be re-released under any licence (including GPL; from there subsequent mods of the GPL version are GPL, but you could make the same mods to the public domain source if you wanted to and re-release under GPL to put the mod in the public domain) or used in any proprietary projects.
TGPL, OTOH, can only co-exist with GPL, among the open-source licences, because you can't release your source under another licence, even though you could hide it away in a binary.
RMS would hate TGPL because the only reason he created GPL is to prevent FSF code from being used in proprietary software. It does nothing but force all modifications and uses of GPL code to be openly released under GPL. To me, this is spiteful and authoritarian-communist; nobody can "steal" public domain code, they are only free to use it and retain all rights to their own mods and derivatives (whereas the GPL grabs the work of others). Heaven forbid somebody should want to make a buck off his own work!
I'm sorry, but I am unhappy seeing yet another 'open source' license turn up that undercuts what the GPL's about. It's this simple- the GPL is primarily, blinderedly, obsessively about causing the flow of information to continue and be unblockable. That's it! That is the primary goal.
The GPL is brilliant in its singleminded pursuit of this goal. There isn't a situation that couldn't be dealt with under the GPL. Every detail is perfectly realized in fulfilling this goal. For instance, there's no requirement to get consent of previous authors- so a piece of software, once GPLed, is guaranteed to live as long as it's needed, even if the original author wants to kill it! The doctrine that source follows binaries provides the opportunity to safely _use_ such software or privately develop it with no conditions on the development- and the use of 'distribution' is on a personal level that applies even to one person getting a GPLed software project from his boss at work- that person under the GPL _owns_ the software and has rights to redistribute under the GPL, any way he pleases so long as the source accompanies it. It's amazing that RMS saw all this- perhaps he didn't, perhaps it's simply the logical consequence of his passion for unhindered flow of information. The important thing is, it's here, it's available, and in fact Linux (at least big chunks of it) are licensed through the GPL, making Linux a form of information that cannot be effectively blocked or confined.
It's distressing but probably shouldn't be surprising to see these continued efforts- efforts that can only be to 'make a license that seems free/open but still allows the originator to block or withhold their information for the sake of profit'. Now, profit's dandy- wish I had more of it- lots of ways to get it, too. Freedom's dandy too- highflown words, pontificating, all very fun. However, the point at which the seeking of profit starts to undercut the safeguards of the GPL that keep information un-blockable- is the point at which my sympathy runs out.
The mere fact that this is granting extra benefits to the writer of the software isn't enough to impress me, either. Such a person is perfectly free to write proprietary software, nothing is stopping them, an entire legal edifice built around intellectual property is ready to defend their rights to do so.
People writing open source software ought to consider what they are writing it for. What is Linux for, when you think about it? What good is it? There are commercial Unices that are arguably as good technically, even better (depending on your particular requirements). What's so special about Linux?
Linux cannot be taken away.
Not even Linus can- if he threw a fit and decided never to share anything again, the license he chose, the GPL, would ensure that the work would continue, and would be available to all who wanted to get involved. No ifs, ands or buts about it. Even if Linus himself tried furiously to block any further development, along with the whole bunch of top-level maintainers. Linux _cannot_, legally, be taken away- that would be quite blatant contract breach, and nothing that is GPL can be withheld from you, no matter what anyone thinks, even if the original author gets nasty and wants to totally starve you of information.
Now, would that be the case if Linus was granted the special dispensation to release a proprietary version of Linux? If the authors and contributors all got to 'shut off' their code should they have a bad beard day? If that were so, Linux would be built upon sand- lots of pieces would exist on sufferance of the original authors, and you'd have to humor them.
We don't have to deal with that.
And I, for one, intend to continue releasing software under the GPL- and in so doing, I make a contribution that I can't un-make. I like it that way. Whether my work's good or bad, it is part of the great hoard of free information, the collection that will always be there to be used- on its own terms.
I'm never gonna use a GPL-variation that sets restrictions on the unimpeded flow of information. And that includes variations that give _me_ the ability to impede. I consider that wrong. If you're gonna write proprietary software, just do it, don't put up smokescreens.
Some companies might be interested in releasing
their source code under a license that would be
NPL-like in the first 2 years (for example), but
that would also garantee that the license would
change to the GPL after that period.
This way, the company can benefit from the
open development and has time to develop new
products and services.
The original source code and all submitted
modifications to it would be covered by the
GPL after the 2 year period.
The hacker community would thus improve the
company's code while knowing that eventually
all these improvements will be made available
to the public for ever.
You are right!. To hell with them. Free software got along this far without the help of any corporation. Who cares if Linux has 10% or 100% of the market. It's cool and we like it. We like it because it was written for us and by us. Let's not dilute our licenses and comprimise our ethics and principles just so linux can scale to 64 processor s next month. If the need is there it will scale eventually. I for one don't give a flying donut (tm) about 64 processors and I would guess that a vast moajority of Linux users don't either. The only people who can afford those are corporations anyways.
War is necrophilia.
I could not have agreed more. You have cut to the heart of the matter. This post deserves way better then a 2.
War is necrophilia.
What I look for in a license is the ability to freely share code between different projects. I release my code under the GPL because that gives me a huge amount of code to share with.
The TGPL restricts you from reusing existing GPL code. If you redistribute your work under GPL, then you can reuse existing GPL code but you also lose any benifits provided by the TGPL.
I do think the free software community needs a mechanism to help programmers get payed for what they're doing. It is clear that the free software community is not self supporting - free software programmers are either supported by paying jobs, or by parents who have paying jobs.
The TGPL is a good attempt at supporting free software developers but I think a better solution would support both of these goals:
1. to help free software programmers make well earned money
2. to allow code to be freely shared between different projects
It is no surprise that the TGPL overlooks the second goal - both goals are at opposite ends of human motivation. But a balance should be possible. Actually, SourceXChange, CoSource and the Free Software Bazaar are evidence that it is possible. Even though these already exist, it would be interesting to see something like TGPL that supports goal (2).
You are forced to put the GPL on your work if your work is upgrades, bugfixes, or other derivatives of GPL'd stuff.
The point is that the originator that puts the work under GPL only did the original work, which he allows to be compiled and run freely, then he grabs everybody else's later work on it, no matter what they wanted for it.
The net effect is not that people with commercial interests in their software release the source, but that they keep their hands off GPL code entirely.
With open source, it is entirely possible for someone with a sufficient commercial interest to recreate any code under GPL (by reading the source and then duplicating the functionality exactly). Forcing them to do so is spiteful, it hurts them without benefiting you.
Anyway, I don't really see anything wrong with someone deciding to GPL their own work, when they make an informed decision to do so. Most people, though, talk about it as if GPL code is "more free" than public domain, which is dead flat wrong. People release their code under the GPL just on reflex, not because they really want the extra restrictions. I just don't think anyone considers public domain any more, when it is the best choice in many cases.