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Not related to this article directly, but what is the current perception of the term "Software Freedom"? I know that FSF equals it to GPL, which grants certain

by greyman 11y ago

Not related to this article directly, but what is the current perception of the term "Software Freedom"? I know that FSF equals it to GPL, which grants certain freedoms to the user of the software, but if such a user is actually a developer, one freedom is quickly taken away - one can't use the software as one wish, but needs to also license his work as GPL. Of course it looks like I am trolling here, but I really try to understand what is so great about GPL. I noticed large companies like Google or FB are releasing their open source projects under Apache license, which also grants the same freedoms like GPL, but also offers more - truly use the software as one wish. And for some works, like for example FB's folly C++ library, it is really a high quality cutting-edge stuff, and anyone can still contribute like in GPL world.

blfr 11y ago
This is such an old BSD vs GPL flame. And it's irrelevant here. You will run into the same issues when using a high quality, cutting-edge, BSD-licensed MTA.
weland 11y ago
At the same time, however, there are plenty of companies that use software released under a permissive license without contributing back -- they release none of their improvements, they don't contribute financially and so on. GPL adepts hope that it will force these "malicious" companies to comply, while doing no harm to the ones that would contribute anyway. Or, in their own jargon, that the freedom (to reuse that software for any purpose, including commercial ones) which made this possible is preserved. The results have been... mixed, as far as I know. Permissive licenses do allow many commercial players to "abuse" the system -- and make no mistake about it, especially companies like Google or FB are entirely disinterested in charity. "For the community" is a convenient PR stunt, but real life has consistently shown that every large company has enough ulterior motives to make community service an accident, not an intent. On the other hand, GPL (rightfully) scares companies away. Even fair players shy away because of the complexity and difficulty of the license, and developers are sometimes put off by the amount of politics involved. These things discourage legitimate contributors.
JupiterMoon 11y ago
This discussion has been done so many times. There are advantages and disadvantages to all the major software licences. We don't need another 200 comment flame war about the GPL.
wtbob 11y ago
> one freedom is quickly taken away - one can't use the software as one wish, but needs to also license his work as GPL Licensing software to users is not the same as using it for oneself; it's not use at all. There is no freedom to license someone else's software; there never has been a freedom to profit off of someone else's labour (there is, of course, a freedom to try to do so, by paying someone to work and then selling that person's work for hire). > I really try to understand what is so great about GPL It creates a community of users and software, where user-developers know that their contributions will be freely available to other users, and will not be locked up. In principle, there's much to admire about the BSD license. But, as we see with so many proprietary devices and software built on BSD-licensed software, it's simply all too likely that good code will be locked up inside proprietary cages.
- DanBC 11y ago
  > it's simply all too likely that good code will be locked up inside proprietary cages. ...and that bad changes to good code get hidden and are now unfixable.
jordigh 11y ago
> I know that FSF equals it to GPL, No. It makes me sad that people still believe this. :-( Free software does not mean GPL. The FSF is quite explicit about what licenses it considers free, and they coincide almost exactly with the licenses that OSI declares open source.
belorn 11y ago
As many has said, this is a very old flame war and unnecessary in this discussion. There is plenty of articles and discussion forums that can provide a suitable environment for this. If you want to understand the philosophy about freedom, just take a glancing look at any book that talks about it or liberty and you will find plenty of answer to your questions. John Locke for example put freedom into two camps, nature and people, where freedom of people means to be under no restraint apart from standing rules to live by that are common to everyone. Freedom of people can thus be limited by a law, a license, a restriction, and people are still free so long it effects everyone in a equal (common) way. It is thus not freedom of people to use something as one wish without also follow common laws. A few hundred years later, Isaiah Berlin formally framed the concept of negative liberty as the freedom to not be interfered by other persons. One could thus describe any license which for example prevents patents from interfering with software development to be licenses that preserve software developers freedom to develop software. Those a just small samples of the philosophy and of course others has written their views on the subject, and I recommend reading those if you are really trying to understand Software Freedom and GPL.

by greyman 11y ago

blfr 11y ago

This is such an old BSD vs GPL flame. And it's irrelevant here. You will run into the same issues when using a high quality, cutting-edge, BSD-licensed MTA.

weland 11y ago

At the same time, however, there are plenty of companies that use software released under a permissive license without contributing back -- they release none of their improvements, they don't contribute financially and so on. GPL adepts hope that it will force these "malicious" companies to comply, while doing no harm to the ones that would contribute anyway. Or, in their own jargon, that the freedom (to reuse that software for any purpose, including commercial ones) which made this possible is preserved. The results have been... mixed, as far as I know. Permissive licenses do allow many commercial players to "abuse" the system -- and make no mistake about it, especially companies like Google or FB are entirely disinterested in charity. "For the community" is a convenient PR stunt, but real life has consistently shown that every large company has enough ulterior motives to make community service an accident, not an intent. On the other hand, GPL (rightfully) scares companies away. Even fair players shy away because of the complexity and difficulty of the license, and developers are sometimes put off by the amount of politics involved. These things discourage legitimate contributors.

JupiterMoon 11y ago

This discussion has been done so many times. There are advantages and disadvantages to all the major software licences. We don't need another 200 comment flame war about the GPL.

wtbob 11y ago

> one freedom is quickly taken away - one can't use the software as one wish, but needs to also license his work as GPL Licensing software to users is not the same as using it for oneself; it's not use at all. There is no freedom to license someone else's software; there never has been a freedom to profit off of someone else's labour (there is, of course, a freedom to try to do so, by paying someone to work and then selling that person's work for hire). > I really try to understand what is so great about GPL It creates a community of users and software, where user-developers know that their contributions will be freely available to other users, and will not be locked up. In principle, there's much to admire about the BSD license. But, as we see with so many proprietary devices and software built on BSD-licensed software, it's simply all too likely that good code will be locked up inside proprietary cages.

DanBC 11y ago
> it's simply all too likely that good code will be locked up inside proprietary cages. ...and that bad changes to good code get hidden and are now unfixable.

jordigh 11y ago

> I know that FSF equals it to GPL, No. It makes me sad that people still believe this. :-( Free software does not mean GPL. The FSF is quite explicit about what licenses it considers free, and they coincide almost exactly with the licenses that OSI declares open source.

belorn 11y ago

As many has said, this is a very old flame war and unnecessary in this discussion. There is plenty of articles and discussion forums that can provide a suitable environment for this. If you want to understand the philosophy about freedom, just take a glancing look at any book that talks about it or liberty and you will find plenty of answer to your questions. John Locke for example put freedom into two camps, nature and people, where freedom of people means to be under no restraint apart from standing rules to live by that are common to everyone. Freedom of people can thus be limited by a law, a license, a restriction, and people are still free so long it effects everyone in a equal (common) way. It is thus not freedom of people to use something as one wish without also follow common laws. A few hundred years later, Isaiah Berlin formally framed the concept of negative liberty as the freedom to not be interfered by other persons. One could thus describe any license which for example prevents patents from interfering with software development to be licenses that preserve software developers freedom to develop software. Those a just small samples of the philosophy and of course others has written their views on the subject, and I recommend reading those if you are really trying to understand Software Freedom and GPL.