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Like many other programmers, I avoid GPL'd code like the plague. The idea that you can own an idea seems ridiculous to me, and it feels unjust to sue "random co

Like many other programmers, I avoid GPL'd code like the plague. The idea that you can own an idea seems ridiculous to me, and it feels unjust to sue "random corporations" for using ideas that you published. We're standing on the shoulders of giants, and I see the GPL as a tumor that's draining the world's resources. Just my two cents.

coldpie 11y ago
It's not about owning an idea, like a patent is. It's about receiving payment for someone else using the code I developed. The price for using my code is that you also release your source code. If that price is too high, you can't use my code. The hard part is defining "use my code" in the context of reading my source, then using those ideas in your own project. At what point does it change from gathering an idea to just copying my code?
- rmc 11y ago
  "Your money or your source code, which do you want to give up?"
- burntsushi 11y ago
  All intellectual property (including copyright) is based on the fundamental premise that legal entitlement can be granted to ideas or "creations of the intellect."
cname 11y ago
What on earth does the GPL have to do with owning _ideas_? Please explain. Also, do you think that Linux, for example, is draining the world's resources? If so, how?
- greggyb 11y ago
  If your code is GPLed you impose a cost on someone else to use it. Whether or not that cost is morally justified is not the point of the objection. I am making no judgment as to the righteousness of the goal of using a GPL or similar license. By using a GPL you strictly limit who can consume your code to those who are willing to be bound by your views on what is right. In this way (and limited explicitly to the scope of topics I am directly addressing in this comment), GPL licensing is similar to proprietary licensing: limits are imposed upon consumers of your code based on your licensing decision. Again, I am not making a moral judgment or normative statement about what is good or right when it comes to code reuse or copyright in general. Licenses which do not impose requirements upon consumers of the product are more free in the sense of allowing more behaviors, or placing fewer restrictions. To me the key distinction is one of code freedom vs human freedom. Is the code free from malicious tampering or is the human free to make decisions and take action unhampered by another? If I may quote the late Milton Friedman, "Heaven preserve us from the sincere reformer who knows what's good for you and by heaven he's going to make you do it whether you want to or not. That's when the greatest harm is done." P.S. This is not an observation about you, because I don't know you, but I think we can observe the amount of hedging and defensive posturing I've taken by default in this response is illustrative of the type of response I can expect, based on observing similar discussions across various fora online. I hope that in this case that defensiveness was not necessary (:
  - abecedarius 11y ago
    Curious: I'm an admirer of Friedman and a developer of GPL code. (GPLv3 is my default for new code.) Note that you can offer your code on different terms to customers who won't 'pay' the GPL. Is your position that software should be public domain?
    - greggyb 11y ago
      I'm actually not taking a position, but trying to help provide nuance in a debate that often teems with zealotry, and do so in a reasonable manner to provoke thought rather than vitriol. My unexamined default inclination would be toward a BSD or MIT style license than a GPL. You may infer what you like about my default leanings in other areas if you like. I've not given enough thorough thought toward software copyright to have a strong opinion as to the morally right position. This is not to undercut my comment and the observations I made above, but to make clear my standing which is ambivalent. I can certainly understand both sides of the argument and respect the position people speak from for either (to be explicit, the poles of the continuum being public domain on one end, with MIT/BSD licenses leaning far that way and hardcore copyleft on the other with GPL being the canonical example toward that end). Toward the Friedman quote, that was not an attempt at appeal to authority to discredit the idea of copyleft, but an observation about the type of person (or at least the general tone of argument) who most vocally defends GPL licensing. If anything it was an appeal to authority to please be thoughtful about how to respond to my comment, and more to the point of why I included it, because it popped into my mind while responding. This is a long-winded non-answer so far. Really, what I was trying to do was to emphasize that there are costs to a GPL license, and that a reasonable person may think of those costs as such and not as freedoms. If you look at my response to a sibling comment, I'm thinking about this in terms of negative vs positive rights. Looking at Friedman, I would certainly characterize him as someone who leans toward defining negative rights as freedom/liberty and positive rights as limitations thereupon. I would also characterize myself as leaning that way (so maybe I'm attributing my own views onto him). This is not to imply you are a hypocrite or declare that it is right or in any way argue against a GPL copyright in general, but just an observation.
      - 11y ago
gillianseed 11y ago
I find your reasoning very strange, if anything, GPL ensures that the 'ideas' are instead made available for anyone to use, provided that they in turn do the same. If anything would be a 'tumor' by your reasoning around ideas, it would be proprietary software, which is what GPL prevents.
_ZeD_ 11y ago
sorry, but is the "random corporaions" the tumor: they just use the code, maybe improve it, but keep that private, and the improvement is lost for the rest of the people.
- imtringued 11y ago
  Every written line of code is a liability. By maintaining an internal fork of an opensource you are actually putting a burden on your business and no longer receive the latest patches for free. >the improvement is lost for the rest of the people. You are forgetting that businesses sell a product. You can get the improvements by buying their product. If the business saves money because they used opensource technology this should translate into lower costs and it follows that they will reduce prices (after all they have to compete with free as in beer!) for their customers. If you don't want them to earn money from your MIT code you can always try to erode their profits by implementing similar improvements.
belorn 11y ago
I have been thinking that I should dual license my code under GPL and a license which forbids the enforcement of copyright and patents. People could then chose the one which one align closer to their philosophy. Something like: Recipient of this software can do what ever they want so long they agree to a contract that bounds them to never do enforcement, in legal and technical form, for copyright and patents. A complete ban on lawsuits for copyright infringement and patents, including the use of DRM technology that manage and enforces copyright and patents. It is also not limited to just the work that I distribute, but as a contract would cover everything the recipient create or has created, be indefinite, and with harsh fines if broken. I do not think a single person or company who refuse to use GPL would instead accept that deal. Will you be the first person to accept such deal and forever stop creating tumors on the worlds resources by putting software under proprietary licenses?

coldpie 11y ago

It's not about owning an idea, like a patent is. It's about receiving payment for someone else using the code I developed. The price for using my code is that you also release your source code. If that price is too high, you can't use my code. The hard part is defining "use my code" in the context of reading my source, then using those ideas in your own project. At what point does it change from gathering an idea to just copying my code?

rmc 11y ago
"Your money or your source code, which do you want to give up?"
burntsushi 11y ago
All intellectual property (including copyright) is based on the fundamental premise that legal entitlement can be granted to ideas or "creations of the intellect."

cname 11y ago

What on earth does the GPL have to do with owning _ideas_? Please explain. Also, do you think that Linux, for example, is draining the world's resources? If so, how?

greggyb 11y ago
If your code is GPLed you impose a cost on someone else to use it. Whether or not that cost is morally justified is not the point of the objection. I am making no judgment as to the righteousness of the goal of using a GPL or similar license. By using a GPL you strictly limit who can consume your code to those who are willing to be bound by your views on what is right. In this way (and limited explicitly to the scope of topics I am directly addressing in this comment), GPL licensing is similar to proprietary licensing: limits are imposed upon consumers of your code based on your licensing decision. Again, I am not making a moral judgment or normative statement about what is good or right when it comes to code reuse or copyright in general. Licenses which do not impose requirements upon consumers of the product are more free in the sense of allowing more behaviors, or placing fewer restrictions. To me the key distinction is one of code freedom vs human freedom. Is the code free from malicious tampering or is the human free to make decisions and take action unhampered by another? If I may quote the late Milton Friedman, "Heaven preserve us from the sincere reformer who knows what's good for you and by heaven he's going to make you do it whether you want to or not. That's when the greatest harm is done." P.S. This is not an observation about you, because I don't know you, but I think we can observe the amount of hedging and defensive posturing I've taken by default in this response is illustrative of the type of response I can expect, based on observing similar discussions across various fora online. I hope that in this case that defensiveness was not necessary (:
- abecedarius 11y ago
  Curious: I'm an admirer of Friedman and a developer of GPL code. (GPLv3 is my default for new code.) Note that you can offer your code on different terms to customers who won't 'pay' the GPL. Is your position that software should be public domain?
  - greggyb 11y ago
    I'm actually not taking a position, but trying to help provide nuance in a debate that often teems with zealotry, and do so in a reasonable manner to provoke thought rather than vitriol. My unexamined default inclination would be toward a BSD or MIT style license than a GPL. You may infer what you like about my default leanings in other areas if you like. I've not given enough thorough thought toward software copyright to have a strong opinion as to the morally right position. This is not to undercut my comment and the observations I made above, but to make clear my standing which is ambivalent. I can certainly understand both sides of the argument and respect the position people speak from for either (to be explicit, the poles of the continuum being public domain on one end, with MIT/BSD licenses leaning far that way and hardcore copyleft on the other with GPL being the canonical example toward that end). Toward the Friedman quote, that was not an attempt at appeal to authority to discredit the idea of copyleft, but an observation about the type of person (or at least the general tone of argument) who most vocally defends GPL licensing. If anything it was an appeal to authority to please be thoughtful about how to respond to my comment, and more to the point of why I included it, because it popped into my mind while responding. This is a long-winded non-answer so far. Really, what I was trying to do was to emphasize that there are costs to a GPL license, and that a reasonable person may think of those costs as such and not as freedoms. If you look at my response to a sibling comment, I'm thinking about this in terms of negative vs positive rights. Looking at Friedman, I would certainly characterize him as someone who leans toward defining negative rights as freedom/liberty and positive rights as limitations thereupon. I would also characterize myself as leaning that way (so maybe I'm attributing my own views onto him). This is not to imply you are a hypocrite or declare that it is right or in any way argue against a GPL copyright in general, but just an observation.
    - 11y ago

gillianseed 11y ago

I find your reasoning very strange, if anything, GPL ensures that the 'ideas' are instead made available for anyone to use, provided that they in turn do the same. If anything would be a 'tumor' by your reasoning around ideas, it would be proprietary software, which is what GPL prevents.

_ZeD_ 11y ago

sorry, but is the "random corporaions" the tumor: they just use the code, maybe improve it, but keep that private, and the improvement is lost for the rest of the people.

imtringued 11y ago
Every written line of code is a liability. By maintaining an internal fork of an opensource you are actually putting a burden on your business and no longer receive the latest patches for free. >the improvement is lost for the rest of the people. You are forgetting that businesses sell a product. You can get the improvements by buying their product. If the business saves money because they used opensource technology this should translate into lower costs and it follows that they will reduce prices (after all they have to compete with free as in beer!) for their customers. If you don't want them to earn money from your MIT code you can always try to erode their profits by implementing similar improvements.

belorn 11y ago

I have been thinking that I should dual license my code under GPL and a license which forbids the enforcement of copyright and patents. People could then chose the one which one align closer to their philosophy. Something like: Recipient of this software can do what ever they want so long they agree to a contract that bounds them to never do enforcement, in legal and technical form, for copyright and patents. A complete ban on lawsuits for copyright infringement and patents, including the use of DRM technology that manage and enforces copyright and patents. It is also not limited to just the work that I distribute, but as a contract would cover everything the recipient create or has created, be indefinite, and with harsh fines if broken. I do not think a single person or company who refuse to use GPL would instead accept that deal. Will you be the first person to accept such deal and forever stop creating tumors on the worlds resources by putting software under proprietary licenses?