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Licensing could be enough alone. We're auditing everything we use for license issues because we don't have to get bit by the GPL and have to opensource all our

Licensing could be enough alone. We're auditing everything we use for license issues because we don't have to get bit by the GPL and have to opensource all our proprietary software. Even if C# was noticeably worse (for some arbitrary definition or worse), if it had a more permissible license, that alone could draw people to it. (Note: I don't know anything about the Java / C# licenses. This is just talking in general.)

jimktrains2 11y ago
> get bit by the GPL and have to opensource all our proprietary software The tone here sounds very angry. You aren't "bit" by the GPL, you choose to participate in the usage of the license and the community of code that comes with it. It's not some unknown, nasty thing you need to constantly defend yourself against (as implied by "being bit" like it's a dog you need to watch out for everywhere). "We're auditing everything we use for license issues because we activly choose not to participate in the GPL community and would rather abuse and profit from other people's good will" is closer to realitiy
- coldtea 11y ago
  >The tone here sounds very angry. You aren't "bit" by the GPL, you choose to participate in the usage of the license and the community of code that comes with it. It's not like you had a _choice_ if there's software you want to use and it's only available as GPL. You'd have only chosen if there were 3-4 license options for the same software, and you went with GPL willingly.
  - pdonis 11y ago
    > It's not like you had a _choice_ if there's software you want to use and it's only available as GPL. Sure you do; if you don't want to accept the GPL license terms, you can write your own software that fulfills whatever function you wanted the GPL code for.
    - nsgi 11y ago
      You also have the option to not use the software, if it's software you want, not need.
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    "It's not like you had a _choice_ if there's software you want to use and it's only available as GPL." Sure you do. Write it yourself.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      Not much of a choice, if one involves: 1) begrudgingly adopting a licence you don't like or want over: 2) re-creating man years (or decades) of effort to reproduce a certain project Especially if you lack the programming skills or money, it's not a choice at all -- you only have one option. So in those cases you "don't chose GPL" -- you chose the project you want to use, AND have to necessarily suffer GPL too because of that choice.
      - cyphar 11y ago
        Have you considered why the original authors chose the GPL? It's so people who use their code will never take away the freedom of users of the code. If you're complaining about not being able to take their code and make it proprietary, you're missing the point that THAT'S WHY THEY CHOSE THE GPL.
        coldtea 11y ago
        That's orthogonal to whether the prospective user of the package has an actual choice or not (besides using as GPL it or going without). WHATEVER THE ORIGINAL AUTHORS' REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE GPL (sic), it doesn't change the situation that one might not be happy for a project they want to use being in GPL -- including people who don't intend to make it proprietary, but who prefer BSD licenses nevertheless.
        cyphar 11y ago
        > That's orthogonal to whether the prospective user of the package has an actual choice or not (besides using as GPL it or going without). You've just outlined the choice that the person has. Admittedly, I wouldn't use the GPL for libraries, I've started using the MPLv2 for stuff like that. I don't really agree with the common reading of the combined work clause in the GPL wrt libraries (a work that uses a library's API shouldn't be bound by the copyleft of the GPL IMO -- but as Oracle has proven, APIs appear to be copyrightable). > WHATEVER THE ORIGINAL AUTHORS' REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE GPL (sic), it doesn't change the situation that one might not be happy for a project they want to use being in GPL -- including people who don't intend to make it proprietary, but who prefer BSD licenses nevertheless. BSD licenses allow distributors of the software to make it proprietary. That was clearly a more important problem to the author and community of the software than allowing GPL-incompatible projects to use the code. It's a fundamentally ethical decision, which you may disagree with if you follow the open source (as opposed to free software) philosophy.
  - cyphar 11y ago
    > >The tone here sounds very angry. You aren't "bit" by the GPL, you choose to participate in the usage of the license and the community of code that comes with it. > It's not like you had a _choice_ if there's software you want to use and it's only available as GPL. You can either write it yourself, don't implement that feature or comply with the GPL. The GPL would be a pretty bad copyleft license if companies could just ignore it because "we want to keep our stuff proprietary". The authors of the software wanted to ensure that all users of their code would have perpetual freedom. Complaining about it without recognising their reason for using the GPL is quite a selective argument. They don't want you to use their code if it means that you'll take away your users' freedom.
    - WayneBro 11y ago
      Except that "perpetual freedom" for one group (users) also equates to "perpetual removal of freedom" for another group (developers). It doesn't seem fair to mention one without the other, since the latter is the primary reason why many, many developers choose to not use the GPL. Also, I don't see how the person who said they don't want to get "bit" by the GPL is "Complaining about it without recognizing" anything? To begin with, it seems completely subjective. I can feel totally "bitten" by the fact that I only have one choice of cable company in my area, even though their monopoly is totally legal...but I didn't agree to any of it. Similarly, no developer really has a choice but to use GPL software if they want to live in the Linux neighborhood. (But they shouldn't complain according to you because they have the "choice" of going off on their own to re-build 20 years worth of core Unix utilities.)
      - cyphar 11y ago
        > Except that "perpetual freedom" for one group (users) also equates to "perpetual removal of freedom" for another group (developers). Only if you redefine the word "freedom". Both developers and users have the same four fundamental freedoms. The only difference is that the developers don't have the "freedom" to enslave their users. But that's like claiming that you don't live in a free society because you can't enslave people -- just because you don't have the "freedom to enslave others" doesn't mean that you don't have freedom. > Similarly, no developer really has a choice but to use GPL software if they want to live in the Linux neighborhood. Nobody has actually explained why this is a bad thing. Is it because "developers don't want their users to have freedom"? Many companies exist that sell GPL software, so it's not a monetary thing. And your cable company analogy is flawed because the GPL doesn't force you into a monopoly. And, by the way, not all software in the "Linux neighbourhood" is under the GPL. So that's an unfair exaggeration (although I do honestly wish more of it was). > But they shouldn't complain according to you because they have the "choice" of going off on their own to re-build 20 years worth of core Unix utilities. If they don't want to contribute to a community that values user freedom, then they won't be welcome in that community. I don't understand why someone would be surprised by this.
- twblalock 11y ago
  It would be trivially easy for an engineer to add a GPL-licensed dependency to a project without realizing it, perhaps via a transitive dependency, thereby causing the company to be in breach of the GPL. If you don't audit, you don't know if you are in breach of the GPL or not. Your corporate counsel will want you to audit. You can't reasonably take any action, including open sourcing your project or even posting code snippets on a company engineering blog, until you know which licenses you actually use.
  - klodolph 11y ago
    It's not just that corporate counsel will want you to audit. I worked at a company where I found a GPL violation and wanted to comply, but if we started complying with the GPL it would have shown that we knew that we previously hadn't been complying, so I was told to not comply. Ugh. Just for redistributing a couple binaries, there were no libraries involved.
  - belorn 11y ago
    Its about as trivial as for a web developer to accidentally use a proprietary image they found on the web, a game developer that use the unreal engine, or a marketing using someones music in a commercial. Its quite common to find commercial copyright infringement in all of those (except for the unreal engine, since I don't know publicized case of that), and there are artists who earn a fair income by contacting infringes and demand payment or a cease and desist. I wouldn't however describe that as being bitten by the rightful author, but put the blame on the developer who is using someone else work without permission, especially if they their own business model is based on copyright.
  - cyphar 11y ago
    > It would be trivially easy for an engineer to add a GPL-licensed dependency to a project without realizing it, perhaps via a transitive dependency, thereby causing the company to be in breach of the GPL. Just as easily as it is for a designer to use a copyrighted work. The GPL isn't a boogieman, every project that's under the GPL says so. If a developer isn't mindful enough to realise that they shouldn't randomly copy-paste library dependencies without knowing anything about them isn't a very good developer.
- heartsucker 11y ago
  A few days late on the response here, but I'm going for it anyway. I was using "bit" colloquially, and my tone wasn't angry. We "choose not to participate in the GPL community" because we sell software, and if that software could be requested for free, we couldn't exactly stay in business trying to sell it. I have nothing against the GPL, and I'm pretty certain the management and rest of engineering don't either. In fact, I/we aren't trying to abuse and profit form other people's good will. That's why we check the licenses of software/libraries we use: to respect the way in which it was licensed. We have to keep our software closed source, so we obey the licenses that could require us to make it open source.
st3v3r 11y ago
That would only affect you if you were making your own JVM/.NET runtime.

jimktrains2 11y ago

> get bit by the GPL and have to opensource all our proprietary software The tone here sounds very angry. You aren't "bit" by the GPL, you choose to participate in the usage of the license and the community of code that comes with it. It's not some unknown, nasty thing you need to constantly defend yourself against (as implied by "being bit" like it's a dog you need to watch out for everywhere). "We're auditing everything we use for license issues because we activly choose not to participate in the GPL community and would rather abuse and profit from other people's good will" is closer to realitiy

coldtea 11y ago
>The tone here sounds very angry. You aren't "bit" by the GPL, you choose to participate in the usage of the license and the community of code that comes with it. It's not like you had a _choice_ if there's software you want to use and it's only available as GPL. You'd have only chosen if there were 3-4 license options for the same software, and you went with GPL willingly.
- pdonis 11y ago
  > It's not like you had a _choice_ if there's software you want to use and it's only available as GPL. Sure you do; if you don't want to accept the GPL license terms, you can write your own software that fulfills whatever function you wanted the GPL code for.
  - nsgi 11y ago
    You also have the option to not use the software, if it's software you want, not need.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  "It's not like you had a _choice_ if there's software you want to use and it's only available as GPL." Sure you do. Write it yourself.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Not much of a choice, if one involves: 1) begrudgingly adopting a licence you don't like or want over: 2) re-creating man years (or decades) of effort to reproduce a certain project Especially if you lack the programming skills or money, it's not a choice at all -- you only have one option. So in those cases you "don't chose GPL" -- you chose the project you want to use, AND have to necessarily suffer GPL too because of that choice.
    - cyphar 11y ago
      Have you considered why the original authors chose the GPL? It's so people who use their code will never take away the freedom of users of the code. If you're complaining about not being able to take their code and make it proprietary, you're missing the point that THAT'S WHY THEY CHOSE THE GPL.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        That's orthogonal to whether the prospective user of the package has an actual choice or not (besides using as GPL it or going without). WHATEVER THE ORIGINAL AUTHORS' REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE GPL (sic), it doesn't change the situation that one might not be happy for a project they want to use being in GPL -- including people who don't intend to make it proprietary, but who prefer BSD licenses nevertheless.
        cyphar 11y ago
        > That's orthogonal to whether the prospective user of the package has an actual choice or not (besides using as GPL it or going without). You've just outlined the choice that the person has. Admittedly, I wouldn't use the GPL for libraries, I've started using the MPLv2 for stuff like that. I don't really agree with the common reading of the combined work clause in the GPL wrt libraries (a work that uses a library's API shouldn't be bound by the copyleft of the GPL IMO -- but as Oracle has proven, APIs appear to be copyrightable). > WHATEVER THE ORIGINAL AUTHORS' REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE GPL (sic), it doesn't change the situation that one might not be happy for a project they want to use being in GPL -- including people who don't intend to make it proprietary, but who prefer BSD licenses nevertheless. BSD licenses allow distributors of the software to make it proprietary. That was clearly a more important problem to the author and community of the software than allowing GPL-incompatible projects to use the code. It's a fundamentally ethical decision, which you may disagree with if you follow the open source (as opposed to free software) philosophy.
- cyphar 11y ago
  > >The tone here sounds very angry. You aren't "bit" by the GPL, you choose to participate in the usage of the license and the community of code that comes with it. > It's not like you had a _choice_ if there's software you want to use and it's only available as GPL. You can either write it yourself, don't implement that feature or comply with the GPL. The GPL would be a pretty bad copyleft license if companies could just ignore it because "we want to keep our stuff proprietary". The authors of the software wanted to ensure that all users of their code would have perpetual freedom. Complaining about it without recognising their reason for using the GPL is quite a selective argument. They don't want you to use their code if it means that you'll take away your users' freedom.
  - WayneBro 11y ago
    Except that "perpetual freedom" for one group (users) also equates to "perpetual removal of freedom" for another group (developers). It doesn't seem fair to mention one without the other, since the latter is the primary reason why many, many developers choose to not use the GPL. Also, I don't see how the person who said they don't want to get "bit" by the GPL is "Complaining about it without recognizing" anything? To begin with, it seems completely subjective. I can feel totally "bitten" by the fact that I only have one choice of cable company in my area, even though their monopoly is totally legal...but I didn't agree to any of it. Similarly, no developer really has a choice but to use GPL software if they want to live in the Linux neighborhood. (But they shouldn't complain according to you because they have the "choice" of going off on their own to re-build 20 years worth of core Unix utilities.)
    - cyphar 11y ago
      > Except that "perpetual freedom" for one group (users) also equates to "perpetual removal of freedom" for another group (developers). Only if you redefine the word "freedom". Both developers and users have the same four fundamental freedoms. The only difference is that the developers don't have the "freedom" to enslave their users. But that's like claiming that you don't live in a free society because you can't enslave people -- just because you don't have the "freedom to enslave others" doesn't mean that you don't have freedom. > Similarly, no developer really has a choice but to use GPL software if they want to live in the Linux neighborhood. Nobody has actually explained why this is a bad thing. Is it because "developers don't want their users to have freedom"? Many companies exist that sell GPL software, so it's not a monetary thing. And your cable company analogy is flawed because the GPL doesn't force you into a monopoly. And, by the way, not all software in the "Linux neighbourhood" is under the GPL. So that's an unfair exaggeration (although I do honestly wish more of it was). > But they shouldn't complain according to you because they have the "choice" of going off on their own to re-build 20 years worth of core Unix utilities. If they don't want to contribute to a community that values user freedom, then they won't be welcome in that community. I don't understand why someone would be surprised by this.
twblalock 11y ago
It would be trivially easy for an engineer to add a GPL-licensed dependency to a project without realizing it, perhaps via a transitive dependency, thereby causing the company to be in breach of the GPL. If you don't audit, you don't know if you are in breach of the GPL or not. Your corporate counsel will want you to audit. You can't reasonably take any action, including open sourcing your project or even posting code snippets on a company engineering blog, until you know which licenses you actually use.
- klodolph 11y ago
  It's not just that corporate counsel will want you to audit. I worked at a company where I found a GPL violation and wanted to comply, but if we started complying with the GPL it would have shown that we knew that we previously hadn't been complying, so I was told to not comply. Ugh. Just for redistributing a couple binaries, there were no libraries involved.
- belorn 11y ago
  Its about as trivial as for a web developer to accidentally use a proprietary image they found on the web, a game developer that use the unreal engine, or a marketing using someones music in a commercial. Its quite common to find commercial copyright infringement in all of those (except for the unreal engine, since I don't know publicized case of that), and there are artists who earn a fair income by contacting infringes and demand payment or a cease and desist. I wouldn't however describe that as being bitten by the rightful author, but put the blame on the developer who is using someone else work without permission, especially if they their own business model is based on copyright.
- cyphar 11y ago
  > It would be trivially easy for an engineer to add a GPL-licensed dependency to a project without realizing it, perhaps via a transitive dependency, thereby causing the company to be in breach of the GPL. Just as easily as it is for a designer to use a copyrighted work. The GPL isn't a boogieman, every project that's under the GPL says so. If a developer isn't mindful enough to realise that they shouldn't randomly copy-paste library dependencies without knowing anything about them isn't a very good developer.
heartsucker 11y ago
A few days late on the response here, but I'm going for it anyway. I was using "bit" colloquially, and my tone wasn't angry. We "choose not to participate in the GPL community" because we sell software, and if that software could be requested for free, we couldn't exactly stay in business trying to sell it. I have nothing against the GPL, and I'm pretty certain the management and rest of engineering don't either. In fact, I/we aren't trying to abuse and profit form other people's good will. That's why we check the licenses of software/libraries we use: to respect the way in which it was licensed. We have to keep our software closed source, so we obey the licenses that could require us to make it open source.

st3v3r 11y ago

That would only affect you if you were making your own JVM/.NET runtime.