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Linux. Systemd. GNU. YaST. Git. Blender. These are all programs under the GPL, and the reason they are so successful is because of the defense that copyleft pro

by cyphar 10y ago

Linux. Systemd. GNU. YaST. Git. Blender. These are all programs under the GPL, and the reason they are so successful is because of the defense that copyleft provides against proprietary software. In short, no. Not dead in the water.

stephenr 10y ago
Taler uses various *GPL3+ licenses, including parts under AGPL3+ Linux, Systemd, Git, and Blender are all (L)GPL v2, and none are AGPL. There are thousands of open source projects I could name that are far reaching and have enormous success, released under permissive licenses such as Apache, BSD, MIT, etc. If the system wasn't so fucked I'd down vote you.
- cyphar 10y ago
  Noted. Good to know that people have forgotten how hard the free software community had to fight to be able to even have free software. I don't understand the sudden amnesia when Microsoft releases one part of their stack under the MIT license while still enslaving users. It's doublethink.
  - stephenr 10y ago
    Did I once mention proprietary software or Microsoft? Is that really how you see the software world, GPL vs Microsoft/proprietary?
    - etatoby 10y ago
      Free software is pretty much the opposite of proprietary software, yes, and GPL is the single license that enabled the free software revolution we are all benefiting from. Sure, the battle against greed is far from over, but the benefits are already quite obvious. If people and companies had kept to proprietary EULA and BSD as the only options, we would still be in the dire situation we were in the 90s.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >Free software is pretty much the opposite of proprietary software, yes, and GPL is the single license that enabled the free software revolution we are all benefiting from. I call BS. GPL just happened to have the GNU stack with it. If the same toolchain (gcc, etc) were released as BSD/MIT from the beginning, it would have been just as well or better.
        cyphar 10y ago
        GNU was created on the basis of the GPL. It's not an accident that the "GNU stack had the GPL", it was a plan from the beginning to create a system which people could use in freedom. The toolchain would not exist if Stallman hadn't made the decision that user freedom was something he should work towards. And we wouldn't have any free software without GNU, because that's what the world was heading towards in the 70s and 80s. BSD would still be proprietary, since Stallman talked to Berkeley to convince the developers to release their improvements to Unix.
        coldtea 10y ago
        >GNU was created on the basis of the GPL. It's not an accident that the "GNU stack had the GPL", it was a plan from the beginning to create a system which people could use in freedom. The accident was that the plan was conceived by Stallman and involved GNU/GPL. What I'm saying is a similar plan with BSD/MIT licenses, if it was initiated by another guy first, would be just as good. In other words that the reason GNU/OSS got that far was that they provided software people needed at the right time -- not because they were GPL as opposed to BSD licensd.
        sidhu1f 10y ago
        What makes you so sure that, had the GNU stack been BSD/MIT licensed and as popular, that Microsoft etc. would not have come out with products featuring the same software but with proprietary extensions and closed licenses?
zaro 10y ago
While parent post may be overstating , GPL does hinder software adoption now days.
- wbl 10y ago
  Why? Users can still use it, programmers might not be able to make proprietary forks of it, but can certainly write programs to interoperate with it.
  - zaro 10y ago
    Well, it is not so much about the forks I think. A lot of the software now days is just a building brick you use to build something bigger. And the problem with the GPL licensed bricks is that you can use them only with GPL bricks. And I am talking about the code reuse as a whole not just the libraries. Or let's take a look at it from another angle.. Whatever licenses you choose to use in the end is about the community of the project, and GPL is firmly in the "If you are not with us, you are against us" domain, which community wise works only if there is big boogey man. And there used to be one. But now days most of the biggest companies do open source, so it is not so clear who is the boogey man, and whom is GPL protecting us from :)
- zxcvcxz 10y ago
  When I hear "GPL" I get an instant software arousal so I disagree.
X86BSD 10y ago
All software primarily used on Linux systems. You'll never ever see systemd outside Linux. Ever. BTW good luck with that mess too. Same with yast. You'll never see that outside Linux. Ever. You're creating quite the ecosystem of NIH and Linux only software. Btrfs, systemtap, etc. So "successful" is a seriously objective word as you use it. But good luck, you're going to need it methinks.
- cyphar 10y ago
  > Btrfs, systemtap, etc. It's not the Linux community's fault that Sun wanted to create a license that would make it GPL incompatible. If it were compatible, it probably would've been merged years ago. And CDDL is still copyleft, but it retains all of the restrictions with none of the benefits for users. So it's really the "worst" of both worlds. But you can put that in your pipe and smoke it if you like. > So "successful" is a seriously objective word as you use it. Did you mean "subjective"? Because I agree that those projects are objectively successful.
  - X86BSD 10y ago
    It's funny how other open source projects had no problem adopting ZFS or it's license. Perhaps the issue isn't Sun or the CDDL but rather Linux and the GPL. Perhaps it's the GPL that isn't compatible with others. But that is the entire point of the viral nature of GPL. "You don't have to use our code." Your right and people are beginning not to. I mean seriously if you are so full of zeal you can't see Linux starting to circle the drain because of NIH, refusing to look outside their little tunnel vision world, while they reimplement things others are already solving, and reimplementing them badly, well then enjoy the ride. No one will obviously get you to see reason. But again enjoy your systemd and btrfs and systemtap and poorly implemented Linux only software. Also I don't smoke, so no pipe was involved in these posts.
    - cyphar 10y ago
      I'd be happy to use illumos or BSD if the community had strong convictions about free software. They generally don't, so I'll pass.
njloof 10y ago
Isn't this deployable as a service anyway? You don't even distribute the executable, so no need to distribute your source.
- cyphar 10y ago
  Some parts are AGPL, which means that you do.

by cyphar 10y ago

stephenr 10y ago

Taler uses various *GPL3+ licenses, including parts under AGPL3+ Linux, Systemd, Git, and Blender are all (L)GPL v2, and none are AGPL. There are thousands of open source projects I could name that are far reaching and have enormous success, released under permissive licenses such as Apache, BSD, MIT, etc. If the system wasn't so fucked I'd down vote you.

cyphar 10y ago
Noted. Good to know that people have forgotten how hard the free software community had to fight to be able to even have free software. I don't understand the sudden amnesia when Microsoft releases one part of their stack under the MIT license while still enslaving users. It's doublethink.
- stephenr 10y ago
  Did I once mention proprietary software or Microsoft? Is that really how you see the software world, GPL vs Microsoft/proprietary?
  - etatoby 10y ago
    Free software is pretty much the opposite of proprietary software, yes, and GPL is the single license that enabled the free software revolution we are all benefiting from. Sure, the battle against greed is far from over, but the benefits are already quite obvious. If people and companies had kept to proprietary EULA and BSD as the only options, we would still be in the dire situation we were in the 90s.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >Free software is pretty much the opposite of proprietary software, yes, and GPL is the single license that enabled the free software revolution we are all benefiting from. I call BS. GPL just happened to have the GNU stack with it. If the same toolchain (gcc, etc) were released as BSD/MIT from the beginning, it would have been just as well or better.
      - cyphar 10y ago
        GNU was created on the basis of the GPL. It's not an accident that the "GNU stack had the GPL", it was a plan from the beginning to create a system which people could use in freedom. The toolchain would not exist if Stallman hadn't made the decision that user freedom was something he should work towards. And we wouldn't have any free software without GNU, because that's what the world was heading towards in the 70s and 80s. BSD would still be proprietary, since Stallman talked to Berkeley to convince the developers to release their improvements to Unix.
        coldtea 10y ago
        >GNU was created on the basis of the GPL. It's not an accident that the "GNU stack had the GPL", it was a plan from the beginning to create a system which people could use in freedom. The accident was that the plan was conceived by Stallman and involved GNU/GPL. What I'm saying is a similar plan with BSD/MIT licenses, if it was initiated by another guy first, would be just as good. In other words that the reason GNU/OSS got that far was that they provided software people needed at the right time -- not because they were GPL as opposed to BSD licensd.
        sidhu1f 10y ago
        What makes you so sure that, had the GNU stack been BSD/MIT licensed and as popular, that Microsoft etc. would not have come out with products featuring the same software but with proprietary extensions and closed licenses?

zaro 10y ago

While parent post may be overstating , GPL does hinder software adoption now days.

wbl 10y ago
Why? Users can still use it, programmers might not be able to make proprietary forks of it, but can certainly write programs to interoperate with it.
- zaro 10y ago
  Well, it is not so much about the forks I think. A lot of the software now days is just a building brick you use to build something bigger. And the problem with the GPL licensed bricks is that you can use them only with GPL bricks. And I am talking about the code reuse as a whole not just the libraries. Or let's take a look at it from another angle.. Whatever licenses you choose to use in the end is about the community of the project, and GPL is firmly in the "If you are not with us, you are against us" domain, which community wise works only if there is big boogey man. And there used to be one. But now days most of the biggest companies do open source, so it is not so clear who is the boogey man, and whom is GPL protecting us from :)
zxcvcxz 10y ago
When I hear "GPL" I get an instant software arousal so I disagree.

X86BSD 10y ago

All software primarily used on Linux systems. You'll never ever see systemd outside Linux. Ever. BTW good luck with that mess too. Same with yast. You'll never see that outside Linux. Ever. You're creating quite the ecosystem of NIH and Linux only software. Btrfs, systemtap, etc. So "successful" is a seriously objective word as you use it. But good luck, you're going to need it methinks.

cyphar 10y ago
> Btrfs, systemtap, etc. It's not the Linux community's fault that Sun wanted to create a license that would make it GPL incompatible. If it were compatible, it probably would've been merged years ago. And CDDL is still copyleft, but it retains all of the restrictions with none of the benefits for users. So it's really the "worst" of both worlds. But you can put that in your pipe and smoke it if you like. > So "successful" is a seriously objective word as you use it. Did you mean "subjective"? Because I agree that those projects are objectively successful.
- X86BSD 10y ago
  It's funny how other open source projects had no problem adopting ZFS or it's license. Perhaps the issue isn't Sun or the CDDL but rather Linux and the GPL. Perhaps it's the GPL that isn't compatible with others. But that is the entire point of the viral nature of GPL. "You don't have to use our code." Your right and people are beginning not to. I mean seriously if you are so full of zeal you can't see Linux starting to circle the drain because of NIH, refusing to look outside their little tunnel vision world, while they reimplement things others are already solving, and reimplementing them badly, well then enjoy the ride. No one will obviously get you to see reason. But again enjoy your systemd and btrfs and systemtap and poorly implemented Linux only software. Also I don't smoke, so no pipe was involved in these posts.
  - cyphar 10y ago
    I'd be happy to use illumos or BSD if the community had strong convictions about free software. They generally don't, so I'll pass.

njloof 10y ago

Isn't this deployable as a service anyway? You don't even distribute the executable, so no need to distribute your source.

cyphar 10y ago
Some parts are AGPL, which means that you do.