4 ms·

To translate if you are attempting to exploit other peoples code with out giving anything back to the people that created the code then GPL is a cancer >MIT o

by syshum 10y ago

To translate if you are attempting to exploit other peoples code with out giving anything back to the people that created the code then GPL is a cancer >MIT or the MS-PL is much more practical. This depends on the project I normally license my libraries, code I intend to be included in other software under BSD or MIT, but full developed software that is intended to be used as is gets GPL.

douche 10y ago
Thanks for putting words in my mouth. How many people would have used jQuery, if it was GPL? Full-on GPL taints your software, such that you have to be extremely careful not to use any libraries that are GPL'd if you want to release it under any other sort of license. Sure, you can get exemptions, but can you imagine the clusterfuck if, say, the NPM community defaulted to using GPL? Trying to trace back and make arrangements with the owners of thousands of tiny libraries would be insane.
- moron4hire 10y ago
  If you're a lone developer or small team and you're releasing your code under anything other than a strong copyleft license, you're leaving yourself open to the Joyents of the world to abscond with what you've made and build their business with nothing more than an attaboy to you. I would much rather nobody made money off of my code than somebody else while I still struggle. At least the Mozillas and Googles of the world have the decent politeness to just completely ignore your open source project, no matter how long its been out and how new they are to that particular field, to boulder through and make their own thing.
  - biot 10y ago
    Perhaps you could form a community of like-minded developers. Everyone pools their resources together, contributing to the pool according to his ability, and each person shares those resources according to his need. That way, nobody will be able to make money while you struggle and go without.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    Nobody can "abscond" with what you've made. It's always yours, it's always accessible to you, and you can always make it better. Yes, if someone else comes and extends your work and eclipses your production, they're able to decide what to do with it as they want. That's the key point of being open: Letting people do what they want with it. If anything, I'd contest the claim that copyleft can be considered open source any more than a license that lets you look at the source but doesn't let you modify it. Copyleft controls the source and forces your views on people who want to use it.
- mikegerwitz 10y ago
  You are taking an incredibly harsh (and coming across as almost vengeful) position on the GPL advocating a position that misses the point of the GPL. Software that chooses a copyleft license like the GPL cares for freedom more than broad adoption of their software. I would never want you to help you create non-free software---that's antithetical to everything I stand for. Many feel that way. You say "trace back and make arrangements with the owners of thousands"---why should you? Why would we want you to do that? Why would we have used the GPL to begin with? I would consider that to be an incredible situation! All these tiny libraries on NPM under the GPL that make it virtually impossible to develop proprietary software because of the infeasibility of working out deals with all the authors---some of which will never agree? That is freedom at its finest! That would be a huge success! It's great that software like jQuery has had the success that it has. It shares a different philosophy. I don't call that philosophy a "cancer", even though it results in what I consider the worst possible outcome: proprietary software, and often SaaSS at that, which robs freedoms even more. Please be respectful of others' philosophies. The GPL is the embodiment of ideals and the free software movement---it's more than a license.
  - douche 10y ago
    I'm really not trying to shit on the GPL and free software, or pooh-pooh any philosophy. You just can't touch anything that's GPL if you build closed-source commercial software. That's kind of my job, and I have to be pragmatic and practical about it. I'm glad Microsoft is cognizant of the fact that they have legions of partners, vendors, and independent developers that have built their businesses on top of Microsoft libraries and technologies and has chosen appropriate licensing to reflect that.
    - mikegerwitz 10y ago
      Microsoft has chosen a proper license for their audience, yes.
    - zeveb 10y ago
      > You just can't touch anything that's GPL if you build closed-source commercial software. That's kind of my job, and I have to be pragmatic and practical about it. What's the moral difference between writing closed-source commercial software and being a slave trader?
- zeveb 10y ago
  > Full-on GPL taints your software, such that you have to be extremely careful not to use any libraries that are GPL'd if you want to release it under any other sort of license. Why would you want to release under any other sort of license? Why do you wish to restrict your users' right to use, modify & share code? > can you imagine the clusterfuck if, say, the NPM community defaulted to using GPL That sounds wonderful: an entire ecosystem of free software.
  - ksk 10y ago
    > Why do you wish to restrict your users' right to use, modify & share code? Not everyone agrees that this is a right.
    - moron4hire 10y ago
      Possession is nine tenths of the law. You have no right to tell people what to do with their own computers.
      - ksk 10y ago
        >You have no right to tell people what to do with their own computers. You seem confused. The discussion here is about copyright law and intellectual property licensing. Code is a series of 1s and 0s that can be duplicated at almost no cost. Me "possessing" it doesn't deprive anyone else of anything.
        moron4hire 10y ago
        Exactly, but I'm not the one that is confused. You have no tangible property on which to seek your rent.
        ksk 10y ago
        I have no clue what you're even talking about. Sorry, this will be my last reply.
  - 10y ago
moron4hire 10y ago
I had considered doing the same thing, but I think pragmatically I'm never going to be able to build a "support" business around my libraries. Hell, I'm not even really interested in that type of business. I've spent most of my career as a consultant, i.e. mostly getting treated like a cost center, so it's not a difficult stretch to see that too much focus on the code as a product unto itself will lead to the same results. My only chance of getting out of that is probably building my own products and partnering with a group of people who are good at marketing. I think, in large part, selling copies of software is a dead end business. There are some contrary examples, but I think they probably more prove the rule. Does anyone pay for Sublime Text for any reason other than "to support the developers" (i.e. not "because I need this software")? Video games have to be released on a regular schedule. Adobe has all the image processing patents. I think in all cases, people are buying something other than a literal copy of the software. So why not just sell that other thing directly and skip the noise? On the other hand, assuming I end up making the libraries any good, someone else with a business of supporting software and the mercenary nature of refusing to help people with problems who don't have any money to pay, could probably snipe me in my own software. So with that in mind, libraries I write always come out under the full GPL-3.0. Nobody deserves to close their use of my code. It has turned some people off (and I think that has more to do with their misunderstanding of what the GPL is practically about than any ostensible flaws in the GPL), but they can go start their own VR framework project for all I care.
rubber_duck 10y ago
>if you are attempting to exploit other peoples code with out giving anything back to the people that created the code then GPL is a cancer That's bullshit - GPL requires you to open source your derived work as well - which plenty of people have a problem with commercially - it doesn't mean you don't want to contribute anything (quoting you) back. Even with the LGPL there are scenarios where sharing your code is not an option because of real world constraints (eg. NDAs), for example you need to modify the LGPL code to port to a closed platform. That doesn't mean you can't contribute back other improvements, but anything platform specific can't be released and therefore you can't comply with LGPL. In general GPL creates a lot of problems to which GPL supporters just plug their ears and mantra "if you were truly free you wouldn't have those problems". Liberal licenses remove those problems and incentives to share back are there without the license requirement, you get your stuff maintained in the mainline and don't have to rebase on every update and reduce conflicts further down the development. LLVM is an excellent example of this where even traditionally closed companies OSS stuff because it's such a chore to keep up with latest. An example of a project being choked by GPL is Blender - a tool that has great potential to be a fully featured OSS 3D authoring package is struggling to fund developers because it can only sustain itself from government grants - nobody is interested in investing in it commercially because of the GPL. If it allowed for commercial plugins the OSS core would undoubtedly see significant contributions from those developers as well.
- mikegerwitz 10y ago
  > In general GPL creates a lot of problems to which GPL supporters just plug their ears and mantra "if you were truly free you wouldn't have those problems". I'm not plugging my ears. I recognize it, and it's terribly unfortunate that one would ever be in such a situation, but the idea there is that the GPL would encourage the liberation of other code, and other platforms. Here's an example: http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL Now, you're talking about a broader issue than liberating a single program. But enough useful GPL'd software might sway larger systems. Otherwise, if modifying free software and in doing so making your modified program proprietary means that it can't be used at all, then that is the intent.

by syshum 10y ago

douche 10y ago

Thanks for putting words in my mouth. How many people would have used jQuery, if it was GPL? Full-on GPL taints your software, such that you have to be extremely careful not to use any libraries that are GPL'd if you want to release it under any other sort of license. Sure, you can get exemptions, but can you imagine the clusterfuck if, say, the NPM community defaulted to using GPL? Trying to trace back and make arrangements with the owners of thousands of tiny libraries would be insane.

moron4hire 10y ago
If you're a lone developer or small team and you're releasing your code under anything other than a strong copyleft license, you're leaving yourself open to the Joyents of the world to abscond with what you've made and build their business with nothing more than an attaboy to you. I would much rather nobody made money off of my code than somebody else while I still struggle. At least the Mozillas and Googles of the world have the decent politeness to just completely ignore your open source project, no matter how long its been out and how new they are to that particular field, to boulder through and make their own thing.
- biot 10y ago
  Perhaps you could form a community of like-minded developers. Everyone pools their resources together, contributing to the pool according to his ability, and each person shares those resources according to his need. That way, nobody will be able to make money while you struggle and go without.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Nobody can "abscond" with what you've made. It's always yours, it's always accessible to you, and you can always make it better. Yes, if someone else comes and extends your work and eclipses your production, they're able to decide what to do with it as they want. That's the key point of being open: Letting people do what they want with it. If anything, I'd contest the claim that copyleft can be considered open source any more than a license that lets you look at the source but doesn't let you modify it. Copyleft controls the source and forces your views on people who want to use it.
mikegerwitz 10y ago
You are taking an incredibly harsh (and coming across as almost vengeful) position on the GPL advocating a position that misses the point of the GPL. Software that chooses a copyleft license like the GPL cares for freedom more than broad adoption of their software. I would never want you to help you create non-free software---that's antithetical to everything I stand for. Many feel that way. You say "trace back and make arrangements with the owners of thousands"---why should you? Why would we want you to do that? Why would we have used the GPL to begin with? I would consider that to be an incredible situation! All these tiny libraries on NPM under the GPL that make it virtually impossible to develop proprietary software because of the infeasibility of working out deals with all the authors---some of which will never agree? That is freedom at its finest! That would be a huge success! It's great that software like jQuery has had the success that it has. It shares a different philosophy. I don't call that philosophy a "cancer", even though it results in what I consider the worst possible outcome: proprietary software, and often SaaSS at that, which robs freedoms even more. Please be respectful of others' philosophies. The GPL is the embodiment of ideals and the free software movement---it's more than a license.
- douche 10y ago
  I'm really not trying to shit on the GPL and free software, or pooh-pooh any philosophy. You just can't touch anything that's GPL if you build closed-source commercial software. That's kind of my job, and I have to be pragmatic and practical about it. I'm glad Microsoft is cognizant of the fact that they have legions of partners, vendors, and independent developers that have built their businesses on top of Microsoft libraries and technologies and has chosen appropriate licensing to reflect that.
  - mikegerwitz 10y ago
    Microsoft has chosen a proper license for their audience, yes.
  - zeveb 10y ago
    > You just can't touch anything that's GPL if you build closed-source commercial software. That's kind of my job, and I have to be pragmatic and practical about it. What's the moral difference between writing closed-source commercial software and being a slave trader?
zeveb 10y ago
> Full-on GPL taints your software, such that you have to be extremely careful not to use any libraries that are GPL'd if you want to release it under any other sort of license. Why would you want to release under any other sort of license? Why do you wish to restrict your users' right to use, modify & share code? > can you imagine the clusterfuck if, say, the NPM community defaulted to using GPL That sounds wonderful: an entire ecosystem of free software.
- ksk 10y ago
  > Why do you wish to restrict your users' right to use, modify & share code? Not everyone agrees that this is a right.
  - moron4hire 10y ago
    Possession is nine tenths of the law. You have no right to tell people what to do with their own computers.
    - ksk 10y ago
      >You have no right to tell people what to do with their own computers. You seem confused. The discussion here is about copyright law and intellectual property licensing. Code is a series of 1s and 0s that can be duplicated at almost no cost. Me "possessing" it doesn't deprive anyone else of anything.
      - moron4hire 10y ago
        Exactly, but I'm not the one that is confused. You have no tangible property on which to seek your rent.
        ksk 10y ago
        I have no clue what you're even talking about. Sorry, this will be my last reply.
- 10y ago

moron4hire 10y ago

I had considered doing the same thing, but I think pragmatically I'm never going to be able to build a "support" business around my libraries. Hell, I'm not even really interested in that type of business. I've spent most of my career as a consultant, i.e. mostly getting treated like a cost center, so it's not a difficult stretch to see that too much focus on the code as a product unto itself will lead to the same results. My only chance of getting out of that is probably building my own products and partnering with a group of people who are good at marketing. I think, in large part, selling copies of software is a dead end business. There are some contrary examples, but I think they probably more prove the rule. Does anyone pay for Sublime Text for any reason other than "to support the developers" (i.e. not "because I need this software")? Video games have to be released on a regular schedule. Adobe has all the image processing patents. I think in all cases, people are buying something other than a literal copy of the software. So why not just sell that other thing directly and skip the noise? On the other hand, assuming I end up making the libraries any good, someone else with a business of supporting software and the mercenary nature of refusing to help people with problems who don't have any money to pay, could probably snipe me in my own software. So with that in mind, libraries I write always come out under the full GPL-3.0. Nobody deserves to close their use of my code. It has turned some people off (and I think that has more to do with their misunderstanding of what the GPL is practically about than any ostensible flaws in the GPL), but they can go start their own VR framework project for all I care.

rubber_duck 10y ago

>if you are attempting to exploit other peoples code with out giving anything back to the people that created the code then GPL is a cancer That's bullshit - GPL requires you to open source your derived work as well - which plenty of people have a problem with commercially - it doesn't mean you don't want to contribute anything (quoting you) back. Even with the LGPL there are scenarios where sharing your code is not an option because of real world constraints (eg. NDAs), for example you need to modify the LGPL code to port to a closed platform. That doesn't mean you can't contribute back other improvements, but anything platform specific can't be released and therefore you can't comply with LGPL. In general GPL creates a lot of problems to which GPL supporters just plug their ears and mantra "if you were truly free you wouldn't have those problems". Liberal licenses remove those problems and incentives to share back are there without the license requirement, you get your stuff maintained in the mainline and don't have to rebase on every update and reduce conflicts further down the development. LLVM is an excellent example of this where even traditionally closed companies OSS stuff because it's such a chore to keep up with latest. An example of a project being choked by GPL is Blender - a tool that has great potential to be a fully featured OSS 3D authoring package is struggling to fund developers because it can only sustain itself from government grants - nobody is interested in investing in it commercially because of the GPL. If it allowed for commercial plugins the OSS core would undoubtedly see significant contributions from those developers as well.

mikegerwitz 10y ago
> In general GPL creates a lot of problems to which GPL supporters just plug their ears and mantra "if you were truly free you wouldn't have those problems". I'm not plugging my ears. I recognize it, and it's terribly unfortunate that one would ever be in such a situation, but the idea there is that the GPL would encourage the liberation of other code, and other platforms. Here's an example: http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL Now, you're talking about a broader issue than liberating a single program. But enough useful GPL'd software might sway larger systems. Otherwise, if modifying free software and in doing so making your modified program proprietary means that it can't be used at all, then that is the intent.