3 ms·

No, if I'm working at a company that has a blanket policy against using any (A)GPL software, then I can't use it. What the lawyers decide in a company that has

No, if I'm working at a company that has a blanket policy against using any (A)GPL software, then I can't use it. What the lawyers decide in a company that has 10k+ employees has nothing to do with the fears of anyone but the lawyers and the top management. Everyone else is just following the rules.

st3v3r 10y ago
No, it's that your company is CHOOSING not to use it.
- jules 10y ago
  In the same vein: you don't HAVE to pay taxes, you're CHOOSING to.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    No. Stop trying to blame others for your company being silly.
saurik 10y ago
This definition of "can't" means there is no such thing as "won't".
- SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
  Ummm...no. Won't implies you have a choice. Can't implies that it's not an option. Working for one of those large companies, you simply don't have an option. And the people without choices vastly outnumber the people who do have choices. Frankly, most developers are probably happy using whatever code, under whatever license, that's available. It's the people who run the business who typically make the decisions about what's OK and what's not. So it's developers who are punished by GPL, by and large, because many can't use the code. It's not helping those developers, and nothing zealots say or do will convince the legal department at those companies that they should change their position on (A)GPL.
belorn 10y ago
Sounds as good news for any competitor (if your company has any). The competitor can use (A)GPL when its suitable and get products out earlier with lowest costs. If development time is cheaper than doing per-case evaluation of a license, then something must be horrible wrong.
- SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
  >Sounds as good news for any competitor (if your company has any). Actually thinking of Amazon.com. They have competitors, sure. But they also have the budget to write their own entire stacks internally when the license doesn't fit. And it's not like their decision to avoid GPL software is hurting them in the market in any relevant way. When something is MIT licensed, they'll use it, and they can and do contribute changes upstream. GPLv2 code requires serious hoop jumping to use, and GPLv3 software is verboten (the patent clause can't be adhered to by large companies with cross-licensing agreements: Many of these licensed patents can't be sublicensed, and so they can't be in compliance with the license at all). So all GPL does is prevent companies from using and supporting the software. For every instance of an MIT project that ends up modified in proprietary code there are probably 100 that either use it verbatim or contribute changes back upstream. It just makes sense so that you don't need to keep maintaining an increasingly divergent fork.
  - belorn 10y ago
    When you are large enough and entrenched enough, you can do suboptimal decision and still win the race in both market share and revenue. IE and Microsoft comes in mind, and it took major failures and long time before competitor started to gain ground. And it would explain why say a gaming company can't have such rigid policies. Preventing that a game get delayed is worth both lawyer time and, in the case that a license directly conflict with the business model, send mail to the author and asking for an exception. For example, I recall that LGPLv3 which has the same patent clause you describe as "clause can't be adhered to by large companies" is used by blizzard in starcraft 2. Blizzard is not Google in size, but they are not exactly a street vendor. One might also ask if they have much need to protect patents about xml parsing, or fonts, or what ever specialized functions those numerous library do that blizzard use to build a game. The only thing they don't use is copyleft, as their core business model is designed around restricting copying in order to limit supply when selling copies. Per case evaluation make sense when your product is time sensitive and when there is a lot of competition. A game from Blizzard is almost treated the same by the market as a game by a indie studio (keyword: almost), and a such can't rely on market share to protect them. A bad, delayed, and rushed game is still bad and won't sell regardless of who made it (To name an example, the last batman game). They must be agile, which mean religious thinking about software licenses must be thrown out and per-case evaluation be added to the process. If a library can be use within the business model, saves time and money, and is not your core ingredient in making your game stand out, its almost always a good idea to use it.

st3v3r 10y ago

No, it's that your company is CHOOSING not to use it.

jules 10y ago
In the same vein: you don't HAVE to pay taxes, you're CHOOSING to.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  No. Stop trying to blame others for your company being silly.

saurik 10y ago

This definition of "can't" means there is no such thing as "won't".

SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
Ummm...no. Won't implies you have a choice. Can't implies that it's not an option. Working for one of those large companies, you simply don't have an option. And the people without choices vastly outnumber the people who do have choices. Frankly, most developers are probably happy using whatever code, under whatever license, that's available. It's the people who run the business who typically make the decisions about what's OK and what's not. So it's developers who are punished by GPL, by and large, because many can't use the code. It's not helping those developers, and nothing zealots say or do will convince the legal department at those companies that they should change their position on (A)GPL.

belorn 10y ago

Sounds as good news for any competitor (if your company has any). The competitor can use (A)GPL when its suitable and get products out earlier with lowest costs. If development time is cheaper than doing per-case evaluation of a license, then something must be horrible wrong.

SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
>Sounds as good news for any competitor (if your company has any). Actually thinking of Amazon.com. They have competitors, sure. But they also have the budget to write their own entire stacks internally when the license doesn't fit. And it's not like their decision to avoid GPL software is hurting them in the market in any relevant way. When something is MIT licensed, they'll use it, and they can and do contribute changes upstream. GPLv2 code requires serious hoop jumping to use, and GPLv3 software is verboten (the patent clause can't be adhered to by large companies with cross-licensing agreements: Many of these licensed patents can't be sublicensed, and so they can't be in compliance with the license at all). So all GPL does is prevent companies from using and supporting the software. For every instance of an MIT project that ends up modified in proprietary code there are probably 100 that either use it verbatim or contribute changes back upstream. It just makes sense so that you don't need to keep maintaining an increasingly divergent fork.
- belorn 10y ago
  When you are large enough and entrenched enough, you can do suboptimal decision and still win the race in both market share and revenue. IE and Microsoft comes in mind, and it took major failures and long time before competitor started to gain ground. And it would explain why say a gaming company can't have such rigid policies. Preventing that a game get delayed is worth both lawyer time and, in the case that a license directly conflict with the business model, send mail to the author and asking for an exception. For example, I recall that LGPLv3 which has the same patent clause you describe as "clause can't be adhered to by large companies" is used by blizzard in starcraft 2. Blizzard is not Google in size, but they are not exactly a street vendor. One might also ask if they have much need to protect patents about xml parsing, or fonts, or what ever specialized functions those numerous library do that blizzard use to build a game. The only thing they don't use is copyleft, as their core business model is designed around restricting copying in order to limit supply when selling copies. Per case evaluation make sense when your product is time sensitive and when there is a lot of competition. A game from Blizzard is almost treated the same by the market as a game by a indie studio (keyword: almost), and a such can't rely on market share to protect them. A bad, delayed, and rushed game is still bad and won't sell regardless of who made it (To name an example, the last batman game). They must be agile, which mean religious thinking about software licenses must be thrown out and per-case evaluation be added to the process. If a library can be use within the business model, saves time and money, and is not your core ingredient in making your game stand out, its almost always a good idea to use it.