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>get [people] to come around gently That's GPL enforcement. This is mostly how FSF, SFLC et al do it and they win battles. Recently they're actually waging a

>get [people] to come around gently That's GPL enforcement. This is mostly how FSF, SFLC et al do it and they win battles. Recently they're actually waging a legal one against VMWare but I don't see the company deterred from contributing as much as they did before. Would be nice if they contributed more. I don't think we should care about proprietary makers' feelings here. What hurts free software more is FUD and villification of copyleft.

charlesdm 10y ago
I don't care if I get downvoted for this, but what hurts free software is licensing under the GPL. It's a cancer that infects anything it is compiled into. There's a _TON_ of amazing software out there, which sadly is licensed under the GPL, so it just can't be used in something proprietary, because it would mean open sourcing your entire codebase. What's the point of open sourcing something if it can't be used in a proprietary product? At least release it under a license so that it can be used + allow the users to contribute their changes back to the original codebase. Plenty of companies will do this, but only if they can actually use it in their app or software. GPL code is, unless it's run in a self contained process, for all intents and purposes useless.
- __jal 10y ago
  1995 called, it wants its bad arguments back. The honest answer is that people releasing software under the GPL don't want you using their code in your proprietary whatever. They explicitly said they don't want you to do that. How is that different than you releasing your proprietary whatever, and conditioning use on paying you money and agreeing not to share it? If you get to set the terms of use of your code, so do other people. > What's the point of open sourcing something if it can't be used in a proprietary product? Obviously, the point is to share it with people who want to do something other than use it in a proprietary product. Complaining about free gifts generally doesn't end very well. Don't like the terms? Pretend it is Oracle or Microsoft crown-jewel code. You can't do what you want with that, either.
  - charlesdm 10y ago
    > How is that different than you releasing your proprietary whatever, and conditioning use on paying you money and agreeing not to share it? If you get to set the terms of use of your code, so do other people. One component != an entire product. That's like saying you invent an open source car engine licensed under GPL. And now you can't use it in any car, because you can't build an entire car on your own, and even if you could, you'd have to give the entire car design away for free. I don't mind giving back any improvements I make to a library (and I've done so several times in the past), but I honestly don't see the point in releasing anything under GPL. That's like saying, you know what guys, I love the fact that no one is ever going to bother using this for something great. The only use case the GPL works in, if it's an entire product on its own, i.e. MySQL, etc. Closed source doesn't always mean evil. Open source doesn't always mean good.
    - Retra 10y ago
      If you don't accept the GPL license, then the code is not open to you. Treat it like you would any other closed source code: don't use it. If you have such a noble use of the code, feel free to ask the authors to be charitable and license it to you under different terms.
      - Nomentatus 10y ago
        But again, what actually happens is that trying to impose a GPL license (that grabs both hardware and software patents) merely causes someone else to replicate the whole effort under a better open source license.
        quadrangle 10y ago
        "impose"… if I write some code and put it under the GPL, I'm not imposing anything. "better"… That's sorta like saying that when some community gets together and builds a public park that when a wealthy company comes around and builds a fancy exclusive country club that the terms of the country club are better, and if only the folks had just let the country club folks build their exclusive clubhouse in the middle of the original park, that would be better because it doesn't cause them to have to go buy and prepare a different plot of land.
- tytso 10y ago
  There is, alas, plenty of examples of code which were based on BSD-licensed code, and _not_ given back to the community. Exhibit 1: BSD code (open source) and WAFL (netapp's write anywhere file system that was written on top of BSD, and never given back). If the point is so that people contribute the changes back to the original codebase (which you seem to agree with), then the point of using the GPL is to make sure that actually happens. If it is used in a proprietary product, and never given back, from the perspective of the open source world, that use of the code might as well have never happened.
  - greenhouse_gas 10y ago
    Example 2: Cyanogen. Remember how the internet exploded when Cyanogen tried to commercialize CM (and the Focal controversy), and contributers were angry that Cyanogen made a company "off their backs" which sold a closed-source improvement of CM? For some reason, had Samsung done the same, everyone would have praised them to the heavens, it would have been "the obvious success of permissive licencing". Now, when a founder and major contributor did the same to his OS project, everyone cried foul. But Lineage is still Apache2, for some reason.
    - Sacho 10y ago
      Erm, weren't the contributors angry because they weren't getting compensation for their GPL-contributed work? > For some reason, had Samsung done the same, everyone would have praised them to the heavens, it would have been "the obvious success of permissive licencing". Do you have an oracle or a time machine to know this?
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  - charlesdm 10y ago
    > If it is used in a proprietary product, and never given back, from the perspective of the open source world, that use of the code might as well have never happened. That's obviously not how it works in the real world. Out of ten people, 5 might give back, and 5 might not. You're essentially saying then that the contribution of the first 5 isn't worth it, because the other 5 wouldn't be contributing. Any contribution is great. The more a library is being used (commercially or non commercially), the more contributors it'll have in the long run. It's not a zero sum game.
- snakeanus 10y ago
  There's a _TON_ of amazing software out there, which sadly is licensed under a non-free license, so it just can't be used in something free, because it would make your program proprietary.
greenhouse_gas 10y ago
FSF can "educate" because they have a stick. No education worked with MS and BSD.

charlesdm 10y ago

I don't care if I get downvoted for this, but what hurts free software is licensing under the GPL. It's a cancer that infects anything it is compiled into. There's a _TON_ of amazing software out there, which sadly is licensed under the GPL, so it just can't be used in something proprietary, because it would mean open sourcing your entire codebase. What's the point of open sourcing something if it can't be used in a proprietary product? At least release it under a license so that it can be used + allow the users to contribute their changes back to the original codebase. Plenty of companies will do this, but only if they can actually use it in their app or software. GPL code is, unless it's run in a self contained process, for all intents and purposes useless.

__jal 10y ago
1995 called, it wants its bad arguments back. The honest answer is that people releasing software under the GPL don't want you using their code in your proprietary whatever. They explicitly said they don't want you to do that. How is that different than you releasing your proprietary whatever, and conditioning use on paying you money and agreeing not to share it? If you get to set the terms of use of your code, so do other people. > What's the point of open sourcing something if it can't be used in a proprietary product? Obviously, the point is to share it with people who want to do something other than use it in a proprietary product. Complaining about free gifts generally doesn't end very well. Don't like the terms? Pretend it is Oracle or Microsoft crown-jewel code. You can't do what you want with that, either.
- charlesdm 10y ago
  > How is that different than you releasing your proprietary whatever, and conditioning use on paying you money and agreeing not to share it? If you get to set the terms of use of your code, so do other people. One component != an entire product. That's like saying you invent an open source car engine licensed under GPL. And now you can't use it in any car, because you can't build an entire car on your own, and even if you could, you'd have to give the entire car design away for free. I don't mind giving back any improvements I make to a library (and I've done so several times in the past), but I honestly don't see the point in releasing anything under GPL. That's like saying, you know what guys, I love the fact that no one is ever going to bother using this for something great. The only use case the GPL works in, if it's an entire product on its own, i.e. MySQL, etc. Closed source doesn't always mean evil. Open source doesn't always mean good.
  - Retra 10y ago
    If you don't accept the GPL license, then the code is not open to you. Treat it like you would any other closed source code: don't use it. If you have such a noble use of the code, feel free to ask the authors to be charitable and license it to you under different terms.
    - Nomentatus 10y ago
      But again, what actually happens is that trying to impose a GPL license (that grabs both hardware and software patents) merely causes someone else to replicate the whole effort under a better open source license.
      - quadrangle 10y ago
        "impose"… if I write some code and put it under the GPL, I'm not imposing anything. "better"… That's sorta like saying that when some community gets together and builds a public park that when a wealthy company comes around and builds a fancy exclusive country club that the terms of the country club are better, and if only the folks had just let the country club folks build their exclusive clubhouse in the middle of the original park, that would be better because it doesn't cause them to have to go buy and prepare a different plot of land.
tytso 10y ago
There is, alas, plenty of examples of code which were based on BSD-licensed code, and _not_ given back to the community. Exhibit 1: BSD code (open source) and WAFL (netapp's write anywhere file system that was written on top of BSD, and never given back). If the point is so that people contribute the changes back to the original codebase (which you seem to agree with), then the point of using the GPL is to make sure that actually happens. If it is used in a proprietary product, and never given back, from the perspective of the open source world, that use of the code might as well have never happened.
- greenhouse_gas 10y ago
  Example 2: Cyanogen. Remember how the internet exploded when Cyanogen tried to commercialize CM (and the Focal controversy), and contributers were angry that Cyanogen made a company "off their backs" which sold a closed-source improvement of CM? For some reason, had Samsung done the same, everyone would have praised them to the heavens, it would have been "the obvious success of permissive licencing". Now, when a founder and major contributor did the same to his OS project, everyone cried foul. But Lineage is still Apache2, for some reason.
  - Sacho 10y ago
    Erm, weren't the contributors angry because they weren't getting compensation for their GPL-contributed work? > For some reason, had Samsung done the same, everyone would have praised them to the heavens, it would have been "the obvious success of permissive licencing". Do you have an oracle or a time machine to know this?
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- deleted 10y ago
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- charlesdm 10y ago
  > If it is used in a proprietary product, and never given back, from the perspective of the open source world, that use of the code might as well have never happened. That's obviously not how it works in the real world. Out of ten people, 5 might give back, and 5 might not. You're essentially saying then that the contribution of the first 5 isn't worth it, because the other 5 wouldn't be contributing. Any contribution is great. The more a library is being used (commercially or non commercially), the more contributors it'll have in the long run. It's not a zero sum game.
snakeanus 10y ago
There's a _TON_ of amazing software out there, which sadly is licensed under a non-free license, so it just can't be used in something free, because it would make your program proprietary.

greenhouse_gas 10y ago

FSF can "educate" because they have a stick. No education worked with MS and BSD.