4 ms·

> 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 t

> 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.
    - Nomentatus 10y ago
      Contracts impose. Else enforcement couldn't be a topic. But suppose we allow your cavil, and try "insist" or "request"? What changes? Nothing. Better - companies are choosing to replicate, not stamping out kiddie parks. If you're going to end up with an MIT license, why not start there and avoid all the waste?
      - Sacho 10y ago
        You keep repeating this sentiment, but you haven't brought forward any argument why GPL doesn't achieve its goals, even if, eventually, some of the software gets reinvented with a different license. I could take your argument and use it the same way vs proprietary software - why even bother writing it, if some of it is going to end up being remade(or even just relicensed!) under an MIT license? In both cases, the developer extracted some value from the licensing.
        Nomentatus 10y ago
        GPL wastes enormous, precious resources. That's not a sentiment, I've specified at least three large, replaced codebases in these comments. Whether, inside the bubble, GPLers are still happy with GPL, doesn't change that. Indeed, in many areas, it is already true that there's no point writing proprietary code, since open source code will be preferred by your customers - other companies that have been locked-in one time to many. re developers extracting dollars - some developers have used GPL as a poison-pill, to "encourage" purchase of a separate proprietary license that's modifiable, say. That's hardly evidence of GPL's attractiveness or utility! Much the reverse.
        Sacho 10y ago
        Like I said, you haven't provided an argument why an MIT license provides more value for a developer than a GPL license. Your arguments are collectivist in nature - the GPL developers should sacrifice their own beliefs "for the greater good", but they're not even guaranteedly "better" because quite often, the "waste" you describe involves refactoring and innovation, which are both big benefits for software. You gave as an example Blink vs Webkit and agreed to LLVM and GCC. In Blink's case, Google[0] argued: > The main reason is that Chromium uses a different multi-process architecture from other WebKit-based browsers. So, over the years, supporting multiple architectures has led to increasing complexity for both the WebKit and Chromium communities, slowing down the collective pace of innovation. In LLVM's case, I don't have a source available, but early in its development I recall arguments that it was easier to rearchitecture a new, modern compiler, rather than tweaking GCC, which carried a lot of baggage. This is quite common in open source, especially in web dev, where "screw it, I'll just rewrite this library better" happens constantly, even with MIT licensing. The "enormous waste" you're describing is thus not universal, but waste from your point of view. Tactically, do you feel a good way to convince people to stop GPL-ing their software is to dismiss their goals as "waste" and demand they submit "to the greater good", at least, your interpretation of it? [0] - http://www.chromium.org/blink/developer-faq#TOC-Why-is-Chrome-spawning-a-new-browser-engine- http://www.chromium.org/blink/developer-faq#TOC-Why-is-Chrom...
- pksadiq 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. A user isn't required to accept GNU GPL license terms to simply use it. The user should be allowed to install a software released under the terms of GNU GPL even if the user refuses to accept the license terms. GNU GPL cares the modification and (re)distribution of the software. Not its mere use. Edit: Remove the previous edit. (If you are never releasing/distributing the combined work into public, it is Okay to link your code with an [AL]GPL code and use as you wish).
  - Retra 10y ago
    By "use" I meant "use the code in your own software."
greenhouse_gas 10y ago
No. It's like saying that I want cars to be open source, so I make an engine that can be used only in OS cars, helping the OS community. Take GCC. The fact that GCC was GPL'd made Objective-C open source. One can arguably say that Linux's GPL base is what makes custom ROMs (and all the cool stuff they brought to stock android) possible. On the other hand, BSD was under a permissive license. How many Operating Systems leech of it and don't give back?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
lmm 10y ago
Plenty of closed-source components have terms that affect your whole product even if you use them only in one corner of it. Ever wondered why you see all those "Uses Bink Video" or "Creative Surround Sound" notices in game credit sequences? Often there are other, more financial terms, attached, and this can have real consequences - e.g. maybe you want to change your game to be free-to-play but there's a per-unit royalty to some of the libraries you're using, so you can't. The GPL imposes certain requirements on any product that you use a GPL component in. If that's "cancer" then virtually every commercial software library is equally "cancerous". You can decide for yourself whether those requirements are too costly to comply with or not, and again that's absolutely normal, standard industry practice. There are plenty of libraries and products where the developers would have liked to use that library in their product but decided the license for it was too costly; it's unreasonable to single out the GPL. (As an end use who bought a Linux game and then switched to Linux, and was therefore only able to continue playing it thanks to the GPL, I'm pretty happy about the GPL)

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.
  - Nomentatus 10y ago
    Contracts impose. Else enforcement couldn't be a topic. But suppose we allow your cavil, and try "insist" or "request"? What changes? Nothing. Better - companies are choosing to replicate, not stamping out kiddie parks. If you're going to end up with an MIT license, why not start there and avoid all the waste?
    - Sacho 10y ago
      You keep repeating this sentiment, but you haven't brought forward any argument why GPL doesn't achieve its goals, even if, eventually, some of the software gets reinvented with a different license. I could take your argument and use it the same way vs proprietary software - why even bother writing it, if some of it is going to end up being remade(or even just relicensed!) under an MIT license? In both cases, the developer extracted some value from the licensing.
      - Nomentatus 10y ago
        GPL wastes enormous, precious resources. That's not a sentiment, I've specified at least three large, replaced codebases in these comments. Whether, inside the bubble, GPLers are still happy with GPL, doesn't change that. Indeed, in many areas, it is already true that there's no point writing proprietary code, since open source code will be preferred by your customers - other companies that have been locked-in one time to many. re developers extracting dollars - some developers have used GPL as a poison-pill, to "encourage" purchase of a separate proprietary license that's modifiable, say. That's hardly evidence of GPL's attractiveness or utility! Much the reverse.
        Sacho 10y ago
        Like I said, you haven't provided an argument why an MIT license provides more value for a developer than a GPL license. Your arguments are collectivist in nature - the GPL developers should sacrifice their own beliefs "for the greater good", but they're not even guaranteedly "better" because quite often, the "waste" you describe involves refactoring and innovation, which are both big benefits for software. You gave as an example Blink vs Webkit and agreed to LLVM and GCC. In Blink's case, Google[0] argued: > The main reason is that Chromium uses a different multi-process architecture from other WebKit-based browsers. So, over the years, supporting multiple architectures has led to increasing complexity for both the WebKit and Chromium communities, slowing down the collective pace of innovation. In LLVM's case, I don't have a source available, but early in its development I recall arguments that it was easier to rearchitecture a new, modern compiler, rather than tweaking GCC, which carried a lot of baggage. This is quite common in open source, especially in web dev, where "screw it, I'll just rewrite this library better" happens constantly, even with MIT licensing. The "enormous waste" you're describing is thus not universal, but waste from your point of view. Tactically, do you feel a good way to convince people to stop GPL-ing their software is to dismiss their goals as "waste" and demand they submit "to the greater good", at least, your interpretation of it? [0] - http://www.chromium.org/blink/developer-faq#TOC-Why-is-Chrome-spawning-a-new-browser-engine- http://www.chromium.org/blink/developer-faq#TOC-Why-is-Chrom...
pksadiq 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. A user isn't required to accept GNU GPL license terms to simply use it. The user should be allowed to install a software released under the terms of GNU GPL even if the user refuses to accept the license terms. GNU GPL cares the modification and (re)distribution of the software. Not its mere use. Edit: Remove the previous edit. (If you are never releasing/distributing the combined work into public, it is Okay to link your code with an [AL]GPL code and use as you wish).
- Retra 10y ago
  By "use" I meant "use the code in your own software."

greenhouse_gas 10y ago

No. It's like saying that I want cars to be open source, so I make an engine that can be used only in OS cars, helping the OS community. Take GCC. The fact that GCC was GPL'd made Objective-C open source. One can arguably say that Linux's GPL base is what makes custom ROMs (and all the cool stuff they brought to stock android) possible. On the other hand, BSD was under a permissive license. How many Operating Systems leech of it and don't give back?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

lmm 10y ago

Plenty of closed-source components have terms that affect your whole product even if you use them only in one corner of it. Ever wondered why you see all those "Uses Bink Video" or "Creative Surround Sound" notices in game credit sequences? Often there are other, more financial terms, attached, and this can have real consequences - e.g. maybe you want to change your game to be free-to-play but there's a per-unit royalty to some of the libraries you're using, so you can't. The GPL imposes certain requirements on any product that you use a GPL component in. If that's "cancer" then virtually every commercial software library is equally "cancerous". You can decide for yourself whether those requirements are too costly to comply with or not, and again that's absolutely normal, standard industry practice. There are plenty of libraries and products where the developers would have liked to use that library in their product but decided the license for it was too costly; it's unreasonable to single out the GPL. (As an end use who bought a Linux game and then switched to Linux, and was therefore only able to continue playing it thanks to the GPL, I'm pretty happy about the GPL)