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I've been trying to tell everyone licensing is more important than they realize, but there are so many people who fundamentally misunderstand licensing and ther
by arca_vorago 9y ago
I've been trying to tell everyone licensing is more important than they realize, but there are so many people who fundamentally misunderstand licensing and therefor just don't care (dwtfyw license for example), or have falsely been trained by subpar instructors at uni and $othertraining about how bsd/mit is the superior license for business because $reasons.
The four freedoms and free software solve so many of the problems I see around modern tech-infrastructure. No, free software doesn't solve every issue and has some of it's own, for example I think at the code complexity levels we are at the many eyes theory is starting to crumble, but it doesn't change the core truisms about freedom in computing that are important for us to move forward in a free and open society if we actually want to start solving prolems.
Now that we have a concrete example of how picking tooling with bad licensing can bite people in the butt, please take this time to at least consider GPL varients (A/L/GPLv3) for as much of your tooling as you possibly can. (perhaps CC0/CCBY/CCBYSA for content)
In my opinion, MIT/BSD licenses like FB moved to in this case simply aren't good enough to be future-proof, primarily because of the ability of future tivoization of a product that removes freedom from the user (think BSD on playstation).
Remember, either the user controls the program, or the program controls the user.
If the GPL scares you for some reason or you have question about it (commercial sales of gpl software for example), feel free to ask. I've spent enough time wading through just about every license so I think I might be able to cut through some fud.
- jakobegger 9y agoPlease tell me more about commercial sales of GPL software. How could I make sure that people pay me for using my desktop app if it was GPL?
- arca_vorago 9y agoA common misconception is that under GPL all your code must be released to the public. This is not true. You only have to give code to the user after purchase. Now, it's true that the user could then upload your software to the public (under gpl), but many of the issues surrounding that (such as lost sales #) aren't as bad as people imagine they are, and in the foss world are generally made up for by high-maintainence intervals (so forks would be behind feature-wise), and support/service contracts to augment the traditional sales model. (Redhat model)
- lemming 9y agoDo you have an example of a commercially successful GPL desktop app?
- ungamed 9y agoVLC , but it has LGPL and GPL components iirc.
- SXX 9y agoSynergy [1] https://symless.com/synergy https://symless.com/synergy [2] https://github.com/symless/synergy-core https://github.com/symless/synergy-core
- coldtea 9y agoThat's only some "core" for the software, not the full software, which is kept proprietary. And even that could hurt their business if somebody used the core to build their own app for the same target market on top of it.
- SXX 9y agoI wouldn't say about what available on GitHub today, but up until year ago all source code was included and they only sold precompiled binaries and support. Also I doubt they can really change anything about that because Synergy never required CLA and it's under GPLv2. I pretty sure their "core" naming is just another way to promote usage of paid version, but you can still compile it yourself and easily remove all license checks.
- Bahamut 9y agoAre you a lawyer? If not, you would be doing a disservice to anyone curious about the topic. My own company's lawyers consider the GPLv3 toxic and not allowed at all for company use in any software we create - that's enough for me.
- arca_vorago 9y agoUsually it is the lawyers doing people a disservice actually. That said, Eben Moglen is who I would refer you to. (Has been the lawyer for the FSF and RMS I think) Read the slide in the first few seconds. Does that look familiar to you? https://youtu.be/okEQt-Rla7o?t=863 https://youtu.be/okEQt-Rla7o?t=863
- mseebach 9y agoThe lawyers who would actually have to put their neck on the line says no. Eben Moglen is a campaigner, not anyone's lawyer (in the matter of defending a software product including GNU licensed components). The license actually isn't that long and the only argument on what it really means is going to take place in a courtroom in a carefully chosen district in Texas in front of a judge and jury that aren't quite comfortable operating 4-function pocket calculators. (And the defendant, by the way, isn't going to be some wholesome main street software outfit, it's going to be the nastiest, most ruthless gang you can imagine. 90% of the software community is going to on the record hating their living guts, you can bet Moglen, never mind RMS, is going to be nowhere to be seen given an impassioned defense of the legality of this company's use of GPLv3, regardless of how perfectly compatible it is with the promises they make now (FSF will submit a brief, but they are going to be very discreet about it). But the result will decide the legal interpretation of GPLv3 forever.) That is the mental image of your company's lawyers when you ask about GPLv3. This discussion sometimes feels like like the PHB telling Dilbert to go base the product on Oracle because of an article in CIO Monthly ("written by an EXPERT!") says it's the best database.
- rmc 9y ago> My own company's lawyers consider the GPLv3 toxic and not allowed at all for company use in any software we create - that's enough for me. Isn't that often because the GPL would require you to release your source code? Which is different from possible patent problems? I can understand why companies don't want to release their source code, but at least it's clear ("release your code and you can't be sued"), right?
- bsmithers 9y ago>please take this time to at least consider GPL varients (A/L/GPLv3) for as much of your tooling as you possibly can. (perhaps CC0/CCBY/CCBYSA for content) I'm sorry but Creative Commons themselves declare that their licensing should not be used for software. https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-comm...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Kiro 9y ago> Now that we have a concrete example of how picking tooling with bad licensing can bite people in the butt What are you referring to? Who has been bitten exactly?
- coldtea 9y ago>I've been trying to tell everyone licensing is more important than they realize, but there are so many people who fundamentally misunderstand licensing and therefor just don't care Maybe they don't care because in reality its not a problem? In the sense that it's not a problem people generally have -- not that nobody ever has had it. A lot of people worry too much about all kinds of BS eventualities and technicalities, and this could be one of them in most cases. >Now that we have a concrete example of how picking tooling with bad licensing can bite people in the butt It only bit FB in the butt (in the sense that some developers complained about their license choice) -- not those using the tooling with FB license.