8 ms·

> when companies have told me that they hate the GPL because they are not keen on spending a lot of time, energy, and money modifying some piece of code, only t

> when companies have told me that they hate the GPL because they are not keen on spending a lot of time, energy, and money modifying some piece of code, only to be required to give it to their competitors for free Some piece of code that also cost time (and possibly someone's else money) to develop, and that they got for free?

Radim 9y ago
This struck me as bizarre as well. You're thanking someone because you relicensed your hard work so they can use it for free (BSD) and you complied? All for the stated reason that they don't have to relicense their work to other people so they could use it for free? /facepalm It's like some version of the Stockholm syndrome, deserves a name.
- Buge 9y ago
  He relicensed MINIX for Intel? The letter doesn't say that.
  - Radim 9y ago
    "I have run across this before, when companies have told me that they hate the GPL because they are not keen on spending a lot of time, energy, and money modifying some piece of code, only to be required to give it to their competitors for free. These discussions were why we put MINIX 3 out under the Berkeley license in 2000 (after prying it loose from my publisher)."
    - 0ld 9y ago
      So where exactly does this quote say MINIX was relicensed for Intel? Well, maybe only if you think 17 is "several years": > several years ago when one of your engineering teams contacted me > we put MINIX 3 out under the Berkeley license in 2000
    - Wintamute 9y ago
      Nowhere does it say that discussions with Intel in particular motivated the license change away from the GPL. Only discussions with unnamed corporations as long ago as 2000.
      - Radim 9y ago
        Your point being? It makes absolutely no difference whether the "you cost, me profit" corporation was Intel, Nvidia, Acme Inc or all above.
        Wintamute 9y ago
        My point is that you are drawing odd/bad conclusions from a misreading of the information contained in the letter. > You're thanking someone because they asked you to relicense your hard work so they can use it for free (BSD) and you complied? Nowhere in the letter does it imply that the entity being thanked (Intel) is the same entity that motivated the author to change the license. Intel used open source software according to the license they found it with. The author is pleased his software is powering global infrastructure, and is likely pleased he's contributed to human progress, but is slightly peeved he received no personal thank you as a matter of politeness/etiquette. I'm struggling to understand what criticism you have for this process. No-one has been dicked.
- Wintamute 9y ago
  You seem to be having a problem understanding why people would be motivated to release genuinely free software. Open source can mean complete freedom, including the freedom to take the software, modify it, gain a competitive advantage and generate economic value, according to the license choice of the original author.
  - tgragnato 9y ago
    There's not an absolute in licensing; it depends on what your thoughts and motivations are. In practise, seeing ME as a competitive advantage is something that's at least questionable.
  - kunimu 9y ago
    Nobody is denying the freedom for commercial use is a core part of open source software. However no developer has to make a certain business model easy for you, and I think it is well within the correct view to discourage such a business practice which restricts the freedom of users by making that impossible but allowing a "competitor" (if we really must think of it this way) to generate "economic value" (i.e selling open source software, which the GPL does allow you to do). The freedom debate is unending. Personally I am very skeptical of all forms of economic freedom, as frequently they have the result of pidgeonholing people and their freedom is restricted.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      Never mind that RMS' intent with GPL is to preserve the initial freedom into the distant future. If you get access to the source, so should everyone that comes after you. And he formulated this after he had some hard earned experiences with suppliers at MIT.
      - Wintamute 9y ago
        > If you get access to the source, so should everyone that comes after you. Why should they? That is up to the software author.
- matthewmacleod 9y ago
  I don't think there's any implication that MINIX was relicensed specifically for Intel. I'm surprised how much difficulty some people have in understanding that others might make different licensing choices. If I license software under a BSD/MIT-like license, it's not an accident – it's specifically done so that there are as few restrictions on that software as possible. Don't get me wrong – the GPL is important and making the choice to license under it is a totally legitimate personal choice with various pros and cons versus a BSD license. But it's not the only rational choice to make, and I wish you'd be a bit more open-minded about that.
- zouhair 9y ago
  It's not free, it's Free http://wiki.c2.com/?FreeAsInBeer http://wiki.c2.com/?FreeAsInBeer
- ptero 9y ago
  MINIX was first and foremost an educational system -- simple OS so that students can see how every OS component works on a real end to end system during a single semester course. And easily try their own changes. As such wider acceptance is something to celebrate. It might also be a (partial) vindication that an alternative design you absolutely hate and tried to kill is a huge success and is everywhere from supercomputers to cell phones.
- ksk 9y ago
  >You're thanking someone because you relicensed your hard work so they can use it for free (BSD) and you complied? That sounds like an argument against open sharing of source code and ideas.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jvdh 9y ago
It should be noted that Minix is code that was developed by university researchers. Researchers who are payed for by (primarily) European and Dutch tax euros. Also note that many of that time, energy and money to modify GPL code is not just programming time, but also a lot of legal advice time. With BSD-like license it should be immediately clear what you can do with the code (i.e. almost everything).
- Fredej 9y ago
  This is probably gonna be a controversial view but my experience is this as well: Deploying GPL code is a legal process. Deploying BSD is a development process. We spent thousands of dollars on legal advice when deploying GPL. In the end it was largely as we expected it to be: No significant action was needed beyond releasing the code to the components that we already got for free, with the minor modifications we had made. But we had to be sure before we committed to using GPL code. Today, we have a blanket "yes you can" policy for BSD code while GPL is still on a case by case basis.
  - lmm 9y ago
    I agree that many companies have that attitude towards BSD versus GPL, but is there actually a rational basis for it? Given that you've apparently already gone through the legal process and found out that the GPL means what you think it means, why are you holding it to a higher standard than BSD?
    - maccard 9y ago
      GPL usage depends on how you're using it. If you have two pieces of software, an internal only (e.g. a dashboard/deployment tool), and an external product, using GPL'ed code has different ramifications for both deployments.
    - Someone 9y ago
      If one of your employees accidentally copies even a single bit of GPL-licensed code into your privately licensed code or statically links against such code even once, and it gets ‘outside’ in any way, you legally have to release that version of your code under the GPL. Worse, the source code of all versions from _before_ that checkin automatically become GPL-licensed (because they contain code that, transitively, becomes GPL because it later was linked with GPL-licensed software) Yes, that may not hold up in court if it is a tiny non-essential fragment or, if you revert to old code soon, etc. but that’s not the point; if you end up in court, you already lost. With BSD-licensed code, that risk is way smaller. The worst you have to do is add a few (or quite a few thousand. Go check Setting/General/About/Legal for an example) attribution lines to the versions of your code that use the BSD-licensed code. (Also, even if you choose to license your code under the GPL, you have to track licensing, as it isn’t legally possible to combine GPL2 and GPLv3 or APGL and GPLv3 licenses or any GPL with ApAchexlicensed code in a single binary. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html. If you want to troll GPL aficionados, license your code under GPLv1)
zimbatm 9y ago
The main reason to mention GPL specifically is as a side-attack to Linux. This feud has been going on for a looong time. Finally MINIX is more popular that Linux! Never mind that it's being used as a backdoor.
- rbanffy 9y ago
  As a backdoor that cannot be closed by the ordinary user.
e3b0c 9y ago
I've once heard that companies don't like GPL is not because they're afraid of being taken advantage of by their competitors, but they have some secret workarounds/fixes for the hardware defects, which would make them trouble if discovered by their customers.

Radim 9y ago

This struck me as bizarre as well. You're thanking someone because you relicensed your hard work so they can use it for free (BSD) and you complied? All for the stated reason that they don't have to relicense their work to other people so they could use it for free? /facepalm It's like some version of the Stockholm syndrome, deserves a name.

Buge 9y ago
He relicensed MINIX for Intel? The letter doesn't say that.
- Radim 9y ago
  "I have run across this before, when companies have told me that they hate the GPL because they are not keen on spending a lot of time, energy, and money modifying some piece of code, only to be required to give it to their competitors for free. These discussions were why we put MINIX 3 out under the Berkeley license in 2000 (after prying it loose from my publisher)."
  - 0ld 9y ago
    So where exactly does this quote say MINIX was relicensed for Intel? Well, maybe only if you think 17 is "several years": > several years ago when one of your engineering teams contacted me > we put MINIX 3 out under the Berkeley license in 2000
  - Wintamute 9y ago
    Nowhere does it say that discussions with Intel in particular motivated the license change away from the GPL. Only discussions with unnamed corporations as long ago as 2000.
    - Radim 9y ago
      Your point being? It makes absolutely no difference whether the "you cost, me profit" corporation was Intel, Nvidia, Acme Inc or all above.
      - Wintamute 9y ago
        My point is that you are drawing odd/bad conclusions from a misreading of the information contained in the letter. > You're thanking someone because they asked you to relicense your hard work so they can use it for free (BSD) and you complied? Nowhere in the letter does it imply that the entity being thanked (Intel) is the same entity that motivated the author to change the license. Intel used open source software according to the license they found it with. The author is pleased his software is powering global infrastructure, and is likely pleased he's contributed to human progress, but is slightly peeved he received no personal thank you as a matter of politeness/etiquette. I'm struggling to understand what criticism you have for this process. No-one has been dicked.
Wintamute 9y ago
You seem to be having a problem understanding why people would be motivated to release genuinely free software. Open source can mean complete freedom, including the freedom to take the software, modify it, gain a competitive advantage and generate economic value, according to the license choice of the original author.
- tgragnato 9y ago
  There's not an absolute in licensing; it depends on what your thoughts and motivations are. In practise, seeing ME as a competitive advantage is something that's at least questionable.
- kunimu 9y ago
  Nobody is denying the freedom for commercial use is a core part of open source software. However no developer has to make a certain business model easy for you, and I think it is well within the correct view to discourage such a business practice which restricts the freedom of users by making that impossible but allowing a "competitor" (if we really must think of it this way) to generate "economic value" (i.e selling open source software, which the GPL does allow you to do). The freedom debate is unending. Personally I am very skeptical of all forms of economic freedom, as frequently they have the result of pidgeonholing people and their freedom is restricted.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Never mind that RMS' intent with GPL is to preserve the initial freedom into the distant future. If you get access to the source, so should everyone that comes after you. And he formulated this after he had some hard earned experiences with suppliers at MIT.
    - Wintamute 9y ago
      > If you get access to the source, so should everyone that comes after you. Why should they? That is up to the software author.
matthewmacleod 9y ago
I don't think there's any implication that MINIX was relicensed specifically for Intel. I'm surprised how much difficulty some people have in understanding that others might make different licensing choices. If I license software under a BSD/MIT-like license, it's not an accident – it's specifically done so that there are as few restrictions on that software as possible. Don't get me wrong – the GPL is important and making the choice to license under it is a totally legitimate personal choice with various pros and cons versus a BSD license. But it's not the only rational choice to make, and I wish you'd be a bit more open-minded about that.
zouhair 9y ago
It's not free, it's Free http://wiki.c2.com/?FreeAsInBeer http://wiki.c2.com/?FreeAsInBeer
ptero 9y ago
MINIX was first and foremost an educational system -- simple OS so that students can see how every OS component works on a real end to end system during a single semester course. And easily try their own changes. As such wider acceptance is something to celebrate. It might also be a (partial) vindication that an alternative design you absolutely hate and tried to kill is a huge success and is everywhere from supercomputers to cell phones.
ksk 9y ago
>You're thanking someone because you relicensed your hard work so they can use it for free (BSD) and you complied? That sounds like an argument against open sharing of source code and ideas.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jvdh 9y ago

It should be noted that Minix is code that was developed by university researchers. Researchers who are payed for by (primarily) European and Dutch tax euros. Also note that many of that time, energy and money to modify GPL code is not just programming time, but also a lot of legal advice time. With BSD-like license it should be immediately clear what you can do with the code (i.e. almost everything).

Fredej 9y ago
This is probably gonna be a controversial view but my experience is this as well: Deploying GPL code is a legal process. Deploying BSD is a development process. We spent thousands of dollars on legal advice when deploying GPL. In the end it was largely as we expected it to be: No significant action was needed beyond releasing the code to the components that we already got for free, with the minor modifications we had made. But we had to be sure before we committed to using GPL code. Today, we have a blanket "yes you can" policy for BSD code while GPL is still on a case by case basis.
- lmm 9y ago
  I agree that many companies have that attitude towards BSD versus GPL, but is there actually a rational basis for it? Given that you've apparently already gone through the legal process and found out that the GPL means what you think it means, why are you holding it to a higher standard than BSD?
  - maccard 9y ago
    GPL usage depends on how you're using it. If you have two pieces of software, an internal only (e.g. a dashboard/deployment tool), and an external product, using GPL'ed code has different ramifications for both deployments.
  - Someone 9y ago
    If one of your employees accidentally copies even a single bit of GPL-licensed code into your privately licensed code or statically links against such code even once, and it gets ‘outside’ in any way, you legally have to release that version of your code under the GPL. Worse, the source code of all versions from _before_ that checkin automatically become GPL-licensed (because they contain code that, transitively, becomes GPL because it later was linked with GPL-licensed software) Yes, that may not hold up in court if it is a tiny non-essential fragment or, if you revert to old code soon, etc. but that’s not the point; if you end up in court, you already lost. With BSD-licensed code, that risk is way smaller. The worst you have to do is add a few (or quite a few thousand. Go check Setting/General/About/Legal for an example) attribution lines to the versions of your code that use the BSD-licensed code. (Also, even if you choose to license your code under the GPL, you have to track licensing, as it isn’t legally possible to combine GPL2 and GPLv3 or APGL and GPLv3 licenses or any GPL with ApAchexlicensed code in a single binary. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html. If you want to troll GPL aficionados, license your code under GPLv1)

zimbatm 9y ago

The main reason to mention GPL specifically is as a side-attack to Linux. This feud has been going on for a looong time. Finally MINIX is more popular that Linux! Never mind that it's being used as a backdoor.

rbanffy 9y ago
As a backdoor that cannot be closed by the ordinary user.

e3b0c 9y ago

I've once heard that companies don't like GPL is not because they're afraid of being taken advantage of by their competitors, but they have some secret workarounds/fixes for the hardware defects, which would make them trouble if discovered by their customers.