4 ms·

Why less free? LLVM is actually more free (in terms of what freedoms you have with the source), being published under an MIT/BSD license.

by cpr 16y ago

X-Istence 16y ago
People that hold on to the GPL as their saviour believe that if one can take code, change it, and NOT have to give your changes back to the community it has made the code LESS free. They don't look at the freedoms each license gives but just their own selfishness of wanting everything shared for the supposed greater good, when those of us in the BSD community really don't worry too much since most companies put back BSD licensed source code anyway since it is in their own best interest. Giving the companies a choice is something they can't fathom.
- danieldk 16y ago
  Right, and we know how well this worked... - Wasabi Systems (which contributed back less and less, except for journaling support just before it went down). - BSDi (contributed almost zero, until they merged with FreeBSD Mall). - Apple, contributes non of their differentiating technology back to the BSDs. - Practically any closed-source system used the BSD TCP/IP stack at some point, few contributed back. I loved the BSD license. I still love the Apache 2 License (which is very BSD-like). I was a developer in the NetBSD project. But as much as I dislike(d) the GPL, the license is very well able to make users contribute back. The Linux kernel has a very healthy pool of enterprise contributors. *BSD development is very much driven by free-time contributors and very small consultant firms. And it shows. It is great that such such a small pool of contributors can build great systems. But Linux has outdone BSD in many areas. I know, it sucks, but it is true. Few people want to give competitors a carte blanche to start with your work, and keep improvements to themselves.
  - adulau 16y ago
    Exactly, that's the main advantage of the GNU General Public License (and copyleft type licenses), the ability to sustain the free software ecosystem.
  - nanairo 16y ago
    I don't know much about Wasabit Systems or BSDi. But gosh, get your Apple facts right. a) Apple's kernel is open source: having used GPL would not have made any difference here b) The other BSDs have openly stated that Apple contributed back and thanked them for it. Not only that, there are a lot of open source technologies that Apple has contributed to or is the main company behind it. In fact to find an example you didn't need to go any further than LLVM (discussed in this article). Apple is the company most strongly behind LLVM: they could continue in house without contributing any of the source, but they don't (and why should they? What advantage would it give them?). Finally and I think the most important thing, is to ask: had those technologies been GPLed, would the companies have contributed back (as you seem to expect), dumped it all on their website, or simply have refused to use that code? (edited for grammar)
    - danieldk 16y ago
      "a) Apple's kernel is open source: having used GPL would not have made any difference here" Except for a necessary parts to make it useful. From someone close to the source (the last paragraph pretty much wraps it up): http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/oshistory.html http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/oshistory.html "b) The other BSDs have openly stated that Apple contributed back and thanked them for it." Yes, see the <s>huge amount of code</s> that Apple contributed to the NetBSD kernel: http://nxr.netbsd.org/source/search?q=apple&project=/src&path=/src/sys http://nxr.netbsd.org/source/search?q=apple&project=/src... "Finally and I think the most important thing, is to ask: had those technologies been GPLed, [...], or simply have refused to use that code?" Yes, who would use (L)GPL code in their systems? $ gcc -v gcc version 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5664) $ make -v GNU Make 3.81 Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. [...] This program built for i386-apple-darwin10.0 $ troff -v GNU troff (groff) version 1.19.2 It's true that LLVM and Webkit (based on KHTML, which was LGPL) are exceptions. However, it remains to be seen what they contribute back to LLVM in the future. Probably just those bits that will give them the tools edge.
      - X-Istence 16y ago
        LLVM is being developed by someone that Apple hired, why would they keep contributing back? Why wouldn't they have closed the doors on that back before the project got bigger? It is not in their best interest to do so. The OpenBSM implementation in FreeBSD is based on the BSM code in Darwin. Submitted by Apple to FreeBSD (apple.com email addresses) http://freshbsd.org/?branch=&project=freebsd&committer=&module=src&q=apple.com http://freshbsd.org/?branch=&project=freebsd&committ... http://freshbsd.org/?branch=&project=freebsd&committer=&module=src&q=apple+dot+com http://freshbsd.org/?branch=&project=freebsd&committ... Apple, Inc: http://freshbsd.org/?branch=&project=freebsd&committer=&module=src&q=Apple%2C+Inc http://freshbsd.org/?branch=&project=freebsd&committ... Also, since all of this is BSD code, and those of us who developed under the BSD license agree to the fact that the code may be taken and used, and that works for us. Companies that know what is ultimately good for them will contribute back, maybe not all of their secret sauce so that they can continue to make money but at least part of it.
chc 16y ago
Keep in mind that when GNU/FSF say "free software," they really mean it's the software that's free, in an "Information wants to be free" sense. The software's freedom necessarily confers some liberties to you as well, but they still feel that software whose freedom can be taken away has a lesser quality of freedom than software that is guaranteed free forever. (You'd probably say the same about people — if your freedom can easily be abridged, it's worth less than inalienable freedom.)
- _delirium 16y ago
  That's not the sense I get from their manifestos. They seem to come more from a "freedom of end users to modify/share the software they receive" perspective, not the more cyberpunk information-wants-to-be-free perspective. The reason they like copyleft is because it makes it harder for a user's freedom to modify/share any software they receive to be restricted somewhere down the line: you're guaranteeing that not only are your immediate users given that freedom, but so are any indirect users of your software, via any derivative-works path.
tzs 16y ago
You slightly misread what he said. He said it would make less software free, not that it was less free. One of the reasons GCC did not have a plug-in architecture was to make it so that if you wanted to do certain things with GCC, you were forced to make your code free. Now you can do some of these things without making your code free.

Why less free? LLVM is actually more free (in terms of what freedoms you have with the source), being published under an MIT/BSD license.

by cpr 16y ago

Why less free? LLVM is actually more free (in terms of what freedoms you have with the source), being published under an MIT/BSD license.

X-Istence 16y ago

People that hold on to the GPL as their saviour believe that if one can take code, change it, and NOT have to give your changes back to the community it has made the code LESS free. They don't look at the freedoms each license gives but just their own selfishness of wanting everything shared for the supposed greater good, when those of us in the BSD community really don't worry too much since most companies put back BSD licensed source code anyway since it is in their own best interest. Giving the companies a choice is something they can't fathom.

danieldk 16y ago
Right, and we know how well this worked... - Wasabi Systems (which contributed back less and less, except for journaling support just before it went down). - BSDi (contributed almost zero, until they merged with FreeBSD Mall). - Apple, contributes non of their differentiating technology back to the BSDs. - Practically any closed-source system used the BSD TCP/IP stack at some point, few contributed back. I loved the BSD license. I still love the Apache 2 License (which is very BSD-like). I was a developer in the NetBSD project. But as much as I dislike(d) the GPL, the license is very well able to make users contribute back. The Linux kernel has a very healthy pool of enterprise contributors. *BSD development is very much driven by free-time contributors and very small consultant firms. And it shows. It is great that such such a small pool of contributors can build great systems. But Linux has outdone BSD in many areas. I know, it sucks, but it is true. Few people want to give competitors a carte blanche to start with your work, and keep improvements to themselves.
- adulau 16y ago
  Exactly, that's the main advantage of the GNU General Public License (and copyleft type licenses), the ability to sustain the free software ecosystem.
- nanairo 16y ago
  I don't know much about Wasabit Systems or BSDi. But gosh, get your Apple facts right. a) Apple's kernel is open source: having used GPL would not have made any difference here b) The other BSDs have openly stated that Apple contributed back and thanked them for it. Not only that, there are a lot of open source technologies that Apple has contributed to or is the main company behind it. In fact to find an example you didn't need to go any further than LLVM (discussed in this article). Apple is the company most strongly behind LLVM: they could continue in house without contributing any of the source, but they don't (and why should they? What advantage would it give them?). Finally and I think the most important thing, is to ask: had those technologies been GPLed, would the companies have contributed back (as you seem to expect), dumped it all on their website, or simply have refused to use that code? (edited for grammar)
  - danieldk 16y ago
    "a) Apple's kernel is open source: having used GPL would not have made any difference here" Except for a necessary parts to make it useful. From someone close to the source (the last paragraph pretty much wraps it up): http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/oshistory.html http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/oshistory.html "b) The other BSDs have openly stated that Apple contributed back and thanked them for it." Yes, see the <s>huge amount of code</s> that Apple contributed to the NetBSD kernel: http://nxr.netbsd.org/source/search?q=apple&project=/src&path=/src/sys http://nxr.netbsd.org/source/search?q=apple&project=/src... "Finally and I think the most important thing, is to ask: had those technologies been GPLed, [...], or simply have refused to use that code?" Yes, who would use (L)GPL code in their systems? $ gcc -v gcc version 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5664) $ make -v GNU Make 3.81 Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. [...] This program built for i386-apple-darwin10.0 $ troff -v GNU troff (groff) version 1.19.2 It's true that LLVM and Webkit (based on KHTML, which was LGPL) are exceptions. However, it remains to be seen what they contribute back to LLVM in the future. Probably just those bits that will give them the tools edge.
    - X-Istence 16y ago
      LLVM is being developed by someone that Apple hired, why would they keep contributing back? Why wouldn't they have closed the doors on that back before the project got bigger? It is not in their best interest to do so. The OpenBSM implementation in FreeBSD is based on the BSM code in Darwin. Submitted by Apple to FreeBSD (apple.com email addresses) http://freshbsd.org/?branch=&project=freebsd&committer=&module=src&q=apple.com http://freshbsd.org/?branch=&project=freebsd&committ... http://freshbsd.org/?branch=&project=freebsd&committer=&module=src&q=apple+dot+com http://freshbsd.org/?branch=&project=freebsd&committ... Apple, Inc: http://freshbsd.org/?branch=&project=freebsd&committer=&module=src&q=Apple%2C+Inc http://freshbsd.org/?branch=&project=freebsd&committ... Also, since all of this is BSD code, and those of us who developed under the BSD license agree to the fact that the code may be taken and used, and that works for us. Companies that know what is ultimately good for them will contribute back, maybe not all of their secret sauce so that they can continue to make money but at least part of it.

chc 16y ago

Keep in mind that when GNU/FSF say "free software," they really mean it's the software that's free, in an "Information wants to be free" sense. The software's freedom necessarily confers some liberties to you as well, but they still feel that software whose freedom can be taken away has a lesser quality of freedom than software that is guaranteed free forever. (You'd probably say the same about people — if your freedom can easily be abridged, it's worth less than inalienable freedom.)

_delirium 16y ago
That's not the sense I get from their manifestos. They seem to come more from a "freedom of end users to modify/share the software they receive" perspective, not the more cyberpunk information-wants-to-be-free perspective. The reason they like copyleft is because it makes it harder for a user's freedom to modify/share any software they receive to be restricted somewhere down the line: you're guaranteeing that not only are your immediate users given that freedom, but so are any indirect users of your software, via any derivative-works path.

tzs 16y ago

You slightly misread what he said. He said it would make less software free, not that it was less free. One of the reasons GCC did not have a plug-in architecture was to make it so that if you wanted to do certain things with GCC, you were forced to make your code free. Now you can do some of these things without making your code free.