4 ms·

I never understood this sentiment. If you care about people giving changed code back to you, you use GPL. That's what it's for. If you use BSD, you specifical

I never understood this sentiment. If you care about people giving changed code back to you, you use GPL. That's what it's for. If you use BSD, you specifically say "I don't care what you do with the code". If you want forks to give code back, use GPL.

finnthehuman 8y ago
Yes, but if you've chosen GPL, it suggests you care that open source project's ability to get changes back. And code can only cross the barrier between BSD and GPL in one direction. Wouldn't it therefore be polite and align with a position on developers getting changes back to make the changes available to upstream even though you're not legally obligated to? I think it makes sense to do that upstreamable work upstream. Unless the interest in GPL-style is less about getting changes back and more about keeping your work out of any closed source products.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  It depends on your reasoning around the GPL and using it. It gets into the whole "permissive" vs "restrictive" debate and how people in both camps flip those terms around. I can see how, if I were a big GPL/FSF/Stallman person, I'd like to ensure everything I derive will always have future derivations be open source, even if they came from BSD roots. In that philosophy, you're almost "upgrading" the license, where the BSD/MIT/Apache folks might view it as a "downgrade".
  - LukeShu 8y ago
    As a GPL/FSF/Stallman person: That's exactly it. That said, I'll still usually try to contribute it back upstream under the original license; especially if I expect to be continuing to pull code from them. I think it's worth it to maintain good-will with the upstream devs, and to reduce my burden of maintaining the patches/merging new changes.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    BSD doesn't view downstream GPL as a downgrade. BSD philosophy is that they don't care about how consumers use the software. If BSD philosophy cared about downstream licensing, they would be GPL philosophy!
- Y_Y 8y ago
  The changes are available upstream, just not under the BSD.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    That's not upstream. That's downstream to a (hypothetical) GPL fork, which is equivalent to the first downstairs GPL project from the first place.
gpl_is_theft 8y ago
BSD/MIT/Apache licenses are about freedom: go do whatever you want with it, including being a good steward of free software and returning improvements. (Unfortunately, these licenses allow for the relicensing of code as GPL which is why I think CCDL is a superior license.) GPL is built on the premise that there is/should be no such thing as intellectual property or proprietary software (go read RMS's work: it's a quasi-religious rant). The GPL endorses theft by communist tactics that says "thanks, suckers!" to all of the BSD-licensed projects whereby derivative works of BSD-to-GPL copied code is no longer free to be returned to the BSD project from which it was taken. Do this enough times and a thriving BSD project can be ruined. Take Linux: they didn't have a TCP/IP stack that worked back in the day so they took the one that worked from FreeBSD. They didn't have SSH so they took that from OpenBSD. Throw in some FUD about the legal status of the BSDs and suddenly Linux is the hawt, darling project of open source and all of the hard work that had gone into Free/Net/OpenBSD is raped in a one-way transfer of IP to the benefit of Linux and the detriment of the BSDs. Down-votes of this comment without debating the merits of my argument will be construed as pusillanimous acceptance of the thesis. _Convince_ me that I'm wrong... I'm willing to listen.
- baq 8y ago
  GPL is about freedom of the source code and not people. Not going to debate whether that makes sense with someone who's username is trolling and that just the start.
  - gpl_is_theft 8y ago
    Source code is the product of one or more human beings, their ability to think and solve problems. Do you agree with the creator of the GPL that humans have no right to own the work-product of their minds?
  - sangnoir 8y ago
    > GPL is about freedom of the source code and not people. Not quite: GPL is about freedom of the End User to modify their software. BSD does not insist on that freedom, and from my POV, it's about freedom of the Software Author to (re-) license upstream libraries as they wish.

finnthehuman 8y ago

Yes, but if you've chosen GPL, it suggests you care that open source project's ability to get changes back. And code can only cross the barrier between BSD and GPL in one direction. Wouldn't it therefore be polite and align with a position on developers getting changes back to make the changes available to upstream even though you're not legally obligated to? I think it makes sense to do that upstreamable work upstream. Unless the interest in GPL-style is less about getting changes back and more about keeping your work out of any closed source products.

djsumdog 8y ago
It depends on your reasoning around the GPL and using it. It gets into the whole "permissive" vs "restrictive" debate and how people in both camps flip those terms around. I can see how, if I were a big GPL/FSF/Stallman person, I'd like to ensure everything I derive will always have future derivations be open source, even if they came from BSD roots. In that philosophy, you're almost "upgrading" the license, where the BSD/MIT/Apache folks might view it as a "downgrade".
- LukeShu 8y ago
  As a GPL/FSF/Stallman person: That's exactly it. That said, I'll still usually try to contribute it back upstream under the original license; especially if I expect to be continuing to pull code from them. I think it's worth it to maintain good-will with the upstream devs, and to reduce my burden of maintaining the patches/merging new changes.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  BSD doesn't view downstream GPL as a downgrade. BSD philosophy is that they don't care about how consumers use the software. If BSD philosophy cared about downstream licensing, they would be GPL philosophy!
Y_Y 8y ago
The changes are available upstream, just not under the BSD.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  That's not upstream. That's downstream to a (hypothetical) GPL fork, which is equivalent to the first downstairs GPL project from the first place.

gpl_is_theft 8y ago

BSD/MIT/Apache licenses are about freedom: go do whatever you want with it, including being a good steward of free software and returning improvements. (Unfortunately, these licenses allow for the relicensing of code as GPL which is why I think CCDL is a superior license.) GPL is built on the premise that there is/should be no such thing as intellectual property or proprietary software (go read RMS's work: it's a quasi-religious rant). The GPL endorses theft by communist tactics that says "thanks, suckers!" to all of the BSD-licensed projects whereby derivative works of BSD-to-GPL copied code is no longer free to be returned to the BSD project from which it was taken. Do this enough times and a thriving BSD project can be ruined. Take Linux: they didn't have a TCP/IP stack that worked back in the day so they took the one that worked from FreeBSD. They didn't have SSH so they took that from OpenBSD. Throw in some FUD about the legal status of the BSDs and suddenly Linux is the hawt, darling project of open source and all of the hard work that had gone into Free/Net/OpenBSD is raped in a one-way transfer of IP to the benefit of Linux and the detriment of the BSDs. Down-votes of this comment without debating the merits of my argument will be construed as pusillanimous acceptance of the thesis. _Convince_ me that I'm wrong... I'm willing to listen.

baq 8y ago
GPL is about freedom of the source code and not people. Not going to debate whether that makes sense with someone who's username is trolling and that just the start.
- gpl_is_theft 8y ago
  Source code is the product of one or more human beings, their ability to think and solve problems. Do you agree with the creator of the GPL that humans have no right to own the work-product of their minds?
- sangnoir 8y ago
  > GPL is about freedom of the source code and not people. Not quite: GPL is about freedom of the End User to modify their software. BSD does not insist on that freedom, and from my POV, it's about freedom of the Software Author to (re-) license upstream libraries as they wish.