4 ms·

This is factually incorrect. I do understand why you'd say it, because it sounds balanced and reasonable at face value, but time and time again we've seen what

by jdub 16y ago

This is factually incorrect. I do understand why you'd say it, because it sounds balanced and reasonable at face value, but time and time again we've seen what happens when the word of the GPL is followed, but the spirit isn't. Centralising copyright ownership in a single organisation (particularly a commercial entity which may be acquired or choose to protect its existence violently) is a threat to communities which aim to co-develop. In a true co-developing community, a single participant doing something stupid or destructive doesn't hurt everyone else. In a single-entity, single-owner project, only one participant needs to do something stupid or destructive and it will affect everyone else, and they may not have any say in the matter. Corporate takeovers, bankruptcies, falling profits, new leaders... all these things can provoke such a situation. That won't happen in projects like Apache and GNOME, which are truly collaborative, decentralised, co-developed, multi-author, multi-copyright-holder projects.

bad_user 16y ago
You are right, but personally I feel that the GPL is inviting abuse: it is THE license that made the dual-licensing business model possible, and the reason why companies are requesting copyright assignments (even if they don't plan to do anything with it right now, but just in case). So you can talk about "the spirit of GPL", but this spirit is too tainted with a political agenda that made it a double edged sword. Heck, the biggest supporters of AGPL are companies that sell web-related platforms or libraries for a living and slapping an "open-source" label on such packages is good marketing. Here's some food for thought: if OpenJDK would've been licensed with Apache version 2, a fork would have already happened. GPLv2 was chosen for a reason ;)
- bkuhn 16y ago
  You're quite correct, the Open Core model (and, to some extent, the proprietary relicensing system as well) is made possible because of the way copyleft works. I've previously written that <a href="http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2009/10/16/open-core-shareware.html>GPL http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2009/10/16/open-core-shareware... is only a tool, and the tool can be used for good things and bad things too</a>. I also agree that permissive licensing is <em>much better</em> than GPL+OpenCore.
- clacke 16y ago
  Here's the thing: The GPL combined with copyright assignments makes the dual-licensing business model possible. This is why we need to study carefully how this is done, and consider the consequences of assigning copyright.

by jdub 16y ago

bad_user 16y ago

You are right, but personally I feel that the GPL is inviting abuse: it is THE license that made the dual-licensing business model possible, and the reason why companies are requesting copyright assignments (even if they don't plan to do anything with it right now, but just in case). So you can talk about "the spirit of GPL", but this spirit is too tainted with a political agenda that made it a double edged sword. Heck, the biggest supporters of AGPL are companies that sell web-related platforms or libraries for a living and slapping an "open-source" label on such packages is good marketing. Here's some food for thought: if OpenJDK would've been licensed with Apache version 2, a fork would have already happened. GPLv2 was chosen for a reason ;)

bkuhn 16y ago
You're quite correct, the Open Core model (and, to some extent, the proprietary relicensing system as well) is made possible because of the way copyleft works. I've previously written that <a href="http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2009/10/16/open-core-shareware.html>GPL http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2009/10/16/open-core-shareware... is only a tool, and the tool can be used for good things and bad things too</a>. I also agree that permissive licensing is <em>much better</em> than GPL+OpenCore.
clacke 16y ago
Here's the thing: The GPL combined with copyright assignments makes the dual-licensing business model possible. This is why we need to study carefully how this is done, and consider the consequences of assigning copyright.