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> and solves most of the problems that held that back from wider popularity. > … > and is in JavaScript with a GPL license. If you want them to be widely ado

by speps 8y ago

> and solves most of the problems that held that back from wider popularity. > … > and is in JavaScript with a GPL license. If you want them to be widely adopted outside of research circles, you should avoid the GPL. Many companies would be interested in a curve like this but would avoid GPL just avoid any possible litigation. It's not great, and it's probably not a popular opinion I have but it's what I've seen from experience.

TickleSteve 8y ago
Agree, GPL effectively means non-commercial. Most companies won't touch GPL code with a barge-pole.
- detaro 8y ago
  Would you want to use code the author explicitly describes as not yet complete research-code and not for production commercially?
  - CamperBob2 8y ago
    If it doesn't belong in a commercial product, does it belong in Inkscape or OpenOffice?
- Fnoord 8y ago
  That was previous millennium. We're in 2018 now.
patrec 8y ago
This comment kinda rubs me the wrong way, especially since the author notes that I also want to preserve full ownership of the code so that I can do commercial licensing of code derived from it. If there are many companies that want a curve like this (which means it presumably took non-trivial time and skills to develop), maybe they should come to a commercial agreement with the author? What is it with pushing people to unpaid labour to make megacorps happy with some fuzzy notion of potential "wide adoption" as the only reward?
- Illniyar 8y ago
  The intent of making something open source is usually for others to use it. The parent is remarking that by choosing GPL the code would probably never be used. Which, in theory, would defeat the reason for making it open source in the first place. I'm assuming the idea behind making such a comment is the realization that many people, especially in academia, do not realize how unusable GPL is.
  - nemetroid 8y ago
    > The intent of making something open source is usually for others to use it. The intent of releasing something under a MIT or BSD license, maybe.
    - Illniyar 8y ago
      You can release the source code without any license. Adding a license means you want other people to "license" it from you - I.E. using your code. The GP actually quoted the article "and solves most of the problems that held that back from wider popularity." Which imply the author wanted people to adopt it. I'm assuming it wasn't about other academics adoptions but of hobbyists and commercial ventures.
  - jakobegger 8y ago
    I think the "unusability" of the GPL is exactly what many people want when they release GPLed code. GPLed code can be used by other researchers (good for popularity), but you can't use it for proprietery software.So if Adobe wants to use this curve, they have to license it. If it actually works out, I don't know, but that's been the intention of some researchers that I asked why they used GPL.
  - patrec 8y ago
    > The parent is remarking that by choosing GPL the code would probably never be used. Nonsense. Raph Levien's spiro spline code already is used in Inkscape and Fontforge, as you could easily have found out yourself. How exactly is releasing code under GPL going to to prevent its adoption in widely used GPL'ed software? And if the approach is any good, why would a commercial software vendor not be convinced by the GPL'ed prototype to reach out to Raph to find a licensing deal or commission work from him rather than doing it themselves? > people [...] do not realize how unusable GPL is. The GPL is so unusable that almost every computer or device you touch is full of GPL'ed software.
k__ 8y ago
The author is still able to give out commercial licences to companies, so where is the problem?
GuB-42 8y ago
He considers commercial licensing. GPL is perfect, we get to play around with it and the author may make money from it. And if it doesn't work, the author can still switch to a more permissive license (MIT, BSD,...), the other way around won't work. Also worth noting that it is presumably not patented, so nothing prevent companies from rewriting the algorithm.
espadrine 8y ago
> Many companies […] would avoid GPL just avoid any possible litigation There are so many examples of GPL software being blacklisted by commercial companies and dying out as a result. Linux, Bash, gcc, Blender, Ansible, MySQL, git… It really is quite a graveyard. In all seriousness, the licensing choice seems very reasonable for someone wishing to partner with commercial companies rather than have their work lifted without royalties.
- jakobegger 8y ago
  There's a difference between using GPL software, and shipping GPL software as part of your product. I use lots of GPL software for building my product (like git), but I can't ship any as a part of it. I presume that code for a curve is meant to be included in a product, rather than being used on its own.
  - espadrine 8y ago
    libgit2 is used by GitHub (a Microsoft product); bash is packaged in macOS (an Apple product); MySQL is served in RDS (an Amazon product). Companies find various ways to ship GPL software, depending on the situation. Sometimes it requires discussing it with the authors. Overall, it does ensure greater protection on the authors and on the propagation of the software.
    - jakobegger 8y ago
      libgit2 has a "linking excemption", which is probably the only reason why Github can use it, so that's a bad example, because it isn't really GPL (it's more like LGPL). Shipping bash as a part of macOS is not what I had in mind. (and it's funny, because macOS ships an ancient version of bash, because they don't want to touch GPL3...) As for Amazon RDS, I thought that was SaaS? So they don't "ship" it either... I mean the whole purpose of GPL is to make using it with closed source difficult / impossible. And in practice, apart from the big Open Source projects, GPL is used a lot by people who don't want to give away their code for free, they just want to get people to pay for a commercial license. Which is odd, because it feels like it is totally against the spirit of the free software movement.
ddingus 8y ago
Anyone interested is free to obtain a better license aligned with their needs. Surely the curve function is worth something. Take that something and invest in a non GPL license. GPL = Share and share alike A company using the curve function for profit is not sharing. And that is OK, but they should also be paying for that, due to the fact that they are unwilling to pay by contributing more open code. The open code comes from people who have to eat. It makes perfect sense for closed projects to pay for a suitable license. The author makes mention of all this, indicating commercial license plans. That's exactly as it should be.

by speps 8y ago

TickleSteve 8y ago

Agree, GPL effectively means non-commercial. Most companies won't touch GPL code with a barge-pole.

detaro 8y ago
Would you want to use code the author explicitly describes as not yet complete research-code and not for production commercially?
- CamperBob2 8y ago
  If it doesn't belong in a commercial product, does it belong in Inkscape or OpenOffice?
Fnoord 8y ago
That was previous millennium. We're in 2018 now.

patrec 8y ago

This comment kinda rubs me the wrong way, especially since the author notes that I also want to preserve full ownership of the code so that I can do commercial licensing of code derived from it. If there are many companies that want a curve like this (which means it presumably took non-trivial time and skills to develop), maybe they should come to a commercial agreement with the author? What is it with pushing people to unpaid labour to make megacorps happy with some fuzzy notion of potential "wide adoption" as the only reward?

Illniyar 8y ago
The intent of making something open source is usually for others to use it. The parent is remarking that by choosing GPL the code would probably never be used. Which, in theory, would defeat the reason for making it open source in the first place. I'm assuming the idea behind making such a comment is the realization that many people, especially in academia, do not realize how unusable GPL is.
- nemetroid 8y ago
  > The intent of making something open source is usually for others to use it. The intent of releasing something under a MIT or BSD license, maybe.
  - Illniyar 8y ago
    You can release the source code without any license. Adding a license means you want other people to "license" it from you - I.E. using your code. The GP actually quoted the article "and solves most of the problems that held that back from wider popularity." Which imply the author wanted people to adopt it. I'm assuming it wasn't about other academics adoptions but of hobbyists and commercial ventures.
- jakobegger 8y ago
  I think the "unusability" of the GPL is exactly what many people want when they release GPLed code. GPLed code can be used by other researchers (good for popularity), but you can't use it for proprietery software.So if Adobe wants to use this curve, they have to license it. If it actually works out, I don't know, but that's been the intention of some researchers that I asked why they used GPL.
- patrec 8y ago
  > The parent is remarking that by choosing GPL the code would probably never be used. Nonsense. Raph Levien's spiro spline code already is used in Inkscape and Fontforge, as you could easily have found out yourself. How exactly is releasing code under GPL going to to prevent its adoption in widely used GPL'ed software? And if the approach is any good, why would a commercial software vendor not be convinced by the GPL'ed prototype to reach out to Raph to find a licensing deal or commission work from him rather than doing it themselves? > people [...] do not realize how unusable GPL is. The GPL is so unusable that almost every computer or device you touch is full of GPL'ed software.

k__ 8y ago

The author is still able to give out commercial licences to companies, so where is the problem?

GuB-42 8y ago

He considers commercial licensing. GPL is perfect, we get to play around with it and the author may make money from it. And if it doesn't work, the author can still switch to a more permissive license (MIT, BSD,...), the other way around won't work. Also worth noting that it is presumably not patented, so nothing prevent companies from rewriting the algorithm.

espadrine 8y ago

> Many companies […] would avoid GPL just avoid any possible litigation There are so many examples of GPL software being blacklisted by commercial companies and dying out as a result. Linux, Bash, gcc, Blender, Ansible, MySQL, git… It really is quite a graveyard. In all seriousness, the licensing choice seems very reasonable for someone wishing to partner with commercial companies rather than have their work lifted without royalties.

jakobegger 8y ago
There's a difference between using GPL software, and shipping GPL software as part of your product. I use lots of GPL software for building my product (like git), but I can't ship any as a part of it. I presume that code for a curve is meant to be included in a product, rather than being used on its own.
- espadrine 8y ago
  libgit2 is used by GitHub (a Microsoft product); bash is packaged in macOS (an Apple product); MySQL is served in RDS (an Amazon product). Companies find various ways to ship GPL software, depending on the situation. Sometimes it requires discussing it with the authors. Overall, it does ensure greater protection on the authors and on the propagation of the software.
  - jakobegger 8y ago
    libgit2 has a "linking excemption", which is probably the only reason why Github can use it, so that's a bad example, because it isn't really GPL (it's more like LGPL). Shipping bash as a part of macOS is not what I had in mind. (and it's funny, because macOS ships an ancient version of bash, because they don't want to touch GPL3...) As for Amazon RDS, I thought that was SaaS? So they don't "ship" it either... I mean the whole purpose of GPL is to make using it with closed source difficult / impossible. And in practice, apart from the big Open Source projects, GPL is used a lot by people who don't want to give away their code for free, they just want to get people to pay for a commercial license. Which is odd, because it feels like it is totally against the spirit of the free software movement.

ddingus 8y ago

Anyone interested is free to obtain a better license aligned with their needs. Surely the curve function is worth something. Take that something and invest in a non GPL license. GPL = Share and share alike A company using the curve function for profit is not sharing. And that is OK, but they should also be paying for that, due to the fact that they are unwilling to pay by contributing more open code. The open code comes from people who have to eat. It makes perfect sense for closed projects to pay for a suitable license. The author makes mention of all this, indicating commercial license plans. That's exactly as it should be.