4 ms·

> You are copying someone else's work without complying with their license. That act, not the fact that it is GPL Right, so the correct conclusion is to never

by rmtech 7y ago

> You are copying someone else's work without complying with their license. That act, not the fact that it is GPL Right, so the correct conclusion is to never use, never contribute to and never write GPL-licensed software. Then you comply 100% with GPL, you have no legal risk and you also have money to pay for your Gatorade. In fact the best solution would just be to completely rid ourselves of GPL?

UncleEntity 7y ago
Your issue seems to be with copyright itself and not with the GPL. If you copy anyone's work you need permission because copyright is automatically assigned and without it you are violating the law.
- rmtech 7y ago
  > Your issue seems to be with copyright itself and not with the GPL. Copyrighted code is fairly simple to understand - you make something, you own it. Alice makes something, Alice owns it. I don't really have a problem with this kind of code existing, and I think that we have very clearly seen that open source with a permissive license is capable of "beating" secret or copyrighted code.
mcsofake 7y ago
> Right, so the correct conclusion is to never use It depends on how you "use" GPL'd software. You _can_ run proprietary software on Linux. Clearly, using GPL'd and proprietary software together is legally possible. > never contribute to If simply contributing to projects licensed under GPL were such a huge problem, we would have industry-wide blacklists for employment. Contributing to _some_ projects can be a problem for _some_ positions but generally you are in the clear. > never write GPL-licensed software You, as the author, have the right to relicense code you have written yourself. GPL'ing your own code doesn't increase your legal risks. So no, the correct conclusion is not "to never use, never contribute to and never write GPL-licensed software" and the best solution is not to "completely rid ourselves of GPL". I'm not even sure what the problem you are trying to solve is. People can and do profit off GPL'd code. It is not an instant death sentence like you seem to imply.
- rmtech 7y ago
  > People can and do profit off GPL'd code how?
mcguire 7y ago
The correct conclusion is that you must never use or look at software that you yourself didn't write. Of course, then there's patents. You might want to avoid having any ideas at all.
- rmtech 7y ago
  No you can use software with an MIT license etc. Because that doesn't cause problems.

by rmtech 7y ago

UncleEntity 7y ago

Your issue seems to be with copyright itself and not with the GPL. If you copy anyone's work you need permission because copyright is automatically assigned and without it you are violating the law.

rmtech 7y ago
> Your issue seems to be with copyright itself and not with the GPL. Copyrighted code is fairly simple to understand - you make something, you own it. Alice makes something, Alice owns it. I don't really have a problem with this kind of code existing, and I think that we have very clearly seen that open source with a permissive license is capable of "beating" secret or copyrighted code.

mcsofake 7y ago

> Right, so the correct conclusion is to never use It depends on how you "use" GPL'd software. You _can_ run proprietary software on Linux. Clearly, using GPL'd and proprietary software together is legally possible. > never contribute to If simply contributing to projects licensed under GPL were such a huge problem, we would have industry-wide blacklists for employment. Contributing to _some_ projects can be a problem for _some_ positions but generally you are in the clear. > never write GPL-licensed software You, as the author, have the right to relicense code you have written yourself. GPL'ing your own code doesn't increase your legal risks. So no, the correct conclusion is not "to never use, never contribute to and never write GPL-licensed software" and the best solution is not to "completely rid ourselves of GPL". I'm not even sure what the problem you are trying to solve is. People can and do profit off GPL'd code. It is not an instant death sentence like you seem to imply.

rmtech 7y ago
> People can and do profit off GPL'd code how?

mcguire 7y ago

The correct conclusion is that you must never use or look at software that you yourself didn't write. Of course, then there's patents. You might want to avoid having any ideas at all.

rmtech 7y ago
No you can use software with an MIT license etc. Because that doesn't cause problems.