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Correct me if I'm misinformed, but I don't see your point? The original author of code is always free to stop publishing their software as FOSS, regardless of w

Correct me if I'm misinformed, but I don't see your point? The original author of code is always free to stop publishing their software as FOSS, regardless of which license they use, as long as they don't try and stop the re-distribution and forking of existing FOSS releases?

kibwen 7y ago
I think copyright makes it more complicated than that. If more than one person has ever contributed to the codebase (and if there's not some explicit copyright assignment), then under copyleft licenses no one person would be allowed to distribute anything containing anyone else's copyrighted code without also making the source available. (Perhaps technically it is the case that that's not "allowed" even in the case of a single copyright owner, but then you'd only have to worry about being sued by yourself?)
Danieru 7y ago
In this case the original author was an employee of Google and is not the current maintainer. Google then released their implementation under the BSD. It was forked and worked on, and eventually it now comes to the maintainer. Had GPL been used at any point the current maintainer would not own full copyright and thus not have legal grounds to distribute binaries without source. Original authors can only unilaterally change licenses if they were the sole authors, or with agreement of all other authors. Or with copyright assignment contracts as you see in GNU projects. My comment is also not about the maintainer. My comment is about how BSD as a license is often framed as an equivalent choice to GPL or other copyleft licenses. Years ago this was a topic hackers cared a lot about. Not so much anymore I imagine, but there was indeed a time when hackers cared if their software was open source/copyleft or BSD. Most of the online chatter was hypothetical, today it is practical.
- mtrower 7y ago
  > My comment is also not about the maintainer. My comment is about how BSD as a license is often framed as an equivalent choice to GPL or other copyleft licenses. Are they really? But they're clearly not the same. Both are "open" licenses, but one is permissive, and the other is strong copyleft. The intentions behind them are quite different, and I don't see how anyone could read them and not understand this. Still, I don't appreciate the aspersions I see being cast in this thread towards application of the BSD license. When I release OSS, I prefer to do so under MIT license - because I just want to put it out there for people to use, should it prove useful to them. I don't expect anything in return for it, nor do I wish to place restrictions on its use. Why should I be crucified for selecting a license that accurately reflects my intentions?
IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
The current maintainer is not the original author of osxfuse/macfuse/whatever, Google is.

kibwen 7y ago

I think copyright makes it more complicated than that. If more than one person has ever contributed to the codebase (and if there's not some explicit copyright assignment), then under copyleft licenses no one person would be allowed to distribute anything containing anyone else's copyrighted code without also making the source available. (Perhaps technically it is the case that that's not "allowed" even in the case of a single copyright owner, but then you'd only have to worry about being sued by yourself?)

Danieru 7y ago

In this case the original author was an employee of Google and is not the current maintainer. Google then released their implementation under the BSD. It was forked and worked on, and eventually it now comes to the maintainer. Had GPL been used at any point the current maintainer would not own full copyright and thus not have legal grounds to distribute binaries without source. Original authors can only unilaterally change licenses if they were the sole authors, or with agreement of all other authors. Or with copyright assignment contracts as you see in GNU projects. My comment is also not about the maintainer. My comment is about how BSD as a license is often framed as an equivalent choice to GPL or other copyleft licenses. Years ago this was a topic hackers cared a lot about. Not so much anymore I imagine, but there was indeed a time when hackers cared if their software was open source/copyleft or BSD. Most of the online chatter was hypothetical, today it is practical.

mtrower 7y ago
> My comment is also not about the maintainer. My comment is about how BSD as a license is often framed as an equivalent choice to GPL or other copyleft licenses. Are they really? But they're clearly not the same. Both are "open" licenses, but one is permissive, and the other is strong copyleft. The intentions behind them are quite different, and I don't see how anyone could read them and not understand this. Still, I don't appreciate the aspersions I see being cast in this thread towards application of the BSD license. When I release OSS, I prefer to do so under MIT license - because I just want to put it out there for people to use, should it prove useful to them. I don't expect anything in return for it, nor do I wish to place restrictions on its use. Why should I be crucified for selecting a license that accurately reflects my intentions?

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago

The current maintainer is not the original author of osxfuse/macfuse/whatever, Google is.