5 ms·

Despite how it sounds, I ask this with zero judgment and pure curiosity. Why do you care?

kungato 6y ago
Well I respect the question of GP if nothing then for principle. People should get their shit together and start respecting the license. The state today is horrendous and the culture is evolving into less and less respect of the license. If people don't follow them personally they wont care to follow them professionally either
timy2shoes 6y ago
Please read https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.htm.... My understanding is that if you do not enforce your copyright (or copyleft in this case) you can lose the copyright.
- 0x44 6y ago
  Whilst you can lose a trademark for not enforcing it, you cannot lose a copyright by not enforcing it (in the United States).
- type0 6y ago
  You are confusing this with trademark, that's completely different thing.
john_alan 6y ago
Cause it’s his special.
mpoteat 6y ago
I can only guess at motivations, but holistically people need to enforce their license terms or they lose their teeth.
mastermojo 6y ago
The author probably cares about either copy-left or the right to tinker. Some people believe it's important and others don't. Basically any derivative product out of GPL3 code needs to either be open-source/copy-left, or if it uses the code as a library needs to let end users substitute that library for their own version.
- jimmaswell 6y ago
  Worse than unimportant, I find copyleft harmful to the developer community as a whole. Software is hardly "free" when you have to bend to the author's demands to license your entire rest of your project under their ideology if you want to use it, and I think we should stop calling it so. Maybe "Conditionally Free Software" instead. You're hardly helping the world releasing libraries in terms that nobody but hobbyists (who are going to rip your code out and replace it if they start making a proprietary product, which is not evil) will find acceptable. It works for the Linux kernel and self-contained applications but that's it.
  - Drakim 6y ago
    Copyleft is about maximizing the users's rights, not the developers's rights. Companies can't take linux, put it on a router for sale, and then say that their customers/users aren't allowed to know what's going on on the box in terms of backdoors and spying. The users have a right to look at the source code if they wish.
    - jimmaswell 6y ago
      Users don't care about any of that, but developers are certainly hindered by restrictive licenses, which in turn hurts users. I never found a right to see source code compelling as a real right. To read the assembly and modify something they bought, sure, but not an entitlement to the source.
      - dahfizz 6y ago
        Nobody is forcing you to use GPL code. It is stinking of entitlement to demand that you get to use other people's code regardless of what they think about it.
ruuda 6y ago
I made my site open source so others who like it can take a look at how it works, or give it their own twist. Visitors of my site can see that they have that freedom, but visitors of an adaptation might not know if it’s not stated anywhere.
- naikrovek 6y ago
  You're not wrong to request attribution. I don't know why you're getting so much flak.
  - square_usual 6y ago
    Lots of people don't like the GPL (I love it myself, for reasons stated in the GP), and seeing it enforced in real time brings that debate up again.

Well I respect the question of GP if nothing then for principle. People should get their shit together and start respecting the license. The state today is horrendous and the culture is evolving into less and less respect of the license. If people don't follow them personally they wont care to follow them professionally either

timy2shoes 6y ago

Please read https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.htm.... My understanding is that if you do not enforce your copyright (or copyleft in this case) you can lose the copyright.

0x44 6y ago
Whilst you can lose a trademark for not enforcing it, you cannot lose a copyright by not enforcing it (in the United States).
type0 6y ago
You are confusing this with trademark, that's completely different thing.

john_alan 6y ago

Cause it’s his special.

mpoteat 6y ago

I can only guess at motivations, but holistically people need to enforce their license terms or they lose their teeth.

mastermojo 6y ago

The author probably cares about either copy-left or the right to tinker. Some people believe it's important and others don't. Basically any derivative product out of GPL3 code needs to either be open-source/copy-left, or if it uses the code as a library needs to let end users substitute that library for their own version.

jimmaswell 6y ago
Worse than unimportant, I find copyleft harmful to the developer community as a whole. Software is hardly "free" when you have to bend to the author's demands to license your entire rest of your project under their ideology if you want to use it, and I think we should stop calling it so. Maybe "Conditionally Free Software" instead. You're hardly helping the world releasing libraries in terms that nobody but hobbyists (who are going to rip your code out and replace it if they start making a proprietary product, which is not evil) will find acceptable. It works for the Linux kernel and self-contained applications but that's it.
- Drakim 6y ago
  Copyleft is about maximizing the users's rights, not the developers's rights. Companies can't take linux, put it on a router for sale, and then say that their customers/users aren't allowed to know what's going on on the box in terms of backdoors and spying. The users have a right to look at the source code if they wish.
  - jimmaswell 6y ago
    Users don't care about any of that, but developers are certainly hindered by restrictive licenses, which in turn hurts users. I never found a right to see source code compelling as a real right. To read the assembly and modify something they bought, sure, but not an entitlement to the source.
    - dahfizz 6y ago
      Nobody is forcing you to use GPL code. It is stinking of entitlement to demand that you get to use other people's code regardless of what they think about it.

ruuda 6y ago

I made my site open source so others who like it can take a look at how it works, or give it their own twist. Visitors of my site can see that they have that freedom, but visitors of an adaptation might not know if it’s not stated anywhere.

naikrovek 6y ago
You're not wrong to request attribution. I don't know why you're getting so much flak.
- square_usual 6y ago
  Lots of people don't like the GPL (I love it myself, for reasons stated in the GP), and seeing it enforced in real time brings that debate up again.