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BSD and MIT gives you the freedom to take away other people's freedoms using the code. This sort of doctrinaire newspeak is what gives GPL advocates the appear

BSD and MIT gives you the freedom to take away other people's freedoms using the code. This sort of doctrinaire newspeak is what gives GPL advocates the appearance of a cult. Developers who incorporate some open source code in their app and don't release it aren't taking away anyone's freedoms.

oditogre 18y ago
Exactly. The way I see it, you can think of a piece of code sort of like chain links. GPL code looks like this: http://ace.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pACE2-988564dt.jpg http://ace.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pACE2-988564dt... AND it requires that ever piece 'below' it on the chain also look like that. Open source, BSD-licensed code also looks like that, but allows later links to be closed as well. The upside to GPL is that any link N has the same rights to use and modify N-1 as 2 had on 1, with the downside being that N has limited rights on itself. BSD grants maximum control to each link, with the downside being that any given link may choose not to allow any links to be added below it.
andreyf 18y ago
This sort of doctrinaire newspeak is what gives GPL advocates the appearance of a cult. Let's not throw around names... it's not out of comprehension to think of knowing what your computer is running as a fundamental right. Developers who incorporate some open source code in their app and don't release it aren't taking away anyone's freedoms. That's precisely it. I'm not asking you to agree with the FSF view, but to understand it. In the view of the GPL, distributing proprietary software is absolutely taking away people's rights of knowing what's running on their machine, modifying what they're running, etc. Fundamental rights aren't always obvious, and whether or not this view will catch on is not something I pretend to know. I think this will be an open question for dozens, if not hundreds of years to come.

oditogre 18y ago

Exactly. The way I see it, you can think of a piece of code sort of like chain links. GPL code looks like this: http://ace.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pACE2-988564dt.jpg http://ace.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pACE2-988564dt... AND it requires that ever piece 'below' it on the chain also look like that. Open source, BSD-licensed code also looks like that, but allows later links to be closed as well. The upside to GPL is that any link N has the same rights to use and modify N-1 as 2 had on 1, with the downside being that N has limited rights on itself. BSD grants maximum control to each link, with the downside being that any given link may choose not to allow any links to be added below it.

andreyf 18y ago

This sort of doctrinaire newspeak is what gives GPL advocates the appearance of a cult. Let's not throw around names... it's not out of comprehension to think of knowing what your computer is running as a fundamental right. Developers who incorporate some open source code in their app and don't release it aren't taking away anyone's freedoms. That's precisely it. I'm not asking you to agree with the FSF view, but to understand it. In the view of the GPL, distributing proprietary software is absolutely taking away people's rights of knowing what's running on their machine, modifying what they're running, etc. Fundamental rights aren't always obvious, and whether or not this view will catch on is not something I pretend to know. I think this will be an open question for dozens, if not hundreds of years to come.