4 ms·

The idea of GPL is to move towards better software, better rights of users of software and developers of software. So > People are unlikely to take risks if t

by avmich 6y ago

The idea of GPL is to move towards better software, better rights of users of software and developers of software. So > People are unlikely to take risks if there's liability involved. people are free to choose inferior products, ways of development, components and libraries, but that would - probably - make them less competitive, so e.g. their investors may become worried. Not only Linux needs more leverage - it also needs to use it, because otherwise it's a moot point.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Investors are much more likely to worry about IP lawsuits than the nitty-gritty of development libraries and methodology. If people start being sued for using the Linux kernel, your investors are going to expect a pretty solid explanation for why you won't be one of them.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  > If people start being sued for using the Linux kernel, your investors are going to expect a pretty solid explanation for why you won't be one of them. So follow the license? If you built a business on pirating Windows, nobody would be surprised when MS murdered you in court. Why should Linux be any different?
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    It shouldn't be! Linux devs have every right to enforce the license as strongly as they'd like. I'm just saying that it's silly to expect that this won't impact usage, or that investors will insist on Linux because of their deep and principled commitment to good development standards.
    - ramshorns 6y ago
      Is usage the goal? I would think it's better to have, say, 80 devices on the market that use Linux and comply with the GPL and give software freedom to their users, along with 20 devices whose vendors chose to avoid the hassle and used a proprietary or permissively licensed kernel, than to have 100 devices that all use Linux and violate the GPL and give the users no ability to share or modify the software.
  - jariel 6y ago
    Spicy is right though. Whatever the movement is 'trying to do' is not the point so much as 'what will happen' because of the incentives and thinking process (ie risk mitigation) at most companies. Most of these licences are untested in court and that's a very bad thing for everyone. So in a way, a bunch of clear and settled cases would provide the 'best path forward' because then we'd know where the lines are - but - a bunch of 'weird outcomes' that cost other companies bazillions would probably hurt a lot and it will strike fast. You won't be able to get your investment if your flirting with a situation in which some other corp got banged for $2B, even if technically you are in the clear. It's probably a very bad idea to 'sue for money'. The objective of the legal cases should be 'clarity' and the cases should be chosen on that basis if the open source community really wants to thrive.
    - andi999 6y ago
      it is not just that the licences are untested in court in one legal system, dont they need to be tested in all jurisdictions? I mean what jurisdiction applies to the licence? (GPL might not be such a problem, since it is very restrictive, but what about LGPL? I ship a system with my software using an LGPL lib to country A, while I am located in country B and the developers of the lib were from country C,D and E)
      - jariel 6y ago
        To some extent this is true, yes. But legal jurisdictions defer to one another, to the point wherein that is even becoming more formalized, especially for smaller countries [1]. And it's possible that an IP ruling in 'some important place' sets the material precedent anyhow. If the US or EU rules one way, then others will be influenced by that on some level. A lot of this could possibly be more clarified by legislation, but I only think the EU and maybe the UK really have the wherewithal or importance to make an impact. Germany possibly but I see them wanting to do that at the EU level. I don't see anything on the horizon for the US. I would definitely double down on my heretofore down-voted statement: if you care about open source, you really, really want to have 'good, clean cases' pushed through and tested in the courts. If Open Source proponents leave it to the wind, patent trolls, or big corps - you may see 'bad cases' go through the system and set really bad precedent that hinges on weird corners cases. Do not underestimate how much of a big deal this is. IP is a discussion at every point along the way when contemplating investing in independent or internal projects and 'ambiguity' is a huge factor in risk aversion. All of these IP licences are just 'ideas' waiting to be 'more or less law' when they face legal scrutiny, so if I were the 'God of Open Source' I'd be looking to find cases to build a favourable pipeline to the Supreme Court. Major rulings will have a beneficial impact for everyone. [1] https://www.loc.gov/law/help/domestic-judgment/canada.php https://www.loc.gov/law/help/domestic-judgment/canada.php
sgift 6y ago
> The idea of GPL is to move towards better software, better rights of users of software and developers of software. Maybe that's the idea of GPL, but certainly not the reality. As long as it more enforcement won't help. But I'm still all for it. Makes sure companies fund better software with better licenses and the GPL ends in the garbage bin of history where it belongs.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  > Maybe that's the idea of GPL, but certainly not the reality. Disagree. It's worked great for the Linux kernel.
  - hda2 6y ago
    Not only did it work well for the linux kernel, but it also worked well for the gcc, blender, gimp, inkscape, vlc, and so many more. The GPL works.
    - matheusmoreira 6y ago
      Do you have concrete examples of how the GPL directly benefited the projects you mentioned? > gcc GCC is a very high quality free software compiler but there were occasions where it let free software ideology get in the way of technical excellence. Fearing proprietary extensions, they actively opposed a plugin system and stable intermediate representation. This led to the creation of LLVM.
      - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
        > concrete examples of how the GPL directly benefited the projects you mentioned? The GPL is the reason for many source-code contributions. Compare this to the way Sony use FreeBSD to power their PS3 and PS4 consoles and contribute little back to the FreeBSD project. There are other reasons companies may contribute changes, including that it spares them the trouble of rebasing their fork, and it may earn them goodwill, but copyleft is a strong reason too. A good concrete example really is that of compilers. Apple used to begrudgingly contribute code to GCC, as the GPL required them to. LLVM has no such requirement, so we see proprietary forks crop up. [0] If I were to contribute to a project like GCC or LLVM, I'd rather my work didn't end up in some non-Free fork. That Apple later invested in LLVM turned out to be pretty great for everyone. GCC is still doing fine, and we have another industry-strength Free Software compiler suite. I'd rather Apple didn't use a proprietary fork for their own secret-sauce, but I can't be too grumpy given how well LLVM/Clang has done. > there were occasions where it let free software ideology get in the way of technical excellence It's an FSF project, so this criticism doesn't really land. FSF projects are not aiming for technical excellence at any cost. It's a bit like saying Free-range ideology gets in the way of my food budgeting. I don't know much about the specifics of GCC here. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Optimizing_C/C%2B%2B_Compiler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Optimizing_C/C%2B%2B_Compi...

by avmich 6y ago

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

Investors are much more likely to worry about IP lawsuits than the nitty-gritty of development libraries and methodology. If people start being sued for using the Linux kernel, your investors are going to expect a pretty solid explanation for why you won't be one of them.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
> If people start being sued for using the Linux kernel, your investors are going to expect a pretty solid explanation for why you won't be one of them. So follow the license? If you built a business on pirating Windows, nobody would be surprised when MS murdered you in court. Why should Linux be any different?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  It shouldn't be! Linux devs have every right to enforce the license as strongly as they'd like. I'm just saying that it's silly to expect that this won't impact usage, or that investors will insist on Linux because of their deep and principled commitment to good development standards.
  - ramshorns 6y ago
    Is usage the goal? I would think it's better to have, say, 80 devices on the market that use Linux and comply with the GPL and give software freedom to their users, along with 20 devices whose vendors chose to avoid the hassle and used a proprietary or permissively licensed kernel, than to have 100 devices that all use Linux and violate the GPL and give the users no ability to share or modify the software.
- jariel 6y ago
  Spicy is right though. Whatever the movement is 'trying to do' is not the point so much as 'what will happen' because of the incentives and thinking process (ie risk mitigation) at most companies. Most of these licences are untested in court and that's a very bad thing for everyone. So in a way, a bunch of clear and settled cases would provide the 'best path forward' because then we'd know where the lines are - but - a bunch of 'weird outcomes' that cost other companies bazillions would probably hurt a lot and it will strike fast. You won't be able to get your investment if your flirting with a situation in which some other corp got banged for $2B, even if technically you are in the clear. It's probably a very bad idea to 'sue for money'. The objective of the legal cases should be 'clarity' and the cases should be chosen on that basis if the open source community really wants to thrive.
  - andi999 6y ago
    it is not just that the licences are untested in court in one legal system, dont they need to be tested in all jurisdictions? I mean what jurisdiction applies to the licence? (GPL might not be such a problem, since it is very restrictive, but what about LGPL? I ship a system with my software using an LGPL lib to country A, while I am located in country B and the developers of the lib were from country C,D and E)
    - jariel 6y ago
      To some extent this is true, yes. But legal jurisdictions defer to one another, to the point wherein that is even becoming more formalized, especially for smaller countries [1]. And it's possible that an IP ruling in 'some important place' sets the material precedent anyhow. If the US or EU rules one way, then others will be influenced by that on some level. A lot of this could possibly be more clarified by legislation, but I only think the EU and maybe the UK really have the wherewithal or importance to make an impact. Germany possibly but I see them wanting to do that at the EU level. I don't see anything on the horizon for the US. I would definitely double down on my heretofore down-voted statement: if you care about open source, you really, really want to have 'good, clean cases' pushed through and tested in the courts. If Open Source proponents leave it to the wind, patent trolls, or big corps - you may see 'bad cases' go through the system and set really bad precedent that hinges on weird corners cases. Do not underestimate how much of a big deal this is. IP is a discussion at every point along the way when contemplating investing in independent or internal projects and 'ambiguity' is a huge factor in risk aversion. All of these IP licences are just 'ideas' waiting to be 'more or less law' when they face legal scrutiny, so if I were the 'God of Open Source' I'd be looking to find cases to build a favourable pipeline to the Supreme Court. Major rulings will have a beneficial impact for everyone. [1] https://www.loc.gov/law/help/domestic-judgment/canada.php https://www.loc.gov/law/help/domestic-judgment/canada.php

sgift 6y ago

> The idea of GPL is to move towards better software, better rights of users of software and developers of software. Maybe that's the idea of GPL, but certainly not the reality. As long as it more enforcement won't help. But I'm still all for it. Makes sure companies fund better software with better licenses and the GPL ends in the garbage bin of history where it belongs.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
> Maybe that's the idea of GPL, but certainly not the reality. Disagree. It's worked great for the Linux kernel.
- hda2 6y ago
  Not only did it work well for the linux kernel, but it also worked well for the gcc, blender, gimp, inkscape, vlc, and so many more. The GPL works.
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    Do you have concrete examples of how the GPL directly benefited the projects you mentioned? > gcc GCC is a very high quality free software compiler but there were occasions where it let free software ideology get in the way of technical excellence. Fearing proprietary extensions, they actively opposed a plugin system and stable intermediate representation. This led to the creation of LLVM.
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      > concrete examples of how the GPL directly benefited the projects you mentioned? The GPL is the reason for many source-code contributions. Compare this to the way Sony use FreeBSD to power their PS3 and PS4 consoles and contribute little back to the FreeBSD project. There are other reasons companies may contribute changes, including that it spares them the trouble of rebasing their fork, and it may earn them goodwill, but copyleft is a strong reason too. A good concrete example really is that of compilers. Apple used to begrudgingly contribute code to GCC, as the GPL required them to. LLVM has no such requirement, so we see proprietary forks crop up. [0] If I were to contribute to a project like GCC or LLVM, I'd rather my work didn't end up in some non-Free fork. That Apple later invested in LLVM turned out to be pretty great for everyone. GCC is still doing fine, and we have another industry-strength Free Software compiler suite. I'd rather Apple didn't use a proprietary fork for their own secret-sauce, but I can't be too grumpy given how well LLVM/Clang has done. > there were occasions where it let free software ideology get in the way of technical excellence It's an FSF project, so this criticism doesn't really land. FSF projects are not aiming for technical excellence at any cost. It's a bit like saying Free-range ideology gets in the way of my food budgeting. I don't know much about the specifics of GCC here. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Optimizing_C/C%2B%2B_Compiler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Optimizing_C/C%2B%2B_Compi...