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I care about open source, but I also think these litigations might be harmful, I mean if the software is the product companies cannot publish the source. What p

I care about open source, but I also think these litigations might be harmful, I mean if the software is the product companies cannot publish the source. What probably works (and the GPL is good for) is dual licensing, one free GPL version and one paid version. If you do not want to do this, then maybe some clearly permissive license like MIT or putting it into public domain might be a good alternative.

jariel 6y ago
I don't think you're understanding my point. The 'licenses' which you are describing may be worthless, in that they have no actual meaning. Some more so than others. Someone could sue over GPL tommorow, goes to the Supreme Court, and the GPL is invalidated and ruled invalid. Then what? The entire software industry turns upside down. So when the 'licence has little meaning' and it can be overruled in a court ... then companies are very scared of that and act accordingly - with risk aversion. In other words the 'GPL' is not 'the GPL'. It's just 'maybe the GPL'. And that is a huge maybe if you're betting the company on it. To make the 'GPL' actually the 'GPL' and to validate the strategy articulated in your comment - you need to either have 1) laws passed in support of this stuff or 2) have major courts rule on it. The contracts seem reasonable, it would be nice to have them validated in court. Copyright, a similar issue, is being tested right now in Oracle v. Google and it's going to have a big impact. To give you some small hint at how big this issue is: Android is switching from Java to Kotlin over this. Literally the #1 most popular OS in the world has to fundamentally shift gears due to IP litigation risks. If the laws were clear then either a) Android would have never used Java to begin with or b) Android would have no problem using Java. Instead, we're in limbo. Which is why clear contract laws are good for everyone.

jariel 6y ago

I don't think you're understanding my point. The 'licenses' which you are describing may be worthless, in that they have no actual meaning. Some more so than others. Someone could sue over GPL tommorow, goes to the Supreme Court, and the GPL is invalidated and ruled invalid. Then what? The entire software industry turns upside down. So when the 'licence has little meaning' and it can be overruled in a court ... then companies are very scared of that and act accordingly - with risk aversion. In other words the 'GPL' is not 'the GPL'. It's just 'maybe the GPL'. And that is a huge maybe if you're betting the company on it. To make the 'GPL' actually the 'GPL' and to validate the strategy articulated in your comment - you need to either have 1) laws passed in support of this stuff or 2) have major courts rule on it. The contracts seem reasonable, it would be nice to have them validated in court. Copyright, a similar issue, is being tested right now in Oracle v. Google and it's going to have a big impact. To give you some small hint at how big this issue is: Android is switching from Java to Kotlin over this. Literally the #1 most popular OS in the world has to fundamentally shift gears due to IP litigation risks. If the laws were clear then either a) Android would have never used Java to begin with or b) Android would have no problem using Java. Instead, we're in limbo. Which is why clear contract laws are good for everyone.