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Absolutely giddy that a multi billion dollar company is profiting massively off of the generosity of an individual without contributing anything back! Edit: An

Absolutely giddy that a multi billion dollar company is profiting massively off of the generosity of an individual without contributing anything back! Edit: And this is somehow controversial! Do tell me more! GPL your shit people.

Helloworldboy 6y ago
Cringe
b20000 6y ago
word
chuckhendo 6y ago
I think the controversy with this comment is that if people want to "GPL their shit," nothing is stopping them. Personally, anything I've open sourced is under MIT, because I don't care if it gets used. And that's my choice
- AWildC182 6y ago
  Interestingly most of the anger was before I added that. I agree it's your choice. I will say, however, that we need to band together as a community. This of course depends on your views on the future of OSS but if you want corporations to also participate and maybe have a chance at a completely open source future, we need to collectively insist on GPL. Doing otherwise minimizes the efforts of those who want more OSS participation from corporations.
  - chuckhendo 6y ago
    One other thing I want to point out - when using OSS at a corporation, I have sometimes contributed back to the project as an individual. Sometimes that's because I've done it after hours, and sometimes it's because contributing back as a "representative" of the company would have required going through red tape
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
When licensing with a permissive license, YOU (as open source developer / contributor) are being generous, you're giving your code away expecting NOTHING in return other than (in most cases) a copy of the license with the finished product. That's open source, the rules or license does not change if it's used by another OS developer, an indie startup, a charity, or a multi billion developer.
- WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
  Looks like for a lot of companies putting in a paragraph of text acknowledging they used the MIT-licensed work is a mission impossible. A short paragraph of text, come on!
- ramshorns 6y ago
  It'd be interesting to see a license that's permissive for non-commercial use and copyleft for commercial use. Or maybe the copyleft kicks in when the commercial derivative work starts earning a certain amount of money. It would be kind of like dual licensing under CC BY-NC and CC BY-SA. I think it would still count as a free and open source software license, and it would allow small and independent developers to use the software without worrying much about the license, while requiring big companies to release the source of the derivative work.
  - VoxPelli 6y ago
    Like the BSL? The Business Source License: https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/ https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Kindof like Qt? They have it set up so you can use it under the LGPL terms, but if you pay them, you can negotiate a proprietary license (for example: if you wanted to statically link[a]). [a]: The LGPL allows proprietary usage, but only when the LGPL library is dynamically linked in. The reason being that if it’s a separate binary file (.so, .dll, etc.), the user can replace it with their own version. If you statically link it (embed it in the program binary), the full GPL kicks in (IIRC).
thrower123 6y ago
You're welcome to GPL your code, if you want to be sure that nobody is ever going to use it.
- hannob 6y ago
  You mean like that guy from Finland that created this Linux thing that nobody ever used?
  - VoxPelli 6y ago
    The one who refuses to move to GPL3?
    - mnd999 6y ago
      My understanding is that even if the man at the top wanted to, Linux is copyright all it's contributors so all would have to agree to a relicense. This would be significantly more effort than it's worth given there is no shortage of contributors happy to use GPLv2.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        It's legally complicated. In the past, Eben Moglen has said that he thought it would probably be possible under some sort of collective work theory. But certainly others disagree and Torvalds was not a particular fan of how GPLv3 skirted close to usage restrictions anyway.
        colejohnson66 6y ago
        There’s also the problem that many of the older contributors probably aren’t reachable at the email address attached to the commit. They may even be dead in which case you’d need to find who the copyright transferred to (next of kin? Did the will give it someplace else?), and get their permission. They certainly could mandate that all new contributions are licensed as GPL2+, not the GPL2-only a lot of it is under. Then, after an eternity, when every bit is now GPL2+ (either by relicensing or rewriting), mandate all new commits are GPL3+. Then the only way to use it would be to rip out the GPL3+ parts (if you want GPL2 terms) or to use the GPL3. Simple! Except not really...
njanirudh 6y ago
Then why the hell call it open source and contribute code to society? Work as a freelancer and ask money for it.
gspr 6y ago
I, too, am a GPL fan. But come on, who are you or I to dictate what the author of a piece of code does? This guy seems genuinely happy that Nintendo used his code. What's the problem?
thehappypm 6y ago
It's controversial because your tone is childish and condescending.

Helloworldboy 6y ago

Cringe

b20000 6y ago

word

chuckhendo 6y ago

I think the controversy with this comment is that if people want to "GPL their shit," nothing is stopping them. Personally, anything I've open sourced is under MIT, because I don't care if it gets used. And that's my choice

AWildC182 6y ago
Interestingly most of the anger was before I added that. I agree it's your choice. I will say, however, that we need to band together as a community. This of course depends on your views on the future of OSS but if you want corporations to also participate and maybe have a chance at a completely open source future, we need to collectively insist on GPL. Doing otherwise minimizes the efforts of those who want more OSS participation from corporations.
- chuckhendo 6y ago
  One other thing I want to point out - when using OSS at a corporation, I have sometimes contributed back to the project as an individual. Sometimes that's because I've done it after hours, and sometimes it's because contributing back as a "representative" of the company would have required going through red tape

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

When licensing with a permissive license, YOU (as open source developer / contributor) are being generous, you're giving your code away expecting NOTHING in return other than (in most cases) a copy of the license with the finished product. That's open source, the rules or license does not change if it's used by another OS developer, an indie startup, a charity, or a multi billion developer.

WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
Looks like for a lot of companies putting in a paragraph of text acknowledging they used the MIT-licensed work is a mission impossible. A short paragraph of text, come on!
ramshorns 6y ago
It'd be interesting to see a license that's permissive for non-commercial use and copyleft for commercial use. Or maybe the copyleft kicks in when the commercial derivative work starts earning a certain amount of money. It would be kind of like dual licensing under CC BY-NC and CC BY-SA. I think it would still count as a free and open source software license, and it would allow small and independent developers to use the software without worrying much about the license, while requiring big companies to release the source of the derivative work.
- VoxPelli 6y ago
  Like the BSL? The Business Source License: https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/ https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Kindof like Qt? They have it set up so you can use it under the LGPL terms, but if you pay them, you can negotiate a proprietary license (for example: if you wanted to statically link[a]). [a]: The LGPL allows proprietary usage, but only when the LGPL library is dynamically linked in. The reason being that if it’s a separate binary file (.so, .dll, etc.), the user can replace it with their own version. If you statically link it (embed it in the program binary), the full GPL kicks in (IIRC).

thrower123 6y ago

You're welcome to GPL your code, if you want to be sure that nobody is ever going to use it.

hannob 6y ago
You mean like that guy from Finland that created this Linux thing that nobody ever used?
- VoxPelli 6y ago
  The one who refuses to move to GPL3?
  - mnd999 6y ago
    My understanding is that even if the man at the top wanted to, Linux is copyright all it's contributors so all would have to agree to a relicense. This would be significantly more effort than it's worth given there is no shortage of contributors happy to use GPLv2.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      It's legally complicated. In the past, Eben Moglen has said that he thought it would probably be possible under some sort of collective work theory. But certainly others disagree and Torvalds was not a particular fan of how GPLv3 skirted close to usage restrictions anyway.
      - colejohnson66 6y ago
        There’s also the problem that many of the older contributors probably aren’t reachable at the email address attached to the commit. They may even be dead in which case you’d need to find who the copyright transferred to (next of kin? Did the will give it someplace else?), and get their permission. They certainly could mandate that all new contributions are licensed as GPL2+, not the GPL2-only a lot of it is under. Then, after an eternity, when every bit is now GPL2+ (either by relicensing or rewriting), mandate all new commits are GPL3+. Then the only way to use it would be to rip out the GPL3+ parts (if you want GPL2 terms) or to use the GPL3. Simple! Except not really...

njanirudh 6y ago

Then why the hell call it open source and contribute code to society? Work as a freelancer and ask money for it.

gspr 6y ago

I, too, am a GPL fan. But come on, who are you or I to dictate what the author of a piece of code does? This guy seems genuinely happy that Nintendo used his code. What's the problem?

thehappypm 6y ago

It's controversial because your tone is childish and condescending.