8 ms·

I don’t understand what this has to do with portability.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cercatrova 6y ago
People don't want to share the freedoms they got with their users. That's it. There's no reason commercial software can't be under GPL style licenses.
- whateveracct 6y ago
  If I'm releasing an indie video game in Haskell, I'm not going to GPL it..
  - cercatrova 6y ago
    Why not? I mean out of all the commercial projects that could be open sourced, games are actually great to have under GPL, because the assets (art, animations, etc) are are still under copyright but the code and logic isn't, which isn't as important to a game as to, say, enterprise CRUD software. Plus with open source game code, modders could make much out of your game.
    - dash2 6y ago
      So why do absolutely no game companies do this?
      - kuschku 6y ago
        Some actually did, back in the day of point and click adventures. But nowadays games obfuscate everything as much as they can for DRM and anticheat purposes. If you consider your own customers your enemies, of course you wouldn't open anything to them
      - mhitza 6y ago
        id used to GPL license their engines, but then Carmack left and they stopped open sourcing them.
    - Tuna-Fish 6y ago
      Because the requirement to make replacing the LGPL code possible means that there is no possible way of preventing cheaters in online play. Because like everyone else, I am using 20 different pieces of proprietary middleware which have licenses that are incompatible with GPL. (Not just that I can't GPL them, but which cannot be shipped as part of a distribution where some of the code is GPL.)
      - monocasa 6y ago
        Anyone that can recompile the code can also easily figure out a patch for client side. There are easy to use tools that assist with this.
      - josephcsible 6y ago
        If your attempts to prevent cheating rely on a "trusted" client, you're going to have cheaters whether or not your code is LGPL. The only right way to stop cheaters is to run game logic on the server.
        singron 6y ago
        It's non trivial. A lot of games require trusted clients because of client side latency compensation. Also any game that requires mechanical skill (e.g. aim in an fps or actions per minute in rts) is susceptible to cheating even if all logic is serverside. Of course trusted clients are problematic, but there is no simple solution.
        josephcsible 6y ago
        But just not releasing the source code doesn't even stop those kinds of cheats. Even games that make you install a privacy-invading kernel driver to play still get cheaters.
        saurik 6y ago
        Yeah. Realistically, this is like trying to reprogram your opponents brain to prevent them from cheating at basketball... even if you make it work, it is morally untenable: you need a referee.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  Let us not act as if the LGPL be the only free software licence that exists. Even among free software advocates there are problems and they might favor another free software licence, even another copyleft licence, and that can't be done in this case. There is a reason that many large projects in fact craft their own licence rather than relying upon another template, as they do not meet their needs.
  - josephcsible 6y ago
    Aren't GPL-incompatible licenses generally considered poor choices even if they're FOSS, since they lead to the ZFS-on-Linux problem? (And trying to sidestep the issue with permissive licenses just leads to proprietary forks.)
    - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
      That is a general issue with strong copyleft licences and not a GPL specific one. Strong copyleft licences are generally not compatible with each other; GPLv2 is not even compatible with ̀GPLv3.
    - yakubin 6y ago
      GPL is what leads to the ZFS-on-Linux problem. The clause, that prohibits ZFS from being combined with GPL, is in GPL.
      - saurik 6y ago
        I mean, that's a nice story, but causality doesn't work like that... this is like a bully claiming someone "ran into their fist" :/. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/ > We believe Sun was aware when drafting CDDLv1 of the incompatibilities; in fact, our research into its history indicates the GPLv2-incompatibility was Sun's design choice. At the time, Sun's apparent goal was to draw developers away from GNU and Linux development into Solaris. Not only did Sun not want code from GNU and Linux in Solaris, more importantly, Sun did not want technological advantages from Solaris' kernel to appear in Linux. Given Sun's goal, no matter what GPL said, I am sure that they would have figured out a cute way to engineer their license to be incompatible.
- garmaine 6y ago
  I mean I agree with you, but what does that have to do with portability? I don’t see how this affects which computer architectures and OS environments a project can be compiled for.
  - whateveracct 6y ago
    I agree portability isn't the right word here. But dealing with libgmp's license was a pain in the ass for commercial development - theoretical possibility of doing commercial FOSS notwithstanding.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

People don't want to share the freedoms they got with their users. That's it. There's no reason commercial software can't be under GPL style licenses.

whateveracct 6y ago
If I'm releasing an indie video game in Haskell, I'm not going to GPL it..
- cercatrova 6y ago
  Why not? I mean out of all the commercial projects that could be open sourced, games are actually great to have under GPL, because the assets (art, animations, etc) are are still under copyright but the code and logic isn't, which isn't as important to a game as to, say, enterprise CRUD software. Plus with open source game code, modders could make much out of your game.
  - dash2 6y ago
    So why do absolutely no game companies do this?
    - kuschku 6y ago
      Some actually did, back in the day of point and click adventures. But nowadays games obfuscate everything as much as they can for DRM and anticheat purposes. If you consider your own customers your enemies, of course you wouldn't open anything to them
    - mhitza 6y ago
      id used to GPL license their engines, but then Carmack left and they stopped open sourcing them.
  - Tuna-Fish 6y ago
    Because the requirement to make replacing the LGPL code possible means that there is no possible way of preventing cheaters in online play. Because like everyone else, I am using 20 different pieces of proprietary middleware which have licenses that are incompatible with GPL. (Not just that I can't GPL them, but which cannot be shipped as part of a distribution where some of the code is GPL.)
    - monocasa 6y ago
      Anyone that can recompile the code can also easily figure out a patch for client side. There are easy to use tools that assist with this.
    - josephcsible 6y ago
      If your attempts to prevent cheating rely on a "trusted" client, you're going to have cheaters whether or not your code is LGPL. The only right way to stop cheaters is to run game logic on the server.
      - singron 6y ago
        It's non trivial. A lot of games require trusted clients because of client side latency compensation. Also any game that requires mechanical skill (e.g. aim in an fps or actions per minute in rts) is susceptible to cheating even if all logic is serverside. Of course trusted clients are problematic, but there is no simple solution.
        josephcsible 6y ago
        But just not releasing the source code doesn't even stop those kinds of cheats. Even games that make you install a privacy-invading kernel driver to play still get cheaters.
        saurik 6y ago
        Yeah. Realistically, this is like trying to reprogram your opponents brain to prevent them from cheating at basketball... even if you make it work, it is morally untenable: you need a referee.
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
Let us not act as if the LGPL be the only free software licence that exists. Even among free software advocates there are problems and they might favor another free software licence, even another copyleft licence, and that can't be done in this case. There is a reason that many large projects in fact craft their own licence rather than relying upon another template, as they do not meet their needs.
- josephcsible 6y ago
  Aren't GPL-incompatible licenses generally considered poor choices even if they're FOSS, since they lead to the ZFS-on-Linux problem? (And trying to sidestep the issue with permissive licenses just leads to proprietary forks.)
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    That is a general issue with strong copyleft licences and not a GPL specific one. Strong copyleft licences are generally not compatible with each other; GPLv2 is not even compatible with ̀GPLv3.
  - yakubin 6y ago
    GPL is what leads to the ZFS-on-Linux problem. The clause, that prohibits ZFS from being combined with GPL, is in GPL.
    - saurik 6y ago
      I mean, that's a nice story, but causality doesn't work like that... this is like a bully claiming someone "ran into their fist" :/. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/ > We believe Sun was aware when drafting CDDLv1 of the incompatibilities; in fact, our research into its history indicates the GPLv2-incompatibility was Sun's design choice. At the time, Sun's apparent goal was to draw developers away from GNU and Linux development into Solaris. Not only did Sun not want code from GNU and Linux in Solaris, more importantly, Sun did not want technological advantages from Solaris' kernel to appear in Linux. Given Sun's goal, no matter what GPL said, I am sure that they would have figured out a cute way to engineer their license to be incompatible.
garmaine 6y ago
I mean I agree with you, but what does that have to do with portability? I don’t see how this affects which computer architectures and OS environments a project can be compiled for.
- whateveracct 6y ago
  I agree portability isn't the right word here. But dealing with libgmp's license was a pain in the ass for commercial development - theoretical possibility of doing commercial FOSS notwithstanding.