6 ms·

Microsoft spent a lot of money and energy in the late 90s and 00s to convince the world - especially business and legal people - that the GPL was a "cancer" Th

Microsoft spent a lot of money and energy in the late 90s and 00s to convince the world - especially business and legal people - that the GPL was a "cancer" The GPL is one of the cleanest licenses out there. Use the code in your project, give the source of your project to anyone you give the binaries to, job done.

Google234 6y ago
Then they can give the source code out to anyone...
- iso1210 6y ago
  And?
tptacek 6y ago
I mean, I agree, but isn't it a moot point? Isn't part of the reason you get all your contributors to sign CLAs so that you can put whatever license on your product you need to close a deal?
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  > Isn't part of the reason you get all your contributors to sign CLAs so that you can put whatever license on your product you need to close a deal? This is true if you use a CLA, but that's going to reduce external contributions. In some cases you may not care about that.
api 6y ago
All we would need to do is rename the GPL to something else. That’s it. It really is that dumb. Just don’t tell anyone it’s a renamed GPL and maybe rearrange some wording. We abandoned GPL for the BSL for this reason. The GPL is in many ways better but there are a ton of companies that won’t touch it or anything that comes near it... though they tend to grandfather in Linux.
- Google234 6y ago
  Smart companies use a whitelist of licenses.
Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
A lot of people wrongly assume that if you license the product under GNU GPL, you must publish source code on the internet. Many active proponents of free (as in freedom) software had very tense quarrells with me when I explained them that it's not exactly mandatory.
- xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
  This is a small point to argue. Even if you choose to distribute your source on-demand by CD in an envelope with postage stamps on it, the next logical step is for a customer to just put that code on github. So, what then is the difference? Putting it on github (or a zip file on your website) is less of a hassle.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
    If the customer paid a really high price for software and source code (like a few million dollars), he might rightfully decide that publishing it and giving it to everyone for free is not in their best interests.
    - Tomte 6y ago
      That used to be the business model of Adacore and the GNAT compiler. Their compiler was technically GPL, but they sold it for thousands of dollars to businesses, with the implied threat that they would let the phone ring for a while when a customer who distributed the sources had a problem. Since their customers are using it for safety- and mission-critical software, noone would ever dare to cross them.
xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
This is a naive view. Most companies try to limit or restrict the scope of what they must open source. With the GPL, depending on the version, how the code interacts with your project (static linking, dynamic linking, IPC, etc.) you may or may not have to release your code under the same license. In particular Google's strong anti-AGPL stance has caused a chilling effect for adoption of AGPL projects at companies, hence why commercial licensing is frequently an option. Finally, you can believe whatever you want, but ultimately it's the lawyers who decide, and your ass (assuming you're an IC) isn't the one on the line when shit hits the fan. Lawyers don't like GPLv3 and they don't like AGPL.
- Google234 6y ago
  The AGPL means that all code that links to it must also be published as AGPL. You don’t have to be Google to recognize how contagious thst could be.
- enriquto 6y ago
  > Lawyers don't like GPLv3 and they don't like AGPL. Whose lawyers? Why would the lawyers at your company object that your choice of license for the free software that you publish is the AGPL or the GPL?
  - nemothekid 6y ago
    This is a post about running an open source company. In other words, you have to worry about your prospective customer's lawyers objecting to your product just because it is in part AGPL. You could just upsell with a different license; but from a business model perspective that makes the distribution channel of open source irrelevant.
    - enriquto 6y ago
      What you are describing sounds more like a problem with sales, or marketing, than with legal. I don't think your legal department would prefer you to use BSD instead of AGPL.
kemitchell 6y ago
> The GPL is one of the cleanest licenses out there. Use the code in your project, give the source of your project to anyone you give the binaries to, job done. I'd encourage you to read the GOLs and some of the legal commentary about them, if you haven't already. "Clean" is a value judgment, but as one who routinely handles both open source and commercial license agreements, I'd never refer to GPL as particularly "clean", and I doubt I have any colleagues who would. The summary you give is not complete, overall. And it omits a lot of details that can prove important.

Google234 6y ago

Then they can give the source code out to anyone...

iso1210 6y ago
And?

tptacek 6y ago

I mean, I agree, but isn't it a moot point? Isn't part of the reason you get all your contributors to sign CLAs so that you can put whatever license on your product you need to close a deal?

JoshTriplett 6y ago
> Isn't part of the reason you get all your contributors to sign CLAs so that you can put whatever license on your product you need to close a deal? This is true if you use a CLA, but that's going to reduce external contributions. In some cases you may not care about that.

api 6y ago

All we would need to do is rename the GPL to something else. That’s it. It really is that dumb. Just don’t tell anyone it’s a renamed GPL and maybe rearrange some wording. We abandoned GPL for the BSL for this reason. The GPL is in many ways better but there are a ton of companies that won’t touch it or anything that comes near it... though they tend to grandfather in Linux.

Google234 6y ago
Smart companies use a whitelist of licenses.

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago

A lot of people wrongly assume that if you license the product under GNU GPL, you must publish source code on the internet. Many active proponents of free (as in freedom) software had very tense quarrells with me when I explained them that it's not exactly mandatory.

xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
This is a small point to argue. Even if you choose to distribute your source on-demand by CD in an envelope with postage stamps on it, the next logical step is for a customer to just put that code on github. So, what then is the difference? Putting it on github (or a zip file on your website) is less of a hassle.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  If the customer paid a really high price for software and source code (like a few million dollars), he might rightfully decide that publishing it and giving it to everyone for free is not in their best interests.
  - Tomte 6y ago
    That used to be the business model of Adacore and the GNAT compiler. Their compiler was technically GPL, but they sold it for thousands of dollars to businesses, with the implied threat that they would let the phone ring for a while when a customer who distributed the sources had a problem. Since their customers are using it for safety- and mission-critical software, noone would ever dare to cross them.

xyzzy_plugh 6y ago

This is a naive view. Most companies try to limit or restrict the scope of what they must open source. With the GPL, depending on the version, how the code interacts with your project (static linking, dynamic linking, IPC, etc.) you may or may not have to release your code under the same license. In particular Google's strong anti-AGPL stance has caused a chilling effect for adoption of AGPL projects at companies, hence why commercial licensing is frequently an option. Finally, you can believe whatever you want, but ultimately it's the lawyers who decide, and your ass (assuming you're an IC) isn't the one on the line when shit hits the fan. Lawyers don't like GPLv3 and they don't like AGPL.

Google234 6y ago
The AGPL means that all code that links to it must also be published as AGPL. You don’t have to be Google to recognize how contagious thst could be.
enriquto 6y ago
> Lawyers don't like GPLv3 and they don't like AGPL. Whose lawyers? Why would the lawyers at your company object that your choice of license for the free software that you publish is the AGPL or the GPL?
- nemothekid 6y ago
  This is a post about running an open source company. In other words, you have to worry about your prospective customer's lawyers objecting to your product just because it is in part AGPL. You could just upsell with a different license; but from a business model perspective that makes the distribution channel of open source irrelevant.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    What you are describing sounds more like a problem with sales, or marketing, than with legal. I don't think your legal department would prefer you to use BSD instead of AGPL.

kemitchell 6y ago

> The GPL is one of the cleanest licenses out there. Use the code in your project, give the source of your project to anyone you give the binaries to, job done. I'd encourage you to read the GOLs and some of the legal commentary about them, if you haven't already. "Clean" is a value judgment, but as one who routinely handles both open source and commercial license agreements, I'd never refer to GPL as particularly "clean", and I doubt I have any colleagues who would. The summary you give is not complete, overall. And it omits a lot of details that can prove important.