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You should finish that thought: and the manufacturers won't invest their money to certify something that's open source and can be used by everyone, including th

You should finish that thought: and the manufacturers won't invest their money to certify something that's open source and can be used by everyone, including their competitors. If there was a will to do something about it, GPL3 wouldn't be in the way.

andrewshadura 6y ago
No, manufacturers want to use free software, but they are forced to avoid GPLv3 for this reason alone. Unfortunately, challenging the status quo is difficult when your customers are not the final users, but other companies: if you don't deliver them a free software firmware without GPLv3 components, someone else will, or someone else will deliver something that's completely proprietary.
- bottled_poe 6y ago
  I think you are both wrong. The purpose of a certification is to mitigate risk. If the licensor of the software has no money, there is no one to sue, and the risk is not mitigated. I’m not advocating this mentality.
- africanboy 6y ago
  > No, manufacturers want to use free software, but they are forced to avoid GPLv3 for this reason alone. good. It means that GPLv3 works as intended. EDIT: as intended by the software authors, that chose freely GPLv3 as license, they were not forced to. I'm quite sure they knew what they were doing. If car manufacturers want to use GPLv3 software, they simply need to respect the license the author released their software under or rewrite the software.
  - andrewshadura 6y ago
    If by that you mean preventing free software from being more widely used, I agree it does. However, I disagree with that aim.
    - africanboy 6y ago
      > If by that you mean preventing free software from being more widely used That's false. It simply prevents the Tivoization. GPLv3 was created exactly with the purpose of preventing free software from becoming a commodity. There's a cost involved when you use free software: - the software must stay free - if you include software licensed under a FOSS license, you have to adhere to the license terms simple as that. If the authors of software X or Y chose the GPLv3 as license I imagine they were completely aware and agreed to the terms of the license they used, including the limitations it enforces.
      - eek04_ 6y ago
        > If the authors of software X or Y chose the GPLv3 as license I imagine they were completely aware and agreed to the terms of the license they used, including the limitations it enforces. That is certainly not universally true. It is common, but not universally true. And we should assume that the authors were NOT aware of real ecosystem implications of licenses - because nobody understands these in detail. I've been trying to understand them since the mid 1990s when I started contributing in a BSD environment, and I won't say that I properly understand them. I understand parts of them, but I don't understand all of them.
    - andrey_utkin 6y ago
      What's the point of wishing for existing FOSS artifacts (supposedly) "being more widely used" if it stops giving the foundational freedoms to the user?
      - shawnz 6y ago
        Because Stallman's specific conception of "foundational freedoms" doesn't actually necessarily align with what gives the best utility for users.
        andrey_utkin 6y ago
        Free and open source software is not all about "best utility for users". It's about freedoms being valued extremely highly; people self-select for being or not being the consumers of it.
- drran 6y ago
  Manufacturers want to use free as beer software, but want to avoid expenses required to upkeep free software, or share these expenses with competitors. As developer of free software, I don't care about those, who don't care about me.
- deknos 6y ago
  > challenging the status quo is difficult and always is. and people like you are part of the problem, since you want to enable them in their ways. Why? why cannot we just enable companies to behave mor ethically?
  - andrewshadura 6y ago
    > Why? why cannot we just enable companies to behave mor ethically? Please read the rest of the sentence, it answers the question. > people like you are part of the problem Thank you for turning the licensing question into ad hominem.
CJefferson 6y ago
No, GPLv3 requires you let users replace the software -- in some cases there are safety checks in the software which could be turned off if the user installed an alternative they built themselves. That isn't allowed -- you fail verification if you give users a documented way to disable required safety features.

andrewshadura 6y ago

No, manufacturers want to use free software, but they are forced to avoid GPLv3 for this reason alone. Unfortunately, challenging the status quo is difficult when your customers are not the final users, but other companies: if you don't deliver them a free software firmware without GPLv3 components, someone else will, or someone else will deliver something that's completely proprietary.

bottled_poe 6y ago
I think you are both wrong. The purpose of a certification is to mitigate risk. If the licensor of the software has no money, there is no one to sue, and the risk is not mitigated. I’m not advocating this mentality.
africanboy 6y ago
> No, manufacturers want to use free software, but they are forced to avoid GPLv3 for this reason alone. good. It means that GPLv3 works as intended. EDIT: as intended by the software authors, that chose freely GPLv3 as license, they were not forced to. I'm quite sure they knew what they were doing. If car manufacturers want to use GPLv3 software, they simply need to respect the license the author released their software under or rewrite the software.
- andrewshadura 6y ago
  If by that you mean preventing free software from being more widely used, I agree it does. However, I disagree with that aim.
  - africanboy 6y ago
    > If by that you mean preventing free software from being more widely used That's false. It simply prevents the Tivoization. GPLv3 was created exactly with the purpose of preventing free software from becoming a commodity. There's a cost involved when you use free software: - the software must stay free - if you include software licensed under a FOSS license, you have to adhere to the license terms simple as that. If the authors of software X or Y chose the GPLv3 as license I imagine they were completely aware and agreed to the terms of the license they used, including the limitations it enforces.
    - eek04_ 6y ago
      > If the authors of software X or Y chose the GPLv3 as license I imagine they were completely aware and agreed to the terms of the license they used, including the limitations it enforces. That is certainly not universally true. It is common, but not universally true. And we should assume that the authors were NOT aware of real ecosystem implications of licenses - because nobody understands these in detail. I've been trying to understand them since the mid 1990s when I started contributing in a BSD environment, and I won't say that I properly understand them. I understand parts of them, but I don't understand all of them.
  - andrey_utkin 6y ago
    What's the point of wishing for existing FOSS artifacts (supposedly) "being more widely used" if it stops giving the foundational freedoms to the user?
    - shawnz 6y ago
      Because Stallman's specific conception of "foundational freedoms" doesn't actually necessarily align with what gives the best utility for users.
      - andrey_utkin 6y ago
        Free and open source software is not all about "best utility for users". It's about freedoms being valued extremely highly; people self-select for being or not being the consumers of it.
drran 6y ago
Manufacturers want to use free as beer software, but want to avoid expenses required to upkeep free software, or share these expenses with competitors. As developer of free software, I don't care about those, who don't care about me.
deknos 6y ago
> challenging the status quo is difficult and always is. and people like you are part of the problem, since you want to enable them in their ways. Why? why cannot we just enable companies to behave mor ethically?
- andrewshadura 6y ago
  > Why? why cannot we just enable companies to behave mor ethically? Please read the rest of the sentence, it answers the question. > people like you are part of the problem Thank you for turning the licensing question into ad hominem.

CJefferson 6y ago

No, GPLv3 requires you let users replace the software -- in some cases there are safety checks in the software which could be turned off if the user installed an alternative they built themselves. That isn't allowed -- you fail verification if you give users a documented way to disable required safety features.