4 ms·

Everyone thinks they're cool and everything for not using the GPL and related licenses, until Amazon (or another big player) comes and eats their lunch by offer

by znpy 5y ago

Everyone thinks they're cool and everything for not using the GPL and related licenses, until Amazon (or another big player) comes and eats their lunch by offering a cloud-based version of your software (like elastic/elasticsearch)

zinekeller 5y ago
Except that for some, they really meant it when they licensed their work permissively. (Also your point is a bit flawed, only AGPL really saves you from the Amazon situation.)
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  > (Also your point is a bit flawed, only AGPL really saves you from the Amazon situation.) I wouldn't be so sure, for this kind of tooling it's not like the software is exposed behind some API of some sort. When Amazon is renting you a virtual machine with those installed on top, are they distributing the software? It's not clear cut at all.
  - detaro 5y ago
    when they rent you a VM with GPL tools on top, they don't mind you having the source of the GPL tools.
CyberRabbi 5y ago
The GPL doesn’t go far enough. Now corporations like GitHub are using ML to launder their usage of GPL licensed code without having to conform to the license. https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 Any hobbiest who writes free software for the community’s benefit is doing the same community a disservice when they allow private corporations to profit from the community’s work without recompense or sharing their work back to the community. The corporations also get to use the community’s work to redirect effort away from the community to their own product and platform.
- _d7dt 5y ago
  >when they allow private corporations to profit from the community’s work without recompense back to the community. I'm not sure why this is frequently brought up in the context of the GPL. The GPL says nothing about that and has never held that as a concern at all. Communities who were using GPL with that intent have seemingly always been mistaken. From the text of the GPL: "the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program." It doesn't say anything about disallowing private corporations from profiting without recompense. If you want to force companies to pay you, you're better off with a closed source license.
  - CyberRabbi 5y ago
    The spirit of the GPL is to create and maintain a thriving community around free software. Profit or not, when private entities are allowed to use free software without adhering to the tenets of the GPL, it is destructive to the free software community.
    - zxzax 5y ago
      According to the actual text of the GPL, that is not the spirit of it at all. Sorry to disappoint but this is a common misconception that I see. The word "community" appears zero times in the GPL. The community aspect might be a side effect that happens in some cases with it, but trying to use a license of some kind of panacea to maintain a community doesn't make any sense. That's not how communities work. It's the people who maintain your community, not the license. Edit: The lack of enforcement of GPL is a different story, but you can trace that directly back to the very same community, including the FSF, who seem to have decided years ago that enforcing the GPL is not worth it anymore for some reason.
      - CyberRabbi 5y ago
        Have you read Stallman’s essays on the topic? If you’re interested in this stuff, he goes very in depth on the goals of the free software movement: https://www.gnu.org/doc/fsfs3-hardcover.pdf https://www.gnu.org/doc/fsfs3-hardcover.pdf The GPL was created explicitly to advance those goals. From Wikipedia’s summary of the essays: The author proposes Free software licenses (mostly GPL) as a solution to social issues created by proprietary software and described in essays. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software,_Free_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software,_Free_Society
goodpoint 5y ago
Why the downvotes? This is spot on.

by znpy 5y ago

zinekeller 5y ago

Except that for some, they really meant it when they licensed their work permissively. (Also your point is a bit flawed, only AGPL really saves you from the Amazon situation.)

littlestymaar 5y ago
> (Also your point is a bit flawed, only AGPL really saves you from the Amazon situation.) I wouldn't be so sure, for this kind of tooling it's not like the software is exposed behind some API of some sort. When Amazon is renting you a virtual machine with those installed on top, are they distributing the software? It's not clear cut at all.
- detaro 5y ago
  when they rent you a VM with GPL tools on top, they don't mind you having the source of the GPL tools.

CyberRabbi 5y ago

The GPL doesn’t go far enough. Now corporations like GitHub are using ML to launder their usage of GPL licensed code without having to conform to the license. https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 Any hobbiest who writes free software for the community’s benefit is doing the same community a disservice when they allow private corporations to profit from the community’s work without recompense or sharing their work back to the community. The corporations also get to use the community’s work to redirect effort away from the community to their own product and platform.

_d7dt 5y ago
>when they allow private corporations to profit from the community’s work without recompense back to the community. I'm not sure why this is frequently brought up in the context of the GPL. The GPL says nothing about that and has never held that as a concern at all. Communities who were using GPL with that intent have seemingly always been mistaken. From the text of the GPL: "the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program." It doesn't say anything about disallowing private corporations from profiting without recompense. If you want to force companies to pay you, you're better off with a closed source license.
- CyberRabbi 5y ago
  The spirit of the GPL is to create and maintain a thriving community around free software. Profit or not, when private entities are allowed to use free software without adhering to the tenets of the GPL, it is destructive to the free software community.
  - zxzax 5y ago
    According to the actual text of the GPL, that is not the spirit of it at all. Sorry to disappoint but this is a common misconception that I see. The word "community" appears zero times in the GPL. The community aspect might be a side effect that happens in some cases with it, but trying to use a license of some kind of panacea to maintain a community doesn't make any sense. That's not how communities work. It's the people who maintain your community, not the license. Edit: The lack of enforcement of GPL is a different story, but you can trace that directly back to the very same community, including the FSF, who seem to have decided years ago that enforcing the GPL is not worth it anymore for some reason.
    - CyberRabbi 5y ago
      Have you read Stallman’s essays on the topic? If you’re interested in this stuff, he goes very in depth on the goals of the free software movement: https://www.gnu.org/doc/fsfs3-hardcover.pdf https://www.gnu.org/doc/fsfs3-hardcover.pdf The GPL was created explicitly to advance those goals. From Wikipedia’s summary of the essays: The author proposes Free software licenses (mostly GPL) as a solution to social issues created by proprietary software and described in essays. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software,_Free_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software,_Free_Society

goodpoint 5y ago

Why the downvotes? This is spot on.