7 ms·

It is a tough feeling to see someone else's design for a library that would be literally perfect for my needs, but I'm unable to use it because of the license,

It is a tough feeling to see someone else's design for a library that would be literally perfect for my needs, but I'm unable to use it because of the license, so I have to spend weeks implementing my own inferior version while carefully avoiding making the code too similar to what I happen to remember. I'm past believing that I'm smart enough to always be able to come up with/reimplement a competent enough solution for all my needs by myself every time. But copyright still has to be respected. When I'm forced into that situation from licensing issues, it really makes me feel like my skillset primarily revolves around gluing together other people's well-designed code, and being left to my own devices exposes my weakness in implementing something from scratch.

adsche 5y ago
Curious, what license(s) prevented you from using a library? Or maybe rather, what does "use" mean here?
- nonbirithm 5y ago
  GPL, and in some cases source-available codebases produced by decompilation. "Use" in this case means to have some feature that's implemented by those libraries reimplemented in an open-source project (MIT-licensed).
- ShrigmaMale 5y ago
  GPLv2, which is viral.
- jeltz 5y ago
  GPL by some quite popular interpretations of what derivate work means. I do not personally agree but those interpretations are common enough to be a real concern and I do not think it has been tested in court yet (GPL has been tested in court but I do not think this particular aspect has).
matheusmoreira 5y ago
> carefully avoiding making the code too similar to what I happen to remember Is this really necessary? The GPL allows you to read and study the software. Is it really copyright infringement if you take your understanding and make your own program? Are people really forced to come up with convoluted new ways to solve the same problem just to avoid any similarity to existing work?
- Salgat 5y ago
  The issue is that the only way to guarantee no liability is a clean room implementation. It's why most open source reimplementations require no mention or examination of the source/machine code. Google got dinged over a trivial method they copied in their java implementation, even though it was extremely trivial. You can't risk any chance of copying, regardless of how trivial the code.
  - MaulingMonkey 5y ago
    Patent and copyright trolls have shown that even a clean room implementation is no guarantee.
    - Salgat 5y ago
      True, but at least you as the employee won't get fired since you can't be blamed.
- jdavis703 5y ago
  Think about it this way. If a panel of jurists who only half understood the expert testimony saw your code side by side with other code would it look like blatant copying or not?
- toast0 5y ago
  It depends on what derivative work means, and finding out the specifics may mean spending time in court. GPLv3 says 'To “modify” a work means to copy from or adapt all or part of the work in a fashion requiring copyright permission, other than the making of an exact copy. The resulting work is called a “modified version” of the earlier work or a work “based on” the earlier work.' If you read and study a work, and then write something new that does the same thing, that may be considered adapting or copying from (parts of) the original work.
csdreamer7 5y ago
This is the comment that points out the issue. perf is licensed under GPL v2 only and libbfd is a GNU tool that is licensed GPL v3 and higher. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=911815 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=911815 Really wish the Linux kernel would start mandating new patches to be GPL v2 and higher and get buy in from the largest contributors. A decade later new code would like replace the smaller contributors code and we could consider the software GPL v3 compatible.
- jabl 5y ago
  You might as well blame GNU for updating from GPLv2+ to GPLv3+, creating the problem in the first place. Since, realistically, neither Linux nor GNU will budge, maybe the practical solution would be to look into integrating with the equivalent library in the LLVM ecosystem (assuming it exists).
  - monocasa 5y ago
    It was always clear that gnu would create newer versions of the GPL and start releasing under it. The blame is pretty clearly on the people who editted the license text to be GPL2 only.
    - Macha 5y ago
      I think it's acceptable to not want an organisation to be able to relicense your software under arbitrary terms, which the GPL does allow the FSF to do. The GPL 3 is a pretty benign improvement on the GPL 2 (though I know Linus objects to the Tivo clause). I don't think anyone who was happy with their software being used under the terms of GPL 2 would be unhappy with it being used under the terms of the GPL 3 additionally, rather than exclusively. But let's imagine the next version of GPL 4 was "Additionally the authors may at their discretion use it under the terms of the CC-BY-SA license". Nothing wrong with it as a license, but that's a bigger leap in terms of license changes. It's not hypothetical that they could exercise that kind of power - they _did_ with the GFDL with the "wikipedia can relicense as CC-BY-SA" clause in GFDL 1.3. I think most people would agree that that was a responsible use of that power. but I can understand those that don't want to extend the trust that all future uses will be responsible.
tpxl 5y ago
Don't feel down about that. If someone's job is writing database engines or JSON parsers, you can't do a better job than them while also writing business logic. We should be glad some people chose to provide such code in a matter we can use it, and when we can't, a patchjob that does the trick is just as good.
jsolson 5y ago
For my personal work, I treat GPLv3 (and similarly licensed) projects as essentially the same as anything behind a commercial license -- they don't exist. Rather than thinking about how to re-implement a thing that doesn't exist, I think about how to implement the tool I actually need. What I end up with may be less general, but it's actual functionality is often simpler and easier for me to grok/remember.

adsche 5y ago

Curious, what license(s) prevented you from using a library? Or maybe rather, what does "use" mean here?

nonbirithm 5y ago
GPL, and in some cases source-available codebases produced by decompilation. "Use" in this case means to have some feature that's implemented by those libraries reimplemented in an open-source project (MIT-licensed).
ShrigmaMale 5y ago
GPLv2, which is viral.
jeltz 5y ago
GPL by some quite popular interpretations of what derivate work means. I do not personally agree but those interpretations are common enough to be a real concern and I do not think it has been tested in court yet (GPL has been tested in court but I do not think this particular aspect has).

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> carefully avoiding making the code too similar to what I happen to remember Is this really necessary? The GPL allows you to read and study the software. Is it really copyright infringement if you take your understanding and make your own program? Are people really forced to come up with convoluted new ways to solve the same problem just to avoid any similarity to existing work?

Salgat 5y ago
The issue is that the only way to guarantee no liability is a clean room implementation. It's why most open source reimplementations require no mention or examination of the source/machine code. Google got dinged over a trivial method they copied in their java implementation, even though it was extremely trivial. You can't risk any chance of copying, regardless of how trivial the code.
- MaulingMonkey 5y ago
  Patent and copyright trolls have shown that even a clean room implementation is no guarantee.
  - Salgat 5y ago
    True, but at least you as the employee won't get fired since you can't be blamed.
jdavis703 5y ago
Think about it this way. If a panel of jurists who only half understood the expert testimony saw your code side by side with other code would it look like blatant copying or not?
toast0 5y ago
It depends on what derivative work means, and finding out the specifics may mean spending time in court. GPLv3 says 'To “modify” a work means to copy from or adapt all or part of the work in a fashion requiring copyright permission, other than the making of an exact copy. The resulting work is called a “modified version” of the earlier work or a work “based on” the earlier work.' If you read and study a work, and then write something new that does the same thing, that may be considered adapting or copying from (parts of) the original work.

csdreamer7 5y ago

This is the comment that points out the issue. perf is licensed under GPL v2 only and libbfd is a GNU tool that is licensed GPL v3 and higher. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=911815 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=911815 Really wish the Linux kernel would start mandating new patches to be GPL v2 and higher and get buy in from the largest contributors. A decade later new code would like replace the smaller contributors code and we could consider the software GPL v3 compatible.

jabl 5y ago
You might as well blame GNU for updating from GPLv2+ to GPLv3+, creating the problem in the first place. Since, realistically, neither Linux nor GNU will budge, maybe the practical solution would be to look into integrating with the equivalent library in the LLVM ecosystem (assuming it exists).
- monocasa 5y ago
  It was always clear that gnu would create newer versions of the GPL and start releasing under it. The blame is pretty clearly on the people who editted the license text to be GPL2 only.
  - Macha 5y ago
    I think it's acceptable to not want an organisation to be able to relicense your software under arbitrary terms, which the GPL does allow the FSF to do. The GPL 3 is a pretty benign improvement on the GPL 2 (though I know Linus objects to the Tivo clause). I don't think anyone who was happy with their software being used under the terms of GPL 2 would be unhappy with it being used under the terms of the GPL 3 additionally, rather than exclusively. But let's imagine the next version of GPL 4 was "Additionally the authors may at their discretion use it under the terms of the CC-BY-SA license". Nothing wrong with it as a license, but that's a bigger leap in terms of license changes. It's not hypothetical that they could exercise that kind of power - they _did_ with the GFDL with the "wikipedia can relicense as CC-BY-SA" clause in GFDL 1.3. I think most people would agree that that was a responsible use of that power. but I can understand those that don't want to extend the trust that all future uses will be responsible.

tpxl 5y ago

Don't feel down about that. If someone's job is writing database engines or JSON parsers, you can't do a better job than them while also writing business logic. We should be glad some people chose to provide such code in a matter we can use it, and when we can't, a patchjob that does the trick is just as good.

jsolson 5y ago

For my personal work, I treat GPLv3 (and similarly licensed) projects as essentially the same as anything behind a commercial license -- they don't exist. Rather than thinking about how to re-implement a thing that doesn't exist, I think about how to implement the tool I actually need. What I end up with may be less general, but it's actual functionality is often simpler and easier for me to grok/remember.