9 ms·

Isn't that a little rich, considering a lot of GNU software itself started as a reimplementation of proprietary UNIX applications under a different license.

by 0x0 5y ago

einpoklum 5y ago
The GNU project chose a much better license, which lended itself towards free use and further public development continuing. The Rust re-implementation uses what many - including the FSF and myself - consider to be an inferior license with respect to public interest. So it's going back a step from the direction of the GNU project. Personally, most of the software I write is under a 3-BSD or MIT license - unfortunately. I wish I were in a position to write more GPL code.
- wiz21c 5y ago
  I really don't get why you're being downvote. Your explanation is perfectly rational and demonstrates a political stance. People can disagree with it but its expression is most definitely correct. GNU coreutils are protected against a hypothetical proprietary ownership and I value that protection a lot.
  - marcan_42 5y ago
    The issue isn't the FSF's opinion on this matter, it's that it is incredibly childish of them to go voice that opinion on other projects' issue trackers. You don't go to someone else's house to tell them their beliefs are wrong.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - medo-bear 5y ago
      they are rewriting GNU project under a less free license. i find it pretty funny that they did do that :)
      - nix23 5y ago
        Yeah stop with that, MIT/BSD/ISC is definitely more free then GNU...you know in the normal world "less restrictions = more freedom" just someone from the FSF would think otherwise.
        colejohnson66 5y ago
        More free for developers, not users. MIT code can be used in a closed source system a lot easier than a GPL one can. Developers love to talk about the freedoms they have with licenses, while ignoring that the whole point of the GPL family is disregarding that in favor of the user's rights.
        nix23 5y ago
        Being a user of BSD if feel more free too. Know why? Because i can do nearly everything with it, and i don't even need a Lawyer to read and understand the license.
        colejohnson66 5y ago
        That makes no sense. You can still, as a user, do whatever you want with GPL software. The GPL is long because it has to be in order to protect the user's rights; It's an actual contract between the source provider and anyone who uses it. It also doesn't require a lawyer to read. Just sit down for 10 minutes and read it yourself; It's pretty straightforward.
        jcranmer 5y ago
        Even as a user, you cannot do "whatever you want" with GPL software. Specifically, you can't distribute the GPL unless you also adhere to the GPL's requirements for distribution. (It's even worse for the LGPL variant, because that imposes requirements on how the software is built in the first place.) What counts as a "distribution"? Well, that's a contract interpretation question, and if you are not asking that question of a lawyer, then you have a fool for a client. I suspect that there's actually a lot of technical GPL violations going on, but since the open source community is not litigious in general, there's little realization of those violations and even less care that those are going on. Personally, I am not a fan of the GPL licenses for this reason. If you are trying to use legal contracts to enforce norms, it is disingenuous to argue that you don't need lawyers to be involved. Using social contracts and pressure instead would truly allow everybody to avoid lawyers and achieve much the same goals.
    - lvass 5y ago
      How can you be so certain they're not interested in knowing what the consequences of their chosen license are? By your logic, It would be childish to ring your bell and point out you have a water leak. I'm glad my neighbors don't think like that.
- rtpg 5y ago
  I think the insinuation is more that the GNU project probably was also breaking license terms in order to do the rewrites. (Not commenting on the veracity of that claim though)
  - stavros 5y ago
    I don't think anyone is accusing either project of breaking license terms. In fact, I find the GP's argument tenuous, since the Kelling says "you're making less free coreutils than their predecessors" and the GP says "that's rich, considering that the original coreutils were more free than their predecessors".
  - vetinari 5y ago
    That would be quite a feat, given that the proprietary unices didn't have source available for their utils. Where would the GNU project get it?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      While I don't for a moment believe that they were ripping off code or otherwise violating copyright, unix source code wasn't that hard to get if you wanted it; sure, it wasn't freely available on the net, but plenty of companies, research groups, and even schools were working with it.
belter 5y ago
Not if you dust out your history books :-) "Were all Unix commands re-written in Linux?"' https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/85189/were-all-unix-commands-re-written-in-linux https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/85189/were-all-unix... "Is the GNU Coreutils copied from Unix?" https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/81302/is-the-gnu-coreutils-copied-from-unix https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/81302/is-the-gnu-co...
- mkl 5y ago
  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but both of your links seem to disagree with you.
  - belter 5y ago
    The point is they re-implemented Posix, an open standard. Not copied a proprietary system.
    - oblio 5y ago
      Yeah, but POSIX was just codifying the proprietary UNIX standards. UNIX got bootlegged in a era where license enforcement wasn't strict because people didn't even know what licenses where. These days UNIX would have been a strictly proprietary AT&T product, from day 1. Heck, POSIX stands for Portable Operating System (POS) + IX because X is a cool letter and IX because POSIX is cooler than POSIX plus, you know, UNIX.
      - belter 5y ago
        MQTT was created by IBM https://mqtt.org/ https://mqtt.org/ If I implement it in Rust now, dont think I will be accused of copying IBM?
        damagednoob 5y ago
        Would Ecmascript[1] be another example? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript#History
josephcsible 5y ago
If you have a proprietary program, reimplementing it under a FOSS license is a good thing. If you have a copyleft program, reimplementing it under a license that allows proprietary modifications is a bad thing.
- oblio 5y ago
  Why? You're allowed to build whatever you want, however you want? Why police people's licenses? Are they misrepresenting something, misleading people?
  - loudmax 5y ago
    It's thanks to open source that you are allowed to build what whatever you want. You don't have to give back if you don't want to.
    - oblio 5y ago
      Besides the core aspect of your comment, you are aware that this entire subthread is about: * GNU Coreutils: GPL licensed * uutils: MIT licensed right? The MIT license is not only an Open Source license, but it's even a Free Software license according to the FSF itself. So this is nitpicking of the 100th degree at this point.
- JulianMorrison 5y ago
  Not really. It has to be possible in practise to make proprietary modifications, get them accepted into common use, somehow prevent other people just cloning them, and steal the momentum of the open source project. If someone makes proprietary extensions to "ls", they are just going to be stuck maintaining a fork. There is no realistic threat here.
- sbuk 5y ago
  From the OpenBSD Copyright Policy (https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html) just for a different perspective from another FOSS project: "While this may superficially look like a noble strategy, it is a condition that is typically unacceptable for commercial use of software. So in practice, it usually ends up hindering free sharing and reuse of code and ideas rather than encouraging it..."

Isn't that a little rich, considering a lot of GNU software itself started as a reimplementation of proprietary UNIX applications under a different license.

by 0x0 5y ago

Isn't that a little rich, considering a lot of GNU software itself started as a reimplementation of proprietary UNIX applications under a different license.

einpoklum 5y ago

The GNU project chose a much better license, which lended itself towards free use and further public development continuing. The Rust re-implementation uses what many - including the FSF and myself - consider to be an inferior license with respect to public interest. So it's going back a step from the direction of the GNU project. Personally, most of the software I write is under a 3-BSD or MIT license - unfortunately. I wish I were in a position to write more GPL code.

wiz21c 5y ago
I really don't get why you're being downvote. Your explanation is perfectly rational and demonstrates a political stance. People can disagree with it but its expression is most definitely correct. GNU coreutils are protected against a hypothetical proprietary ownership and I value that protection a lot.
- marcan_42 5y ago
  The issue isn't the FSF's opinion on this matter, it's that it is incredibly childish of them to go voice that opinion on other projects' issue trackers. You don't go to someone else's house to tell them their beliefs are wrong.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - medo-bear 5y ago
    they are rewriting GNU project under a less free license. i find it pretty funny that they did do that :)
    - nix23 5y ago
      Yeah stop with that, MIT/BSD/ISC is definitely more free then GNU...you know in the normal world "less restrictions = more freedom" just someone from the FSF would think otherwise.
      - colejohnson66 5y ago
        More free for developers, not users. MIT code can be used in a closed source system a lot easier than a GPL one can. Developers love to talk about the freedoms they have with licenses, while ignoring that the whole point of the GPL family is disregarding that in favor of the user's rights.
        nix23 5y ago
        Being a user of BSD if feel more free too. Know why? Because i can do nearly everything with it, and i don't even need a Lawyer to read and understand the license.
        colejohnson66 5y ago
        That makes no sense. You can still, as a user, do whatever you want with GPL software. The GPL is long because it has to be in order to protect the user's rights; It's an actual contract between the source provider and anyone who uses it. It also doesn't require a lawyer to read. Just sit down for 10 minutes and read it yourself; It's pretty straightforward.
        jcranmer 5y ago
        Even as a user, you cannot do "whatever you want" with GPL software. Specifically, you can't distribute the GPL unless you also adhere to the GPL's requirements for distribution. (It's even worse for the LGPL variant, because that imposes requirements on how the software is built in the first place.) What counts as a "distribution"? Well, that's a contract interpretation question, and if you are not asking that question of a lawyer, then you have a fool for a client. I suspect that there's actually a lot of technical GPL violations going on, but since the open source community is not litigious in general, there's little realization of those violations and even less care that those are going on. Personally, I am not a fan of the GPL licenses for this reason. If you are trying to use legal contracts to enforce norms, it is disingenuous to argue that you don't need lawyers to be involved. Using social contracts and pressure instead would truly allow everybody to avoid lawyers and achieve much the same goals.
  - lvass 5y ago
    How can you be so certain they're not interested in knowing what the consequences of their chosen license are? By your logic, It would be childish to ring your bell and point out you have a water leak. I'm glad my neighbors don't think like that.
rtpg 5y ago
I think the insinuation is more that the GNU project probably was also breaking license terms in order to do the rewrites. (Not commenting on the veracity of that claim though)
- stavros 5y ago
  I don't think anyone is accusing either project of breaking license terms. In fact, I find the GP's argument tenuous, since the Kelling says "you're making less free coreutils than their predecessors" and the GP says "that's rich, considering that the original coreutils were more free than their predecessors".
- vetinari 5y ago
  That would be quite a feat, given that the proprietary unices didn't have source available for their utils. Where would the GNU project get it?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    While I don't for a moment believe that they were ripping off code or otherwise violating copyright, unix source code wasn't that hard to get if you wanted it; sure, it wasn't freely available on the net, but plenty of companies, research groups, and even schools were working with it.

belter 5y ago

Not if you dust out your history books :-) "Were all Unix commands re-written in Linux?"' https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/85189/were-all-unix-commands-re-written-in-linux https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/85189/were-all-unix... "Is the GNU Coreutils copied from Unix?" https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/81302/is-the-gnu-coreutils-copied-from-unix https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/81302/is-the-gnu-co...

mkl 5y ago
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but both of your links seem to disagree with you.
- belter 5y ago
  The point is they re-implemented Posix, an open standard. Not copied a proprietary system.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Yeah, but POSIX was just codifying the proprietary UNIX standards. UNIX got bootlegged in a era where license enforcement wasn't strict because people didn't even know what licenses where. These days UNIX would have been a strictly proprietary AT&T product, from day 1. Heck, POSIX stands for Portable Operating System (POS) + IX because X is a cool letter and IX because POSIX is cooler than POSIX plus, you know, UNIX.
    - belter 5y ago
      MQTT was created by IBM https://mqtt.org/ https://mqtt.org/ If I implement it in Rust now, dont think I will be accused of copying IBM?
      - damagednoob 5y ago
        Would Ecmascript[1] be another example? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript#History

josephcsible 5y ago

If you have a proprietary program, reimplementing it under a FOSS license is a good thing. If you have a copyleft program, reimplementing it under a license that allows proprietary modifications is a bad thing.

oblio 5y ago
Why? You're allowed to build whatever you want, however you want? Why police people's licenses? Are they misrepresenting something, misleading people?
- loudmax 5y ago
  It's thanks to open source that you are allowed to build what whatever you want. You don't have to give back if you don't want to.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Besides the core aspect of your comment, you are aware that this entire subthread is about: * GNU Coreutils: GPL licensed * uutils: MIT licensed right? The MIT license is not only an Open Source license, but it's even a Free Software license according to the FSF itself. So this is nitpicking of the 100th degree at this point.
JulianMorrison 5y ago
Not really. It has to be possible in practise to make proprietary modifications, get them accepted into common use, somehow prevent other people just cloning them, and steal the momentum of the open source project. If someone makes proprietary extensions to "ls", they are just going to be stuck maintaining a fork. There is no realistic threat here.
sbuk 5y ago
From the OpenBSD Copyright Policy (https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html) just for a different perspective from another FOSS project: "While this may superficially look like a noble strategy, it is a condition that is typically unacceptable for commercial use of software. So in practice, it usually ends up hindering free sharing and reuse of code and ideas rather than encouraging it..."