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I think the royal we here presumes too much on the part of the free software advocates. Nothing against them but GNU software predates linux and the marriage of

I think the royal we here presumes too much on the part of the free software advocates. Nothing against them but GNU software predates linux and the marriage of the two in typical linux distributions was a convenience marriage. Linus Torvalds wasn't really doing anything else than tinkering with a kernel on his PC and the Gnu tools were there and he respected the license since depending on those tools meant using the license. The typical linux distribution includes a lot of software; only some of which is licensed under GNU licenses. And of course the most popular uses of Linux are no longer on freedom advocates personal computing devices but on servers, on mobile phones, or in embedded devices/appliances/etc. where there typically is a lot of not so free software. Running that stuff is kind of the point of using Linux: it's a means to an end. Like Linus Torvalds used the GNU tools, people use Linux (as in the wider ecosystem of packages that come with it) because it's there and does the job. And because it is free as in beer. Only some people use it because they buy into the idealism as well. Nothing against that of course. Freedom includes the freedom to have different points of view. But the reality is that idealism and business use of software rarely mix well. In a way, GPLv2 was a happy accident in that it had some loop holes that allowed the likes of Google to build Android without leaking their and their implementation partner's proprietary tech. Arguably most commercial usage of Linux on phones, servers, etc. typically involves lots of proprietary software. IMHO that loophole was key to the success of Linux. It's what allowed the industry to back open source with billions of R&D investment and bootstrapped the whole ecosystem. Arguably a lot of that activity is more centered around less hairy licenses such as Apache2 and MIT/BSD style licenses. GPL has a well deserved reputation for being a PITA to deal with for lawyers partly because of the wording and also because of its fierce advocates.

usrn 4y ago
The GPL isn't a pain in the ass, just publish your code under the GPL. That's all you have to do.
arminiusreturns 4y ago
IMHO that loophole was key to the success of Linux. It's what allowed the industry to back open source with billions of R&D investment and bootstrapped the whole ecosystem. When do we have the discussion about how that's the very problem, from a lack of user freedom perspective? We want to talk about dictators and technocrats unjustly abusing the powers of surveillance, why not start at the fact that we allowed our FOSS ecosystem that could have given more freedom and power to billions to be loopholed into a corporate hellscape of uninstallable apps, lack of root on devices (without root, you aren't the owner), and other fundamental underminings of what ownership means! To me, all this and more is exactly why gplv3+ is actually so important, and honestly I just feel like HN is so full of corporate types who have forgotten the hacker mentality in it's curious, freedom loving base type, instead espousing stockholm syndromed repeating points about why linux doesn't matter, why YOTLD (year of the linux desktop) is never going to happen, why gpl is a bad license, etc. Right to root. Right to repair. Right to see the source code on your device. Right to see and modify code and make your device do what you want it to. Right to share that source code. It's been here the whole time, RMS and Eben Moglen were truly men far ahead of their time, visionaries of the dystopian future battles that were to come. Users are losing the war right now. When are we going to have this conversation?
- jacooper 4y ago
  I'm not sure about that if you are not root you don't own the device. Its clearly important to have isolation and security, to the point distros are experimenting with read-only file systems with apps running sandboxes through Flatpak, like Fedora Silverblue and SteamOS. Other than that I agree with your comment, HN tend to be very corporate with a visible minority caring about the GPL and its derivatives like the AGPL.
jacooper 4y ago
The GPL is a very simple agreement. I put my time on this and made it free and open to anyone. You do the same, and we improve the whole world because of it, it certainly worked for Linux, and I think its why Linux is way more successful than BSD.
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  I think you'll find that many corporate lawyers disagree with that statement and prefer BSD/MIT style licenses.
  - account42 4y ago
    Corporate lawyers are interested in minimizing liability (and their own workload), not in making the world a better place.

usrn 4y ago

The GPL isn't a pain in the ass, just publish your code under the GPL. That's all you have to do.

arminiusreturns 4y ago

IMHO that loophole was key to the success of Linux. It's what allowed the industry to back open source with billions of R&D investment and bootstrapped the whole ecosystem. When do we have the discussion about how that's the very problem, from a lack of user freedom perspective? We want to talk about dictators and technocrats unjustly abusing the powers of surveillance, why not start at the fact that we allowed our FOSS ecosystem that could have given more freedom and power to billions to be loopholed into a corporate hellscape of uninstallable apps, lack of root on devices (without root, you aren't the owner), and other fundamental underminings of what ownership means! To me, all this and more is exactly why gplv3+ is actually so important, and honestly I just feel like HN is so full of corporate types who have forgotten the hacker mentality in it's curious, freedom loving base type, instead espousing stockholm syndromed repeating points about why linux doesn't matter, why YOTLD (year of the linux desktop) is never going to happen, why gpl is a bad license, etc. Right to root. Right to repair. Right to see the source code on your device. Right to see and modify code and make your device do what you want it to. Right to share that source code. It's been here the whole time, RMS and Eben Moglen were truly men far ahead of their time, visionaries of the dystopian future battles that were to come. Users are losing the war right now. When are we going to have this conversation?

jacooper 4y ago
I'm not sure about that if you are not root you don't own the device. Its clearly important to have isolation and security, to the point distros are experimenting with read-only file systems with apps running sandboxes through Flatpak, like Fedora Silverblue and SteamOS. Other than that I agree with your comment, HN tend to be very corporate with a visible minority caring about the GPL and its derivatives like the AGPL.

jacooper 4y ago

The GPL is a very simple agreement. I put my time on this and made it free and open to anyone. You do the same, and we improve the whole world because of it, it certainly worked for Linux, and I think its why Linux is way more successful than BSD.

jillesvangurp 4y ago
I think you'll find that many corporate lawyers disagree with that statement and prefer BSD/MIT style licenses.
- account42 4y ago
  Corporate lawyers are interested in minimizing liability (and their own workload), not in making the world a better place.