3 ms·

> They oblige the author of a derived work to publish the changes to all users under the same terms. The original authors tend to be users. So, a license which

> They oblige the author of a derived work to publish the changes to all users under the same terms. The original authors tend to be users. So, a license which would grant this directly to the original authors would end up providing the same end result since the original authors would be both allowed to and reasonably expected to distribute the derived work to their users as well. I might be in the wrong, but this is not how I understand GPL [0]. Care to correct me if I'm wrong. What I get from the license is that you have to share the code with the users of your program, not anyone else. AFAIK you could do an Emacs fork and ask money for it. Not only that but the source code only needs to be available to the recipients of the software, not anyone else. A company could have an upgraded version of a GPL tool and not share it with anyone outside the company. Theoretically employees might share the code outside, but I doubt they'd dared. [0] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Copying.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Co...

cmsj 4y ago
> What I get from the license is that you have to share the code with the users of your program, not anyone else. You're correct, but it's sort of a meaningless distinction because those users are entirely within their rights under the GPL to share that code on with anyone they want, which is why we don't really see the model of "secret GPL" you describe, in the wild.
- bruce511 4y ago
  I'd argue that this is exactly what you see in the wild. And it's why the AGPL license was created. GPL code has to be shared with users who receive binaries. SAAS happily didn't shop binaries, so quite legally didn't ship source code. AGPL redefines this in terms of "user" not "binary". That refinement completely exists to cater for unexpected use cases. No doubt new licenses (AIGPL?) will be needed to address this issue. The whole need for Open Source protection played out with the (Apache licensed) Elastic Search. Switching to a ELv2 and SSPL license was controversial and in some ways "not open source", certainly not "free" because it limits what a user can do with the software. So the distinction is far from meaningless and in some ways rendered GPL obsolete.

cmsj 4y ago

> What I get from the license is that you have to share the code with the users of your program, not anyone else. You're correct, but it's sort of a meaningless distinction because those users are entirely within their rights under the GPL to share that code on with anyone they want, which is why we don't really see the model of "secret GPL" you describe, in the wild.

bruce511 4y ago
I'd argue that this is exactly what you see in the wild. And it's why the AGPL license was created. GPL code has to be shared with users who receive binaries. SAAS happily didn't shop binaries, so quite legally didn't ship source code. AGPL redefines this in terms of "user" not "binary". That refinement completely exists to cater for unexpected use cases. No doubt new licenses (AIGPL?) will be needed to address this issue. The whole need for Open Source protection played out with the (Apache licensed) Elastic Search. Switching to a ELv2 and SSPL license was controversial and in some ways "not open source", certainly not "free" because it limits what a user can do with the software. So the distinction is far from meaningless and in some ways rendered GPL obsolete.