5 ms·

I think many of us have taken for granted a very broad idea of "the spirit of free software" because of overlapping practices over the past few decades. But I'm

I think many of us have taken for granted a very broad idea of "the spirit of free software" because of overlapping practices over the past few decades. But I'm not sure these are actually the "intent" of GPLv2, which I think would mean what Stallman et. al were advocating back then. The GPLv2 is pretty clear about allowing for "hostile" forks, and not about mandating communal behavior from everyone. That is particularly clear in how it offers multiple methods to satisfy obligations to redistribute sources. A vendor like Red Hat can choose whether to make sources generally available to the public or to only respond to requests for sources from their own licensed users. They are moving from the first method to the second. The GPLv2 also doesn't say anything about obligations to receive patches nor offer maintenance or future versions of anything. I think we've all enjoyed a luxury of people acting beyond the actual license obligations. The voluntary effort to contribute to a communal codebase and broadly share a stream of maintenance releases is very nice. But licensing does not compel all this voluntary effort. I think it is in Red Hat's rights to try to capture some of this business value that has been left on the table, even though I selfishly hope that they will either stub their toes and reverse course, or get out-competed by a new benevolent vendor who sees an opportunity in taking over such a communal role.

mistrial9 3y ago
> I think we've all enjoyed a luxury of people acting beyond the actual license obligations and, the largest and most-profitable companies on Earth today have also enjoyed a luxury beyond the actual license obligations. To "pile on" .. it is not that "the well is running dry".. rather it is an explicit business objective to restrict the distribution of SECURITY UPDATES and in a parallel move, require those security updates to continue to operate with money doing X-y-z. Its not secret.
- freedomben 3y ago
  The GPL is very clear that the software does not come with a warranty or any guarantees of fitness for any purpose. The customer has the code, they are free to fix any bugs or security holes that affect them, but they are not entitled to have other people do that work for them for free.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > The GPL is very clear that the software does not come with a warranty or any guarantees of fitness for any purpose. It does include a general warranty disclaimer, of course, in many jurisdictions, sone or all of the warranties that would exist without an explicit affirmative warranty offer also can't be negated with a disclaimer, so this may mean less than a naive reader would assume, being unnecessary where the law wouldn’t impose a warranty, and ineffective where it would.
comex 3y ago
> But I'm not sure these are actually the "intent" of GPLv2, which I think would mean what Stallman et. al were advocating back then. I don't buy it. If you think about the commercial Unix systems in the 80's that GNU was started as an alternative to, the threat to cut off a customer from all future updates would have been just as prohibitive as it is with Red Hat today. Admittedly, with security being more important now than it was then, it's more critical now to get a steady stream of minor security updates. But being cut off from major updates is prohibitive too, given that most customers expect to stay on the system for years, both now and then. And those commercial Unixes were less compatible with each other than modern Linux distros are with each other, so the switching cost would have been higher. (Disclaimer: I wasn't around in the 80's; this is based on what I've gathered rather than personal knowledge.) Given that context, let's look at Stallman's definition of free software from 1987, four years before GPLv2: [1] > The word "free" in [the Free Software Foundation's] name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom. First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you. Second, the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it instead of it controlling you; for this, the source code must be made available to you. Here is Stallman waxing poetic on the same concept in 2001 (so after GPLv2, but I think it's fair to say his thinking hasn't changed much): [2] > A program is free software for you, a particular user, if you have the following freedoms: > [..] > Freedom Two is the freedom to help your neighbor by distributing copies of the program. > [..] > Freedom Two is the freedom to help your neighbor by distributing copies of the program. Now, for beings that can think and learn, sharing useful knowledge is a fundamental act of friendship. When these beings use computers, this act of friendship takes the form of sharing software. Friends share with each other. Friends help each other. This is the nature of friendship. And, in fact, this spirit of goodwill -- the spirit of helping your neighbor, voluntarily -- is society's most important resource. It makes the difference between a livable society and a dog-eat-dog jungle. Its importance has been recognized by the world's major religions for thousands of years, and they explicitly try to encourage this attitude. Do you really think the person who wrote this would have been satisfied with 'you can technically share the code with your neighbor, but only if you are ready to immediately migrate away from said code because you can no longer receive updates'? [1] https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull3.html https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull3.html [2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt

mistrial9 3y ago

> I think we've all enjoyed a luxury of people acting beyond the actual license obligations and, the largest and most-profitable companies on Earth today have also enjoyed a luxury beyond the actual license obligations. To "pile on" .. it is not that "the well is running dry".. rather it is an explicit business objective to restrict the distribution of SECURITY UPDATES and in a parallel move, require those security updates to continue to operate with money doing X-y-z. Its not secret.

freedomben 3y ago
The GPL is very clear that the software does not come with a warranty or any guarantees of fitness for any purpose. The customer has the code, they are free to fix any bugs or security holes that affect them, but they are not entitled to have other people do that work for them for free.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > The GPL is very clear that the software does not come with a warranty or any guarantees of fitness for any purpose. It does include a general warranty disclaimer, of course, in many jurisdictions, sone or all of the warranties that would exist without an explicit affirmative warranty offer also can't be negated with a disclaimer, so this may mean less than a naive reader would assume, being unnecessary where the law wouldn’t impose a warranty, and ineffective where it would.

comex 3y ago

> But I'm not sure these are actually the "intent" of GPLv2, which I think would mean what Stallman et. al were advocating back then. I don't buy it. If you think about the commercial Unix systems in the 80's that GNU was started as an alternative to, the threat to cut off a customer from all future updates would have been just as prohibitive as it is with Red Hat today. Admittedly, with security being more important now than it was then, it's more critical now to get a steady stream of minor security updates. But being cut off from major updates is prohibitive too, given that most customers expect to stay on the system for years, both now and then. And those commercial Unixes were less compatible with each other than modern Linux distros are with each other, so the switching cost would have been higher. (Disclaimer: I wasn't around in the 80's; this is based on what I've gathered rather than personal knowledge.) Given that context, let's look at Stallman's definition of free software from 1987, four years before GPLv2: [1] > The word "free" in [the Free Software Foundation's] name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom. First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you. Second, the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it instead of it controlling you; for this, the source code must be made available to you. Here is Stallman waxing poetic on the same concept in 2001 (so after GPLv2, but I think it's fair to say his thinking hasn't changed much): [2] > A program is free software for you, a particular user, if you have the following freedoms: > [..] > Freedom Two is the freedom to help your neighbor by distributing copies of the program. > [..] > Freedom Two is the freedom to help your neighbor by distributing copies of the program. Now, for beings that can think and learn, sharing useful knowledge is a fundamental act of friendship. When these beings use computers, this act of friendship takes the form of sharing software. Friends share with each other. Friends help each other. This is the nature of friendship. And, in fact, this spirit of goodwill -- the spirit of helping your neighbor, voluntarily -- is society's most important resource. It makes the difference between a livable society and a dog-eat-dog jungle. Its importance has been recognized by the world's major religions for thousands of years, and they explicitly try to encourage this attitude. Do you really think the person who wrote this would have been satisfied with 'you can technically share the code with your neighbor, but only if you are ready to immediately migrate away from said code because you can no longer receive updates'? [1] https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull3.html https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull3.html [2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt