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> In theory, sure. In practice... The whole point of a contract is to spell out in enough detail for both parties (and if it comes down to it a judge) what the

by hansvm 3y ago

> In theory, sure. In practice... The whole point of a contract is to spell out in enough detail for both parties (and if it comes down to it a judge) what the expectations of a given arrangement happen to be. Plenty of employees won't actively exercise all their rights under the GPL (related: [0]), but that fact is independent of the GPL itself. > If your success depends on building on GPL code and not giving back, then maybe try to find success elsewhere. Just 3 lines ago didn't you point out a massive company successfully building on GPL code and not giving back, touting their ability to do so as a pro for GPLv2? Regardless, the quibble wasn't with whether that clause is reasonable (I prefer to release under GPL), but that paying somebody to do something crazy with the code and then not release it isn't actually in your control if the code in question is released under GPLv2; for that to happen you require either trust/luck or a different license. > Well, yes. That's the point after all - you took someone else's code, made changes to it, gave it to a third person, so now you can't very well tell that third person "Sorry, that code I gave you is now a secret!" Or you took someone else's code, paid a third party for business-critical customizations, and expect the product you paid for to not wind up in the hands of a competitor. While we're stuck with intellectual property as a meaningful legal concept there's always going to be another way to look at the problem evoking different emotions and notions of what's fair or reasonable. [0] https://xkcd.com/1958/ https://xkcd.com/1958/

lelanthran 3y ago
> Just 3 lines ago didn't you point out a massive company successfully building on GPL code and not giving back, touting their ability to do so as a pro for GPLv2? No, I did not. I pointed out how strictly adhering to the GPL was not in any way an impediment to the success of writing device drivers. > Or you took someone else's code, paid a third party for business-critical customizations, and expect the product you paid for to not wind up in the hands of a competitor. If you don't want your 0.001% of contributions to a product to benefit others, including those who built 99.99% of the product, then don't contribute to it. Put your 0.001% effort into some other product that lets you keep the entire 100% for yourself. You're effectively arguing that it's unfair that you can't take someone else's labour and sell it on without their permission. I really don't feel bad for you in that case. It's someone else's labour, not yours. Crying "unfair" because you want to add 0.001% of value and want to keep 100% of value doesn't get you much sympathy. Especially when, as you pointed out when you referred to my nvidia example, this isn't a hurdle to someone who simply wants to use the GPL software and add their own value into it without violating the license. It's perfectly possible, just not palatable to people who want the original labour for themselves. NVidia supplying binary blobs aren't trying to own the entire Linux kernel for anyone using their blobl. Someone supplying some proprietary driver, and wanting to keep that driver secret, is doing the opposite.

by hansvm 3y ago

lelanthran 3y ago

> Just 3 lines ago didn't you point out a massive company successfully building on GPL code and not giving back, touting their ability to do so as a pro for GPLv2? No, I did not. I pointed out how strictly adhering to the GPL was not in any way an impediment to the success of writing device drivers. > Or you took someone else's code, paid a third party for business-critical customizations, and expect the product you paid for to not wind up in the hands of a competitor. If you don't want your 0.001% of contributions to a product to benefit others, including those who built 99.99% of the product, then don't contribute to it. Put your 0.001% effort into some other product that lets you keep the entire 100% for yourself. You're effectively arguing that it's unfair that you can't take someone else's labour and sell it on without their permission. I really don't feel bad for you in that case. It's someone else's labour, not yours. Crying "unfair" because you want to add 0.001% of value and want to keep 100% of value doesn't get you much sympathy. Especially when, as you pointed out when you referred to my nvidia example, this isn't a hurdle to someone who simply wants to use the GPL software and add their own value into it without violating the license. It's perfectly possible, just not palatable to people who want the original labour for themselves. NVidia supplying binary blobs aren't trying to own the entire Linux kernel for anyone using their blobl. Someone supplying some proprietary driver, and wanting to keep that driver secret, is doing the opposite.