4 ms·

I'd have to second this; there is a lot of FUD being put out about how the GPL "takes away" "freedoms" from the developer, when the truth is that if someone is

I'd have to second this; there is a lot of FUD being put out about how the GPL "takes away" "freedoms" from the developer, when the truth is that if someone is writing something from scratch, they have de facto copyright and can relicense the code any way they want, at any time. Only versions released under GPL are out in the wild as "lost sales", and are more likely to garner good will than cause a loss of profits. As for BSD, well you wouldn't want your competition locking up your code and selling it back to you, now would you? And all the other licenses, while more finely nuanced to different needs, are also not as straightforward. I don't understand why GPL isn't more widespread.

Karunamon 15y ago
>I don't understand why GPL isn't more widespread. Honestly, for me? Viral nature. I don't want to put off a company using my code (well, for most things I do) because they don't want to be bound by the requirement to give away the source. That's kind of why I'm a fan of Creative Commons, attribution share-alike, with possibly noncommercial depending on what it is and my mood at the time. The GPL is just a pain in the ass for all involved. At least that's how I see it.
- cpnks 15y ago
  What distinction do you see between CC-SSA and GPL? They say essentially the same thing. CC-SS has the same viral nature as the GPL/LGPL (it's about halfway in between the two). The GPL has a lot of FUD about it, but there's very little actually offensive about it.
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    I should have been more clear. The neat thing about the entire CC class of licenses is that it's easy to pick from what you want to do based on what you're doing. A license framework if you will. The GPL doesn't have that - and as you said, CC-BY-SA is probably the closest - but I don't have to use CC-BY-SA if I don't want to. Maybe I don't care as long as my name's on it. Then I can just use CC-BY. The FUD you speak of is another reason I tend to shy away from GPL - both in terms of enforcement (shown to be tricky, thought the SA CC license would have the same issue), and it's association with RMS and the culture and FUD surrounding it. Another thing is that CC lends itself better to things that aren't computer code.
  - huhtenberg 15y ago
    GPL is like donating a loaf of bread, but saying you can't make a ham sandwich with it (because you just hate them pigs). You either want gift the code to the world or you want to do it conditionally. Do tell me which one comes across as a more genuine gesture.
    - _delirium 15y ago
      Ah, the inevitable "bad GPL analogies" portion of any GPL discussion thread. I personally don't feel I'm under any ethical obligation to give away my source code. Sometimes I don't release it at all, at least not unless you're paying for it. Other times I license it under a permissive license, usually when it's something smallish. And other times I choose to GPL or AGPL it. I see the latter case as a quid pro quo: you can use my code as long as you let me use yours. Unlike in the ham sandwich example, it's not some arbitrary restriction imposed out of taste or spite, but a proposal of what seems to me to be a fair exchange. In return for using my code, you let me use your code, pretty simple and symmetric. If you don't like the idea of a reciprocal code exchange, we could agree on a different exchange, like you paying me money for a license, or we could fail to reach an agreement and no exchange happens. But I don't feel particularly obligated to give you unrestricted free use of my code with no reciprocation. I could choose to do that out of charity or idealism, but I don't think I'm obligated to.
      - Silhouette 15y ago
        The trouble is that even in that simple post, where I think your real point is perfectly reasonable, you have completely mischaracterised the GPL and AGPL. The GPL doesn't actually say "you can use my code as long as you let me use yours", or anything very similar really. I expect you knew that and didn't mean any deception by what you wrote, but we're talking about a legal document and lawyers are not known for their folksy interpretation and sense of humour. And the AGPL is a particularly dangerous document that shouldn't be directly associated with any of the other GPL-related licences IMHO. Its scope is broader, because it can have profound implications for anyone even using software distributed under that licence, not just those developing the software.
- Silhouette 15y ago
  The GPL is just a pain in the ass for all involved. At least that's how I see it. You are not alone. I find the GPL, but more so variants like the Affero GPL, to be ticking time bombs. And I have followed the development of FOSS over the years and occasionally helped out a project, so I probably have more interest than most people who aren't in the FOSS community. The lawyers and managers at companies where I've worked were far more pragmatic: it's not worth the time and risk to analyse the licensing implications of every bit of GPL'd code we might consider using as part of our own project, so just blanket ban any development use of such code across the entire organisation and avoid any potential legal risks. In short, using GPL'd code is fine, but doing any kind of development with it is a firing offence, end of discussion. I think this is a very sad state of affairs, but knowing how complex the legal issues can become, how militant certain FOSS groups can be, and how much damage such a group could cause in PR terms even if they had no legal case at all, I can't say I blame the lawyers and managers for their "not touching it with a 10' pole" policy.
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    What do you mean by ticking time bombs? For all the shenanigans surrounding the GPL, its terms are pretty easy to comply with.
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      I think it's mainly the burden of tracking everything. If all your code is either written in house or source you've explicitly licenced on some commercial basis then chances are there's no problem borrowing a bit from somewhere and reusing it somewhere else. But suppose you've got GPL'd code floating around, and then someone builds something based on it that's used perfectly legally in-house, and then someone later borrows some excerpts from the GPL'd code and reuses them in another part of the system, and then someone else later decides the GPL'd library/whatever isn't needed any more and cuts it out. Now you've got code floating around that you think your organisation owns, but really it doesn't. Of course it's possible to comply with the rules by diligently noting any reuse of GPL'd code, and of course there are somewhat related issues with giving due credit even with permissive licences or code you've licenced commercially. But in reality, things go wrong, particularly on long-lived projects where developers come and go. Having GPL'd stuff integrated into your dev process if you're not an all-GPL house just seems like a lawsuit/PR nightmare waiting to happen if you run into one of the more militant groups, and short of imposing expensive and time-consuming audit processes there's not really much that management can do to mitigate that risk.
- tikhonj 15y ago
  Erm, isn't "share-alike" closer to the GPL than MIT/BSD licenses? That is, the whole point of the GPL is that anybody who uses your code has to release the product under the same license; this is exactly what the "share-alike" licenses do as well.
eternalban 15y ago
My cynical view is that at some point in the past few years, the perfect storm of outsourcing, funny money bonanzas aka IPOs, and the standing mindset of corporations to focus on their self interest (and not but) got us to this point. The winners have been the corporations (surprise) and a few (very few) rock star OSS developers. Everyone else is being taken for a ride, in my opinion. I release OSS software myself. So far, Apache 2 only, but decided to switch for everything new to (L)GPL a couple of months ago. GPL makes sense economically, socially, and politically.

Karunamon 15y ago

>I don't understand why GPL isn't more widespread. Honestly, for me? Viral nature. I don't want to put off a company using my code (well, for most things I do) because they don't want to be bound by the requirement to give away the source. That's kind of why I'm a fan of Creative Commons, attribution share-alike, with possibly noncommercial depending on what it is and my mood at the time. The GPL is just a pain in the ass for all involved. At least that's how I see it.

cpnks 15y ago
What distinction do you see between CC-SSA and GPL? They say essentially the same thing. CC-SS has the same viral nature as the GPL/LGPL (it's about halfway in between the two). The GPL has a lot of FUD about it, but there's very little actually offensive about it.
- Karunamon 15y ago
  I should have been more clear. The neat thing about the entire CC class of licenses is that it's easy to pick from what you want to do based on what you're doing. A license framework if you will. The GPL doesn't have that - and as you said, CC-BY-SA is probably the closest - but I don't have to use CC-BY-SA if I don't want to. Maybe I don't care as long as my name's on it. Then I can just use CC-BY. The FUD you speak of is another reason I tend to shy away from GPL - both in terms of enforcement (shown to be tricky, thought the SA CC license would have the same issue), and it's association with RMS and the culture and FUD surrounding it. Another thing is that CC lends itself better to things that aren't computer code.
- huhtenberg 15y ago
  GPL is like donating a loaf of bread, but saying you can't make a ham sandwich with it (because you just hate them pigs). You either want gift the code to the world or you want to do it conditionally. Do tell me which one comes across as a more genuine gesture.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    Ah, the inevitable "bad GPL analogies" portion of any GPL discussion thread. I personally don't feel I'm under any ethical obligation to give away my source code. Sometimes I don't release it at all, at least not unless you're paying for it. Other times I license it under a permissive license, usually when it's something smallish. And other times I choose to GPL or AGPL it. I see the latter case as a quid pro quo: you can use my code as long as you let me use yours. Unlike in the ham sandwich example, it's not some arbitrary restriction imposed out of taste or spite, but a proposal of what seems to me to be a fair exchange. In return for using my code, you let me use your code, pretty simple and symmetric. If you don't like the idea of a reciprocal code exchange, we could agree on a different exchange, like you paying me money for a license, or we could fail to reach an agreement and no exchange happens. But I don't feel particularly obligated to give you unrestricted free use of my code with no reciprocation. I could choose to do that out of charity or idealism, but I don't think I'm obligated to.
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      The trouble is that even in that simple post, where I think your real point is perfectly reasonable, you have completely mischaracterised the GPL and AGPL. The GPL doesn't actually say "you can use my code as long as you let me use yours", or anything very similar really. I expect you knew that and didn't mean any deception by what you wrote, but we're talking about a legal document and lawyers are not known for their folksy interpretation and sense of humour. And the AGPL is a particularly dangerous document that shouldn't be directly associated with any of the other GPL-related licences IMHO. Its scope is broader, because it can have profound implications for anyone even using software distributed under that licence, not just those developing the software.
Silhouette 15y ago
The GPL is just a pain in the ass for all involved. At least that's how I see it. You are not alone. I find the GPL, but more so variants like the Affero GPL, to be ticking time bombs. And I have followed the development of FOSS over the years and occasionally helped out a project, so I probably have more interest than most people who aren't in the FOSS community. The lawyers and managers at companies where I've worked were far more pragmatic: it's not worth the time and risk to analyse the licensing implications of every bit of GPL'd code we might consider using as part of our own project, so just blanket ban any development use of such code across the entire organisation and avoid any potential legal risks. In short, using GPL'd code is fine, but doing any kind of development with it is a firing offence, end of discussion. I think this is a very sad state of affairs, but knowing how complex the legal issues can become, how militant certain FOSS groups can be, and how much damage such a group could cause in PR terms even if they had no legal case at all, I can't say I blame the lawyers and managers for their "not touching it with a 10' pole" policy.
- Karunamon 15y ago
  What do you mean by ticking time bombs? For all the shenanigans surrounding the GPL, its terms are pretty easy to comply with.
  - Silhouette 15y ago
    I think it's mainly the burden of tracking everything. If all your code is either written in house or source you've explicitly licenced on some commercial basis then chances are there's no problem borrowing a bit from somewhere and reusing it somewhere else. But suppose you've got GPL'd code floating around, and then someone builds something based on it that's used perfectly legally in-house, and then someone later borrows some excerpts from the GPL'd code and reuses them in another part of the system, and then someone else later decides the GPL'd library/whatever isn't needed any more and cuts it out. Now you've got code floating around that you think your organisation owns, but really it doesn't. Of course it's possible to comply with the rules by diligently noting any reuse of GPL'd code, and of course there are somewhat related issues with giving due credit even with permissive licences or code you've licenced commercially. But in reality, things go wrong, particularly on long-lived projects where developers come and go. Having GPL'd stuff integrated into your dev process if you're not an all-GPL house just seems like a lawsuit/PR nightmare waiting to happen if you run into one of the more militant groups, and short of imposing expensive and time-consuming audit processes there's not really much that management can do to mitigate that risk.
tikhonj 15y ago
Erm, isn't "share-alike" closer to the GPL than MIT/BSD licenses? That is, the whole point of the GPL is that anybody who uses your code has to release the product under the same license; this is exactly what the "share-alike" licenses do as well.

eternalban 15y ago

My cynical view is that at some point in the past few years, the perfect storm of outsourcing, funny money bonanzas aka IPOs, and the standing mindset of corporations to focus on their self interest (and not but) got us to this point. The winners have been the corporations (surprise) and a few (very few) rock star OSS developers. Everyone else is being taken for a ride, in my opinion. I release OSS software myself. So far, Apache 2 only, but decided to switch for everything new to (L)GPL a couple of months ago. GPL makes sense economically, socially, and politically.