5 ms·

If you write the Linux kernel, a ton of companies would take it, enhance it, and not contribute back without GPL. That is always touted by GPL advocates, but w

by there 14y ago

If you write the Linux kernel, a ton of companies would take it, enhance it, and not contribute back without GPL. That is always touted by GPL advocates, but where is the proof? Where are all the companies enhancing non-GPL-licensed software and not giving anything back? Where are the companies making money selling private forks of enhanced FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Ruby, Python, Ruby on Rails, X11, Apache, etc.? It doesn't make sense. Maintaining your own changes in a big software project is a pain in the ass. It's worth contributing changes upstream if only so you don't have to maintain your own patches and re-merge them every release.

y0ghur7_xxx 14y ago
didn't apple take bsd and build osx on it without contributing back?
- bonch 14y ago
  No, they contributed back the open source operating system underlying OS X, called Darwin.
- openbear 14y ago
  Not sure which pieces you're talking about. Code changes to various open source projects within OS X, iOS, and Xcode can be found here (and the referenced sites therein). http://opensource.apple.com/ http://opensource.apple.com/
  - saurik 14y ago
    Those projects are often not in a state where they can be compiled, and when they are you find that they are heavily redacted. For example, none of the code required to make any of that run correctly on ARM devices is available. (Given the context from this thread about large projects, however, I feel the redactions of things like touch events from WebKit, are a more serious issue.)
    - Xuzz 14y ago
      On the other hand, for the i386 copies of FreeBSD (which the great-grandparent was talking about), Apple does release working copies of their FreeBSD-derived kernel.
      - saurik 14y ago
        Fair enough, although the parent of that post just talks in general about larger projects (such as the toolchain) and the post I directly responded to talks about Xcode.
      - pmjordan 14y ago
        The xnu kernel is pretty far from FreeBSD. It's based on CMU Mach 2.5 (mainly virtual memory and IPC), 4.3BSD (mainly networking and VFS) and the Apple/NeXTSTEP-developed device driver framework called I/O Kit (which is written in C++). I don't think any kernel changes have been merged back into BSD. At this point they've probably deviated too far anyway. Building xnu from public sources is quite an undertaking. It does still seem to be possible (although it got a lot harder with the x86 transition due to more proprietary drivers). The PureDarwin distribution still seems to be based on the Snow Leopard kernel, I'm not sure why. http://www.puredarwin.org/ http://www.puredarwin.org/
sedachv 14y ago
> That is always touted by GPL advocates, but where is the proof? Where are all the companies enhancing non-GPL-licensed software and not giving anything back? They're doing it to GPL software. Take a look at pretty much any embedded Linux project and you will find a GPL violation. For example, most ARM devices are unusable without binary drivers that rely on specific builds of specific Linux kernel versions (example - you can't get sound or accelerated video on the Raspberry Pi!). I've had one plug computer maker tell me they have a custom version of Linux and they won't provide the source. Whenever I come across anything like that I report it at http://gpl-violations.org/ http://gpl-violations.org/
davidw 14y ago
> Where are all the companies enhancing non-GPL-licensed software and not giving anything back? Where are the companies making money selling private forks of enhanced FreeBSD Sun Microsystems? I think part of it has to do with a tipping point: if you can hire up a good chunk of the key contributors and run with it, then it's easy to make a proprietary fork, and at the same time weaken the open source project. The GPL prevents this. The other thing that prevents it is if it's impossible/difficult to hire up enough people for a proprietary fork to outstrip development of an open fork. So with permissive licensed projects, you want a big core team comprising people with diverse interests and incentives. Also, I think things have changed over time - perhaps, 'back in the day', there was more the idea of not contributing back by default, whereas I think far more companies have made their peace with open source these days, and understanding that being involved and contributing are good things. This tilts things in favor of permissive licenses.
- muyuu 14y ago
  > Sun Microsystems? + Apple They contribute back only whatever they see fit, and that's in perfect accordance with the licence.
  - X-Istence 14y ago
    Apple's kernel/userland A.K.A Darwin is available from Apple's open source website. Apple has also contributed a lot that they weren't required to contribute. Sure they are an example, but they are not nearly as cut throat as people like to make them out to be. Look for Apple.com on commits to the FreeBSD source tree...
- there 14y ago
  I think part of it has to do with a tipping point: if you can hire up a good chunk of the key contributors and run with it, then it's easy to make a proprietary fork, and at the same time weaken the open source project. The GPL prevents this. No, it doesn't. Those key contributors are still the copyright holders of the code they contributed, and they are free to redistribute those contributions under different terms. If they all work for one company, they can just license copies of their code to that new company under non-GPL terms. The GPL fork still exists, but now a new, closed-source version of the code can be made with all of that (now-)employee-written code. If there are enough of those components, that company can just rewrite the code contributed by others that were only licensed under GPL, and now they have a mostly duplicate version of the same program, able to be extended and resold without source code. Digium does this for the Asterisk project. They have a GPL version that everyone is free to use, but nobody else is allowed to redistribute it without the source code. However, they make all contributors to the GPL project license their code to Digium so that Digium more-or-less owns the code, which Digium then turns around and sells under a closed-source license to companies that don't want to give their changes back to Asterisk. https://www.asterisk.org/doxygen/trunk/Licensing.html https://www.asterisk.org/doxygen/trunk/Licensing.html https://issues.asterisk.org/view_license_agreement.php https://issues.asterisk.org/view_license_agreement.php
smashing 14y ago
Microsoft's Windows Services for UNIX Version 3.5[1] and earlier versions are based off of NetBSD[2]. Until recently, 2008-9, they contributed nothing back. [1] https://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=274 https://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=274 [2] http://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/platforms.html http://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/platforms.html

by there 14y ago

y0ghur7_xxx 14y ago

didn't apple take bsd and build osx on it without contributing back?

bonch 14y ago
No, they contributed back the open source operating system underlying OS X, called Darwin.
openbear 14y ago
Not sure which pieces you're talking about. Code changes to various open source projects within OS X, iOS, and Xcode can be found here (and the referenced sites therein). http://opensource.apple.com/ http://opensource.apple.com/
- saurik 14y ago
  Those projects are often not in a state where they can be compiled, and when they are you find that they are heavily redacted. For example, none of the code required to make any of that run correctly on ARM devices is available. (Given the context from this thread about large projects, however, I feel the redactions of things like touch events from WebKit, are a more serious issue.)
  - Xuzz 14y ago
    On the other hand, for the i386 copies of FreeBSD (which the great-grandparent was talking about), Apple does release working copies of their FreeBSD-derived kernel.
    - saurik 14y ago
      Fair enough, although the parent of that post just talks in general about larger projects (such as the toolchain) and the post I directly responded to talks about Xcode.
    - pmjordan 14y ago
      The xnu kernel is pretty far from FreeBSD. It's based on CMU Mach 2.5 (mainly virtual memory and IPC), 4.3BSD (mainly networking and VFS) and the Apple/NeXTSTEP-developed device driver framework called I/O Kit (which is written in C++). I don't think any kernel changes have been merged back into BSD. At this point they've probably deviated too far anyway. Building xnu from public sources is quite an undertaking. It does still seem to be possible (although it got a lot harder with the x86 transition due to more proprietary drivers). The PureDarwin distribution still seems to be based on the Snow Leopard kernel, I'm not sure why. http://www.puredarwin.org/ http://www.puredarwin.org/

sedachv 14y ago

> That is always touted by GPL advocates, but where is the proof? Where are all the companies enhancing non-GPL-licensed software and not giving anything back? They're doing it to GPL software. Take a look at pretty much any embedded Linux project and you will find a GPL violation. For example, most ARM devices are unusable without binary drivers that rely on specific builds of specific Linux kernel versions (example - you can't get sound or accelerated video on the Raspberry Pi!). I've had one plug computer maker tell me they have a custom version of Linux and they won't provide the source. Whenever I come across anything like that I report it at http://gpl-violations.org/ http://gpl-violations.org/

davidw 14y ago

> Where are all the companies enhancing non-GPL-licensed software and not giving anything back? Where are the companies making money selling private forks of enhanced FreeBSD Sun Microsystems? I think part of it has to do with a tipping point: if you can hire up a good chunk of the key contributors and run with it, then it's easy to make a proprietary fork, and at the same time weaken the open source project. The GPL prevents this. The other thing that prevents it is if it's impossible/difficult to hire up enough people for a proprietary fork to outstrip development of an open fork. So with permissive licensed projects, you want a big core team comprising people with diverse interests and incentives. Also, I think things have changed over time - perhaps, 'back in the day', there was more the idea of not contributing back by default, whereas I think far more companies have made their peace with open source these days, and understanding that being involved and contributing are good things. This tilts things in favor of permissive licenses.

muyuu 14y ago
> Sun Microsystems? + Apple They contribute back only whatever they see fit, and that's in perfect accordance with the licence.
- X-Istence 14y ago
  Apple's kernel/userland A.K.A Darwin is available from Apple's open source website. Apple has also contributed a lot that they weren't required to contribute. Sure they are an example, but they are not nearly as cut throat as people like to make them out to be. Look for Apple.com on commits to the FreeBSD source tree...
there 14y ago
I think part of it has to do with a tipping point: if you can hire up a good chunk of the key contributors and run with it, then it's easy to make a proprietary fork, and at the same time weaken the open source project. The GPL prevents this. No, it doesn't. Those key contributors are still the copyright holders of the code they contributed, and they are free to redistribute those contributions under different terms. If they all work for one company, they can just license copies of their code to that new company under non-GPL terms. The GPL fork still exists, but now a new, closed-source version of the code can be made with all of that (now-)employee-written code. If there are enough of those components, that company can just rewrite the code contributed by others that were only licensed under GPL, and now they have a mostly duplicate version of the same program, able to be extended and resold without source code. Digium does this for the Asterisk project. They have a GPL version that everyone is free to use, but nobody else is allowed to redistribute it without the source code. However, they make all contributors to the GPL project license their code to Digium so that Digium more-or-less owns the code, which Digium then turns around and sells under a closed-source license to companies that don't want to give their changes back to Asterisk. https://www.asterisk.org/doxygen/trunk/Licensing.html https://www.asterisk.org/doxygen/trunk/Licensing.html https://issues.asterisk.org/view_license_agreement.php https://issues.asterisk.org/view_license_agreement.php

smashing 14y ago

Microsoft's Windows Services for UNIX Version 3.5[1] and earlier versions are based off of NetBSD[2]. Until recently, 2008-9, they contributed nothing back. [1] https://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=274 https://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=274 [2] http://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/platforms.html http://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/platforms.html