4 ms·

Aren't they pretty much doing anything these days to make it easier for Apple to “steal” their code, considering that most consumers of BSD code are Apple users

by soc88 14y ago

Aren't they pretty much doing anything these days to make it easier for Apple to “steal” their code, considering that most consumers of BSD code are Apple users?

Peaker 14y ago
Apple isn't stealing if BSD is explicitly giving it to them for free. FreeBSD apparently have no issues with donating their work to corporations.
- Derbasti 14y ago
  That is precisely the point of the BSD license: Give freely to everyone.
drostie 14y ago
As someone who tends to release on more-permissive licenses, I just want to clarify the causal model here. It's not "doing something extra" to release with BSD; the "doing something extra" comes when you want to properly release with GNU. After a long random walk over the licensing attitudes graph, I have found myself for the last several years stably located at one node. This node is, "licensing is about lawsuits." People often release with the GNU GPL because licensing, for them, is not about lawsuits but has some other import and use -- perhaps moral. But for me, a license is strictly about defining what sorts of lawsuits are possible. Copyleft is a threat to sue. More precisely, it is the threat "I may sue you if you don't threaten to sue others." And that just sounds crazy. Why would you do that? Well, the stated goal of copyleft is to eliminate all fears of lawsuits by using legal threats. Let me hasten to add that this is a very pretty idea. If you know the religions of India, this idea is called tantra -- that sometimes the most precise tool for removing a thorn is other thorns, or sometimes the best way to remove dirt from your clothes is with an abrasive substance -- like other (cleaner) dirt. The reason that Stallman is sometimes described as religious may come back to the attendant mysticism that tantric approaches usually bring with them. My point is, this sort of thinking is an active choice and requires you to enforce the threat, at least in principle. The BSD license is much simpler: it says "I won't sue you, and you're not allowed to sue me." It is a Buddhist-nonviolence approach to eliminating lawsuits: "I have stopped causing suffering in this world, Angulimala -- now why don't you stop?" It is nothing extra to release this way: you simply promise to not sue anyone, and you only give permission conditional on the fact that they will not sue you, you write it once and then it is done. It's clean and elegant. If you want to actually be a productive GPL licenser, you have to either hope that the threat in the docs is enough, or else find everybody who is "conveying" your software, and slap them with a lawsuit so that they learn how much lawsuits suck.
- Derbasti 14y ago
  A strange way of looking at it. But it makes a lot of sense.
- udp 14y ago
  An upvote wasn't quite enough here: This is a lovely way of explaining the difference, and it'll be what I link people to in future when explaining why I opt for BSD-style licensing. Thank you.
  - cygx 14y ago
    As lovely as the explanation may be, it focuses on a single issue. The whole point of the GPL is granting and protecting end-user rights - protecting the developer from lawsuits is a secondary concern.
    - udp 14y ago
      What end-user rights does the GPL grant or protect that the BSD license doesn't? The right to do whatever the hell they want with the code is granted by the BSD license. I wouldn't say the same for the GPL.
      - fdr 14y ago
        > What end-user rights does the GPL grant or protect that the BSD license doesn't? The right to receive a copy of the implementation of the program they are using and re-distribute it freely. I say "right" here, because in the case of BSD source on the internet it could be more accurately coined an "election" to distribute the source. As you say, "whatever the hell you want." Which is fine. So is requiring copies to carry a complete copy, including the human-readable form, and the rights to redistribute those, ala GPL.
      - cygx 14y ago
        The end-user is not the developer who re-uses GPL'd code, but the guy who uses the final program. By licensing code under the GPL, you grant the end-user the right to use and modify any program using your code as he sees fit (as long as he adheres to the rules of the GPL on re-distribution), and no intermediate developer can legally take that right away. Of course this restricts the freedom of indermediate developers, but the GPL is intentionally -Ouser, not -Odeveloper. It just so happens that some users are also developers.
forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
If by steal you mean hiring the best contributors to the project(like Cris Lattner), and releasing a big part of that work freely, then yes, they are letting Apple steal them blatantly.
batista 14y ago
For one, they too benefit from Apple's work on Clang (and other projects). Seconds, there is no "stealing". They provide a license that explicitly allows such a use.
rsynnott 14y ago
"I said people could use my stuff, and then they used it! Thieves!" Wait, what?

by soc88 14y ago

Aren't they pretty much doing anything these days to make it easier for Apple to “steal” their code, considering that most consumers of BSD code are Apple users?

Peaker 14y ago

Apple isn't stealing if BSD is explicitly giving it to them for free. FreeBSD apparently have no issues with donating their work to corporations.

Derbasti 14y ago
That is precisely the point of the BSD license: Give freely to everyone.

drostie 14y ago

As someone who tends to release on more-permissive licenses, I just want to clarify the causal model here. It's not "doing something extra" to release with BSD; the "doing something extra" comes when you want to properly release with GNU. After a long random walk over the licensing attitudes graph, I have found myself for the last several years stably located at one node. This node is, "licensing is about lawsuits." People often release with the GNU GPL because licensing, for them, is not about lawsuits but has some other import and use -- perhaps moral. But for me, a license is strictly about defining what sorts of lawsuits are possible. Copyleft is a threat to sue. More precisely, it is the threat "I may sue you if you don't threaten to sue others." And that just sounds crazy. Why would you do that? Well, the stated goal of copyleft is to eliminate all fears of lawsuits by using legal threats. Let me hasten to add that this is a very pretty idea. If you know the religions of India, this idea is called tantra -- that sometimes the most precise tool for removing a thorn is other thorns, or sometimes the best way to remove dirt from your clothes is with an abrasive substance -- like other (cleaner) dirt. The reason that Stallman is sometimes described as religious may come back to the attendant mysticism that tantric approaches usually bring with them. My point is, this sort of thinking is an active choice and requires you to enforce the threat, at least in principle. The BSD license is much simpler: it says "I won't sue you, and you're not allowed to sue me." It is a Buddhist-nonviolence approach to eliminating lawsuits: "I have stopped causing suffering in this world, Angulimala -- now why don't you stop?" It is nothing extra to release this way: you simply promise to not sue anyone, and you only give permission conditional on the fact that they will not sue you, you write it once and then it is done. It's clean and elegant. If you want to actually be a productive GPL licenser, you have to either hope that the threat in the docs is enough, or else find everybody who is "conveying" your software, and slap them with a lawsuit so that they learn how much lawsuits suck.

Derbasti 14y ago
A strange way of looking at it. But it makes a lot of sense.
udp 14y ago
An upvote wasn't quite enough here: This is a lovely way of explaining the difference, and it'll be what I link people to in future when explaining why I opt for BSD-style licensing. Thank you.
- cygx 14y ago
  As lovely as the explanation may be, it focuses on a single issue. The whole point of the GPL is granting and protecting end-user rights - protecting the developer from lawsuits is a secondary concern.
  - udp 14y ago
    What end-user rights does the GPL grant or protect that the BSD license doesn't? The right to do whatever the hell they want with the code is granted by the BSD license. I wouldn't say the same for the GPL.
    - fdr 14y ago
      > What end-user rights does the GPL grant or protect that the BSD license doesn't? The right to receive a copy of the implementation of the program they are using and re-distribute it freely. I say "right" here, because in the case of BSD source on the internet it could be more accurately coined an "election" to distribute the source. As you say, "whatever the hell you want." Which is fine. So is requiring copies to carry a complete copy, including the human-readable form, and the rights to redistribute those, ala GPL.
    - cygx 14y ago
      The end-user is not the developer who re-uses GPL'd code, but the guy who uses the final program. By licensing code under the GPL, you grant the end-user the right to use and modify any program using your code as he sees fit (as long as he adheres to the rules of the GPL on re-distribution), and no intermediate developer can legally take that right away. Of course this restricts the freedom of indermediate developers, but the GPL is intentionally -Ouser, not -Odeveloper. It just so happens that some users are also developers.

forgottenpaswrd 14y ago

If by steal you mean hiring the best contributors to the project(like Cris Lattner), and releasing a big part of that work freely, then yes, they are letting Apple steal them blatantly.

batista 14y ago

For one, they too benefit from Apple's work on Clang (and other projects). Seconds, there is no "stealing". They provide a license that explicitly allows such a use.

rsynnott 14y ago

"I said people could use my stuff, and then they used it! Thieves!" Wait, what?