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The fact that very large corporations are willing to spend tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to replicate software is exactly why the GPL is not irreleva

The fact that very large corporations are willing to spend tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to replicate software is exactly why the GPL is not irrelevant. What makes the GPL irrelevant is AI. AI in it's current incarnation is basically a magic copyright remover. It can memorize all the patterns, tricks, algorithms, and architecture of open source software and implement it again. In a few years you won't need git because you will just have an AI stamp out a git compatible tool if you need one. So if you care about Freedom, we need to move the battle from making sure you can get a copy of the source code to git, to making sure you can get a copy of the weights of the AI you are using to create software on demand.

Expurple 1y ago
> The fact that very large corporations are willing to spend tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to replicate software is exactly why the GPL is not irrelevant. No, it's the opposite. The premise of copyleft is forcing the dependents to contribute back to the community. If the corporations are writing proprietary replacements instead of contributing, copyleft has failed to deliver on its premise. In practice, permissively-licensed projects get more contributions back and benefit the community more. Simple as that.
- ltbarcly3 1y ago
  We have no data on how much has not been contributed back due to corporations forking code or just copy pasting it into other projects. For all you know permissive licenses have dramatically reduced contributions back. We only know when they contribute, we have no data on when they don't. Stories like LLVM are good evidence for what you are saying, but the linux kernel is good evidence against it. Dozens of companies are forced to work together for the common good at a scale and level of resources that is unprecedented. Without the GPL this simply wouldn't (actually from an economic / game theory standpoint it couldn't) happen.
  - Expurple 1y ago
    It's true that we don't have any definitive data on this. But I buy the article's argument that upstreaming a patch once is simply cheaper than maintaining your own proprietary fork forever. It externalizes the efforts of maintaining it in the future. This means that public, community-maintained, permissively-licenced projects are a good deal for companies, and should win from the economic / game theory POV
    - ltbarcly3 1y ago
      If this is correct then the lgpl would be ideal? Also, it depends how much value-add they see their modifications having. For small tweaks and bug fixes they'll contribute it. If they invest a lot of money into something, they'll be loath to hand that value over to their competitors. There is some tipping point where the competitive value (or more realistically the jealous urge not to share) of their efforts exceeds the utility of easy tracking with upstream changes.
      - Expurple 1y ago
        Ideal for whom? It's still not ideal for downstream proprietary developers. The requirement to provide some means to relink the project is extra headache that can be avoided by using permissive dependencies, reinforcing the point of the article. Also, in theory, I can imagine a situation where a proprierary developer strongly needs to make a change, and for some reason is strongly against open-sourcing it, and is strongly law-abiding. And thus, a proprietary rewrite is born. Sometimes, instead of a complete rewrite, that's going to be a fork of a permissive project, boosting its usage and reinforcing the point of the article. For library authors, LGPL/MPL is often a good tradeoff, indeed. You still get all the modifications back, while also having more users then you would have with GPL. Although, as seen in this thread, enabling proprieraty dependents is actually a downside for some authors, due to their beliefs. To me, it looks like LGPL/MPL become irrelevant in the "longer" run too. --- I agree with you regarding the "tipping point". There's nothing we can do about this. In a similar vein, when considering a massive investment into a GPL project, they are going to conclude that they are better off invesing a similar amount into a proprietary rewrite and keeping the added value to themselves.

Expurple 1y ago

> The fact that very large corporations are willing to spend tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to replicate software is exactly why the GPL is not irrelevant. No, it's the opposite. The premise of copyleft is forcing the dependents to contribute back to the community. If the corporations are writing proprietary replacements instead of contributing, copyleft has failed to deliver on its premise. In practice, permissively-licensed projects get more contributions back and benefit the community more. Simple as that.

ltbarcly3 1y ago
We have no data on how much has not been contributed back due to corporations forking code or just copy pasting it into other projects. For all you know permissive licenses have dramatically reduced contributions back. We only know when they contribute, we have no data on when they don't. Stories like LLVM are good evidence for what you are saying, but the linux kernel is good evidence against it. Dozens of companies are forced to work together for the common good at a scale and level of resources that is unprecedented. Without the GPL this simply wouldn't (actually from an economic / game theory standpoint it couldn't) happen.
- Expurple 1y ago
  It's true that we don't have any definitive data on this. But I buy the article's argument that upstreaming a patch once is simply cheaper than maintaining your own proprietary fork forever. It externalizes the efforts of maintaining it in the future. This means that public, community-maintained, permissively-licenced projects are a good deal for companies, and should win from the economic / game theory POV
  - ltbarcly3 1y ago
    If this is correct then the lgpl would be ideal? Also, it depends how much value-add they see their modifications having. For small tweaks and bug fixes they'll contribute it. If they invest a lot of money into something, they'll be loath to hand that value over to their competitors. There is some tipping point where the competitive value (or more realistically the jealous urge not to share) of their efforts exceeds the utility of easy tracking with upstream changes.
    - Expurple 1y ago
      Ideal for whom? It's still not ideal for downstream proprietary developers. The requirement to provide some means to relink the project is extra headache that can be avoided by using permissive dependencies, reinforcing the point of the article. Also, in theory, I can imagine a situation where a proprierary developer strongly needs to make a change, and for some reason is strongly against open-sourcing it, and is strongly law-abiding. And thus, a proprietary rewrite is born. Sometimes, instead of a complete rewrite, that's going to be a fork of a permissive project, boosting its usage and reinforcing the point of the article. For library authors, LGPL/MPL is often a good tradeoff, indeed. You still get all the modifications back, while also having more users then you would have with GPL. Although, as seen in this thread, enabling proprieraty dependents is actually a downside for some authors, due to their beliefs. To me, it looks like LGPL/MPL become irrelevant in the "longer" run too. --- I agree with you regarding the "tipping point". There's nothing we can do about this. In a similar vein, when considering a massive investment into a GPL project, they are going to conclude that they are better off invesing a similar amount into a proprietary rewrite and keeping the added value to themselves.