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Why do you think it's selfish? Is somebody who sells software selfish? I'd rather say taking somebodies code and not contributing back is selfish...

by fafner 13y ago

profquail 13y ago
Taking somebodies code and not contributing back is selfish. Using the GPL because you want to "get a return on your investment" is also selfish.
- fafner 13y ago
  So anything but giving things away for totally free is selfish? E.g., the person selling you bread is selfish?
  - profquail 13y ago
    Now what if I told you that even giving things away for totally free could sometimes be selfish? Instead of thinking of "selfish" as the thing you were scolded for as child (i.e., a bad thing), think of it as "self-interested". In and of itself, self-interest is neither "good" nor "bad". Using your example, the person selling you bread is selfish -- the price you pay probably covers their production costs, plus some additional profit for their take-home pay. If they just started giving the bread away for free (i.e., they're no longer self-interested), you may see that as a good thing -- but what happens when the bakery closes down because it can't pay the bills any longer? Now, you're forced to bake your own bread, at least until a new bakery opens (if ever). So, to re-iterate my earlier point with this new definition of selfish: Taking somebodies code and not contributing back is self-interested. Some manager may see this as an easy way to get ahead, without realizing that they may actually be _worse off_ by not contributing back to the project (e.g., the project stalls out and now they're stuck using stale code and trying to maintain things themselves). Using the GPL because you want to "get a return on your investment" is also self-interested. The self-interest there should be obvious, but for bonus points compare it to the definition of a cartel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel
    - maxharris 13y ago
      Instead of thinking of "selfish" as the thing you were scolded for as child (i.e., a bad thing), think of it as "self-interested". In and of itself, self-interest is neither "good" nor "bad". If you have some time, watch this video on self-interest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URTFDijUEY8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URTFDijUEY8
calinet6 13y ago
You open yourself up to many, many more contributions, because you open it to a much larger audience. Think of it this way: with the GPL you have 10 individuals and 3 open-source projects that might use your code. They have to contribute all their work back. Great. With MIT/BSD, you have 10 individuals and 3 open-source projects; plus 1000 more individuals, and 500 companies, plus 50 city governments and 16 universities. Of those, let's assume that 25% are benevolent and would consider contributing back (extremely conservative if you ask me) and of those, let's say 60% actually do. So you get 15% of your contributions back, or 236 people who will contribute, which is 18 times more than the alternative. Yeah I made up the numbers, but even if you only reach a slightly higher audience—the people who would have used your software when it was GPL'd are probably still going to contribute back, so you've likely not changed your overall contribution rate, only increased it, and the only thing you'll have to deal with is some obscure emotional sense that "someone might be using my code and not contributing back", which is an absolutely useless idealism that doesn't produce code, fix bugs, or make your project more popular. As in social contexts, having expectations of people you deal with only serves as a barrier-to-entry, and doesn't actually change the outcome. It turns our people will contribute back even if you don't force them to. And it turns out that sometimes, being selfish is a good thing. It ain't black and white, and you can swim in the grey area without melting or becoming a bad person. Somewhere in the middle, it works really well, and that's what MIT/BSD captures, in my humble opinion.
- fafner 13y ago
  The huge success of GPL software proofs you quite wrong.
  - calinet6 13y ago
    It's currently the most popular license, and it had a head start in popularity I think. But the tides are changing, as the original article studies. I think open source as a concept is successful. Open source encourages community development, giving back to the community, creating things for fun, working on interesting projects, and making things people can use for free. These are all good things that lead to successful projects. My argument is not that the GPL is unsuccessful—that would be absurd. I'm saying, for a given market, would a project me more successful with a more permissive licence, and thus a broader audience, regardless of whether the majority of users contribute changes back? It's a complex question and it might vary quite a bit depending on a lot of factors. In my example, you have a largely company-dominated market with few users interested individually. The Rails ecosystem is very similar to this: lots of companies use rails, and the GPL would change that market enormously, in my opinion for the worse. In fact, I'd venture to say that the rise of Ruby and Rails have accelerated our current software boom more than any other projects, if only for setting an example of how open-source and corporate worlds can coexist and reinforce each-other positively. This specific result was almost entirely due to the choice of the MIT license. In that sense, you could say that the huge success of MIT-licensed software (in many other measures, such as the extremely fast rate that the community grew, the rate of software improvement, the use of the software to create real economic value, and the driving of the growth of the software economy) proves you wrong, also.

Why do you think it's selfish? Is somebody who sells software selfish? I'd rather say taking somebodies code and not contributing back is selfish...

by fafner 13y ago

Why do you think it's selfish? Is somebody who sells software selfish? I'd rather say taking somebodies code and not contributing back is selfish...

profquail 13y ago

Taking somebodies code and not contributing back is selfish. Using the GPL because you want to "get a return on your investment" is also selfish.

fafner 13y ago
So anything but giving things away for totally free is selfish? E.g., the person selling you bread is selfish?
- profquail 13y ago
  Now what if I told you that even giving things away for totally free could sometimes be selfish? Instead of thinking of "selfish" as the thing you were scolded for as child (i.e., a bad thing), think of it as "self-interested". In and of itself, self-interest is neither "good" nor "bad". Using your example, the person selling you bread is selfish -- the price you pay probably covers their production costs, plus some additional profit for their take-home pay. If they just started giving the bread away for free (i.e., they're no longer self-interested), you may see that as a good thing -- but what happens when the bakery closes down because it can't pay the bills any longer? Now, you're forced to bake your own bread, at least until a new bakery opens (if ever). So, to re-iterate my earlier point with this new definition of selfish: Taking somebodies code and not contributing back is self-interested. Some manager may see this as an easy way to get ahead, without realizing that they may actually be _worse off_ by not contributing back to the project (e.g., the project stalls out and now they're stuck using stale code and trying to maintain things themselves). Using the GPL because you want to "get a return on your investment" is also self-interested. The self-interest there should be obvious, but for bonus points compare it to the definition of a cartel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel
  - maxharris 13y ago
    Instead of thinking of "selfish" as the thing you were scolded for as child (i.e., a bad thing), think of it as "self-interested". In and of itself, self-interest is neither "good" nor "bad". If you have some time, watch this video on self-interest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URTFDijUEY8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URTFDijUEY8

calinet6 13y ago

You open yourself up to many, many more contributions, because you open it to a much larger audience. Think of it this way: with the GPL you have 10 individuals and 3 open-source projects that might use your code. They have to contribute all their work back. Great. With MIT/BSD, you have 10 individuals and 3 open-source projects; plus 1000 more individuals, and 500 companies, plus 50 city governments and 16 universities. Of those, let's assume that 25% are benevolent and would consider contributing back (extremely conservative if you ask me) and of those, let's say 60% actually do. So you get 15% of your contributions back, or 236 people who will contribute, which is 18 times more than the alternative. Yeah I made up the numbers, but even if you only reach a slightly higher audience—the people who would have used your software when it was GPL'd are probably still going to contribute back, so you've likely not changed your overall contribution rate, only increased it, and the only thing you'll have to deal with is some obscure emotional sense that "someone might be using my code and not contributing back", which is an absolutely useless idealism that doesn't produce code, fix bugs, or make your project more popular. As in social contexts, having expectations of people you deal with only serves as a barrier-to-entry, and doesn't actually change the outcome. It turns our people will contribute back even if you don't force them to. And it turns out that sometimes, being selfish is a good thing. It ain't black and white, and you can swim in the grey area without melting or becoming a bad person. Somewhere in the middle, it works really well, and that's what MIT/BSD captures, in my humble opinion.

fafner 13y ago
The huge success of GPL software proofs you quite wrong.
- calinet6 13y ago
  It's currently the most popular license, and it had a head start in popularity I think. But the tides are changing, as the original article studies. I think open source as a concept is successful. Open source encourages community development, giving back to the community, creating things for fun, working on interesting projects, and making things people can use for free. These are all good things that lead to successful projects. My argument is not that the GPL is unsuccessful—that would be absurd. I'm saying, for a given market, would a project me more successful with a more permissive licence, and thus a broader audience, regardless of whether the majority of users contribute changes back? It's a complex question and it might vary quite a bit depending on a lot of factors. In my example, you have a largely company-dominated market with few users interested individually. The Rails ecosystem is very similar to this: lots of companies use rails, and the GPL would change that market enormously, in my opinion for the worse. In fact, I'd venture to say that the rise of Ruby and Rails have accelerated our current software boom more than any other projects, if only for setting an example of how open-source and corporate worlds can coexist and reinforce each-other positively. This specific result was almost entirely due to the choice of the MIT license. In that sense, you could say that the huge success of MIT-licensed software (in many other measures, such as the extremely fast rate that the community grew, the rate of software improvement, the use of the software to create real economic value, and the driving of the growth of the software economy) proves you wrong, also.