4 ms·

> I don't share it with people who write closed source software. Of course you do. GCC was shared to great effect with Apple. Furthermore, when somebody writ

> I don't share it with people who write closed source software. Of course you do. GCC was shared to great effect with Apple. Furthermore, when somebody writes MIT/BSD code (for example Apple), they share it with you because you can put it under the GPL. But when you write GPL code, you don't share it with them because they can't relicense it as MIT/BSD code.

mike-cardwell 13y ago
"Of course you do. GCC was shared to great effect with Apple." - Obviously when I said "sharing" I was talking about using my code in their products. But you knew this. "Furthermore, when somebody writes MIT/BSD code (for example Apple), they share it with you because you can put it under the GPL. But when you write GPL code, you don't share it with them because they can't relicense it as MIT/BSD code." That's fine. They're happy for me to not share any changes I make with them. They explicitly told me this when they released it under MIT/BSD. That's their choice, and they are free to make it. I wouldn't be happy with that arrangement if it were my code, so I choose a different license. As is my choice. If I spend time working on their code, my changes are going to be released under the GPL, because I don't want my code to be used in closed source software. Where's the problem? So yeah, it sucks that they can't re-use my code. But that's their choice. And I'm assuming they're happy with their choice because of the license they chose. if they weren't happy with this arrangement, they'd have chosen the GPL. [edit] Also, even if I do this, I am still sharing my code with them, as long as they are happy to keep it out of closed source products. If they think it's more important that people can write closed source software with their code, than integrate my code into theirs, that's fine. Again, their choice. Everyone is free to do what they want. Even people who write closed source software. They are free to open up their code to me if they want to use mine.
- pbsdp 13y ago
  > I wouldn't be happy with that arrangement if it were my code, so I choose a different license. If you're approaching this from an "ethics of sharing" stance, then what what you're actually restricting is somebody else's use of their own code. Your code never disappears/changes/gets relicensed, it's their code that you're staking a claim to. Now, if you're approaching this from a stance of withholding certain valuable rights to your code, such as the ability to be the only person that licenses closed source usage, then the argument is a bit more logical. > They are free to open up their code to me if they want to use mine. I do. Under the MIT license.
  - mike-cardwell 13y ago
    "then what what you're actually restricting is somebody else's use of their own code. Your code never disappears/changes/gets relicensed, it's their code that you're staking a claim to." This is some very bizarre reasoning. They still have their code. They are still free to do whatever they want with it. If they want my contributions in their product, they made a serious error in their license choice. Maybe they should have used the GPL. But do you know what? They can use my code. They are completely free to use my code. As long as they only use it in GPL software. "I do. Under the MIT license." By saying this, you are saying to me that I am free to re-release your code under the GPL and add my own contributions. If you are not happy with this arrangement, you have made an error in your license choice. I have not made any errors in my license choice. It behaves exactly in the manner I want it to.
    - pbsdp 13y ago
      > By saying this, you are saying to me that I am free to re-release your code under the GPL and add my own contributions. If you are not happy with this arrangement, you have made an error in your license choice. No, I'll remain content with my license agreement, I'll just think that you're a dick. That's OK, though -- some people behaving like dicks is simply the cost of collaborating openly.
      - mike-cardwell 13y ago
        I wasn't attacking your choice. I was explaining what your choice consists of and why I made a different one. If you don't want people to do something particular with your code, yet you choose a license that permits it, then by definition, you chose the wrong license. I'm going to chalk your childish, immature and unprofessional insults down to frustration. And to prevent further noise, I am not going to reply to any further comments made by you.
        pbsdp 13y ago
        I'm not attacking your choice, I'm just saying that according to my ethos, taking BSD licensed code and relicensing under the GPL is: 1) Rude. 2) Simply the cost of doing business under the BSD license.
- pseut 13y ago
  >That's fine. They're happy for me to not share any changes I make with them. They explicitly told me this when they released it under MIT/BSD. That's their choice, and they are free to make it. Thank you for putting it so well. I'm amazed by the number of comments on this page that disparage GPL developers for not sharing reciprocally, while promoting licenses that intentionally don't require reciprocal sharing. It's nuts.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    The GPL developer's idea of sharing is sharing on his terms. The BSD developer's idea of sharing is sharing on the other person's terms. Of course BSD developers would like GPL developers to share on BSD terms instead of GPL terms, and of course GPL developers have no problem whatsoever with BSD developers sharing on GPL terms, because they already do. So it's quite easy to see how from the BSD developer's perspective, GPL developers are greedy. To counter this, the BSD developers don't want to enforce the four freedoms, which is unprincipled from the GPL developer's perspective.
    - pseut 13y ago
      Here's a different perspective. For context, I don't write much general-purpose software, but I am writing one or two free/open textbooks[1,2] (for statistics/econometrics) and I've thought a lot about how they should be licensed. I think the issues are similar. My biggest concern in this project is "abandonment." There are lots of fantastic books that have since been abandoned by their authors and are no longer suitable to assign for a class---sometimes the author died, sometimes they moved onto other projects; a few key chapters might still be relevant, but I can't expect students to buy 9 different textbooks and read one or two chapters from each one. There are even completely free textbooks (Bruce Hansen, an extremely well-respected econometrician, has one[3]), lots of teachers have online lecture notes that are quite good, some of the stuff on MIT's OCW are excellent, etc. But I don't know what anyone's plans are for maintaining those resources, what direction they plan to go, whether they will keep them free in the future, and so on. What I'd really like to do is be able to maintain my own copy of this material so that I can continue to add to it if the original author loses interest, correct typos, etc. For most of these books that's impossible because they aren't licensed for that (even if the book is out of print). But even for Creative Commons books it's not feasible, because they only distribute the pdf. If you look at Hansen's book (link below; it's not CC, but it's representative of the material), you'll see that there's a lot of math in these books, so backing out a human editable version of the text from the binary would be a lot of work. So, I think that there should be free textbooks and I know that textbook projects are often abandoned (or eventually made non-free) by their authors. So it's pretty clear to me that the best way to have there be free textbooks is to write one (unfortunately, since it's a lot of work, but I do have lecture notes from when I've taught these classes as a starting point) and to use a license that entitles anyone who gets a copy of the book to also have a version they can edit and maintain. The GNU Free Documentation License[4] is the only license I know of that does it (it's the GPL of documentation), so I chose it instead of any of the CC licenses. The FDL is more burdensome than I need it to be; if someone prints out a chapter of the book and hands it out to his or her class, I don't really need every student to get a printed version of the FDL (I'm fine with the professor just telling them about the FDL), but on balance I think the license makes the project stronger. No one needs to worry that I'll abandon or derail these books, because the license guarantees that they can fork them (no matter how they originally got a copy of the books). I don't think that people who use CC licenses for educational material are unprincipled. Even though I think that the FDL is a better for projects like mine, it's great that they're making the material widely available (even if I worry that it will eventually be abandoned, the fact that I can redistribute their binaries is very nice); and I definitely don't see why they'd think that I'm greedy for choosing the FDL. [1] http://www.econometricslibrary.org http://www.econometricslibrary.org [2] https://github.com/EconometricsLibrary https://github.com/EconometricsLibrary [3] http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~bhansen/econometrics/ http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~bhansen/econometrics/ [4] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

mike-cardwell 13y ago

"Of course you do. GCC was shared to great effect with Apple." - Obviously when I said "sharing" I was talking about using my code in their products. But you knew this. "Furthermore, when somebody writes MIT/BSD code (for example Apple), they share it with you because you can put it under the GPL. But when you write GPL code, you don't share it with them because they can't relicense it as MIT/BSD code." That's fine. They're happy for me to not share any changes I make with them. They explicitly told me this when they released it under MIT/BSD. That's their choice, and they are free to make it. I wouldn't be happy with that arrangement if it were my code, so I choose a different license. As is my choice. If I spend time working on their code, my changes are going to be released under the GPL, because I don't want my code to be used in closed source software. Where's the problem? So yeah, it sucks that they can't re-use my code. But that's their choice. And I'm assuming they're happy with their choice because of the license they chose. if they weren't happy with this arrangement, they'd have chosen the GPL. [edit] Also, even if I do this, I am still sharing my code with them, as long as they are happy to keep it out of closed source products. If they think it's more important that people can write closed source software with their code, than integrate my code into theirs, that's fine. Again, their choice. Everyone is free to do what they want. Even people who write closed source software. They are free to open up their code to me if they want to use mine.

pbsdp 13y ago
> I wouldn't be happy with that arrangement if it were my code, so I choose a different license. If you're approaching this from an "ethics of sharing" stance, then what what you're actually restricting is somebody else's use of their own code. Your code never disappears/changes/gets relicensed, it's their code that you're staking a claim to. Now, if you're approaching this from a stance of withholding certain valuable rights to your code, such as the ability to be the only person that licenses closed source usage, then the argument is a bit more logical. > They are free to open up their code to me if they want to use mine. I do. Under the MIT license.
- mike-cardwell 13y ago
  "then what what you're actually restricting is somebody else's use of their own code. Your code never disappears/changes/gets relicensed, it's their code that you're staking a claim to." This is some very bizarre reasoning. They still have their code. They are still free to do whatever they want with it. If they want my contributions in their product, they made a serious error in their license choice. Maybe they should have used the GPL. But do you know what? They can use my code. They are completely free to use my code. As long as they only use it in GPL software. "I do. Under the MIT license." By saying this, you are saying to me that I am free to re-release your code under the GPL and add my own contributions. If you are not happy with this arrangement, you have made an error in your license choice. I have not made any errors in my license choice. It behaves exactly in the manner I want it to.
  - pbsdp 13y ago
    > By saying this, you are saying to me that I am free to re-release your code under the GPL and add my own contributions. If you are not happy with this arrangement, you have made an error in your license choice. No, I'll remain content with my license agreement, I'll just think that you're a dick. That's OK, though -- some people behaving like dicks is simply the cost of collaborating openly.
    - mike-cardwell 13y ago
      I wasn't attacking your choice. I was explaining what your choice consists of and why I made a different one. If you don't want people to do something particular with your code, yet you choose a license that permits it, then by definition, you chose the wrong license. I'm going to chalk your childish, immature and unprofessional insults down to frustration. And to prevent further noise, I am not going to reply to any further comments made by you.
      - pbsdp 13y ago
        I'm not attacking your choice, I'm just saying that according to my ethos, taking BSD licensed code and relicensing under the GPL is: 1) Rude. 2) Simply the cost of doing business under the BSD license.
pseut 13y ago
>That's fine. They're happy for me to not share any changes I make with them. They explicitly told me this when they released it under MIT/BSD. That's their choice, and they are free to make it. Thank you for putting it so well. I'm amazed by the number of comments on this page that disparage GPL developers for not sharing reciprocally, while promoting licenses that intentionally don't require reciprocal sharing. It's nuts.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  The GPL developer's idea of sharing is sharing on his terms. The BSD developer's idea of sharing is sharing on the other person's terms. Of course BSD developers would like GPL developers to share on BSD terms instead of GPL terms, and of course GPL developers have no problem whatsoever with BSD developers sharing on GPL terms, because they already do. So it's quite easy to see how from the BSD developer's perspective, GPL developers are greedy. To counter this, the BSD developers don't want to enforce the four freedoms, which is unprincipled from the GPL developer's perspective.
  - pseut 13y ago
    Here's a different perspective. For context, I don't write much general-purpose software, but I am writing one or two free/open textbooks[1,2] (for statistics/econometrics) and I've thought a lot about how they should be licensed. I think the issues are similar. My biggest concern in this project is "abandonment." There are lots of fantastic books that have since been abandoned by their authors and are no longer suitable to assign for a class---sometimes the author died, sometimes they moved onto other projects; a few key chapters might still be relevant, but I can't expect students to buy 9 different textbooks and read one or two chapters from each one. There are even completely free textbooks (Bruce Hansen, an extremely well-respected econometrician, has one[3]), lots of teachers have online lecture notes that are quite good, some of the stuff on MIT's OCW are excellent, etc. But I don't know what anyone's plans are for maintaining those resources, what direction they plan to go, whether they will keep them free in the future, and so on. What I'd really like to do is be able to maintain my own copy of this material so that I can continue to add to it if the original author loses interest, correct typos, etc. For most of these books that's impossible because they aren't licensed for that (even if the book is out of print). But even for Creative Commons books it's not feasible, because they only distribute the pdf. If you look at Hansen's book (link below; it's not CC, but it's representative of the material), you'll see that there's a lot of math in these books, so backing out a human editable version of the text from the binary would be a lot of work. So, I think that there should be free textbooks and I know that textbook projects are often abandoned (or eventually made non-free) by their authors. So it's pretty clear to me that the best way to have there be free textbooks is to write one (unfortunately, since it's a lot of work, but I do have lecture notes from when I've taught these classes as a starting point) and to use a license that entitles anyone who gets a copy of the book to also have a version they can edit and maintain. The GNU Free Documentation License[4] is the only license I know of that does it (it's the GPL of documentation), so I chose it instead of any of the CC licenses. The FDL is more burdensome than I need it to be; if someone prints out a chapter of the book and hands it out to his or her class, I don't really need every student to get a printed version of the FDL (I'm fine with the professor just telling them about the FDL), but on balance I think the license makes the project stronger. No one needs to worry that I'll abandon or derail these books, because the license guarantees that they can fork them (no matter how they originally got a copy of the books). I don't think that people who use CC licenses for educational material are unprincipled. Even though I think that the FDL is a better for projects like mine, it's great that they're making the material widely available (even if I worry that it will eventually be abandoned, the fact that I can redistribute their binaries is very nice); and I definitely don't see why they'd think that I'm greedy for choosing the FDL. [1] http://www.econometricslibrary.org http://www.econometricslibrary.org [2] https://github.com/EconometricsLibrary https://github.com/EconometricsLibrary [3] http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~bhansen/econometrics/ http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~bhansen/econometrics/ [4] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html