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The GPL does offer a deal, but its dishonest to call it 'freedom'.

• gillianseed 13y ago
  The GPL 'freedom' is not that of freedom from licence conditions, it's about the freedom(s) given to the end user(s) through to these licence conditions. Personally I've always thought that it would be better if they just used the term 'rights' which is what the GPL conditions actually grant the end user, I can't say I find the wording 'dishonest' though, just a poor choice.
  • pbsdp 13y ago
    The license grants rights and imposes limitations. One of those limitations prevents users from mixing code freely. Users already had the right to not use proprietary products; what the GPL has actually done is to take away their right to use your code with a proprietary product. As such, you've granted users fewer rights as compared to liberal open source licenses, not more.
    • jallmann 13y ago
      Users -- those who are actually interacting with a running version of the software -- lose nothing with the GPL. On the contrary, their rights to the code are secured. Developers -- those who modify and redistribute the software, in binary form or otherwise -- do indeed have restrictions designed to protect the rights of users. So yes, the GPL does impose restrictions in specific cases to secure rights in the general case.
      • deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      • pbsdp 13y ago
        > Users -- those who are actually interacting with a running version of the software -- lose nothing with the GPL. On the contrary, their rights to the code are secured. They've been denied the 'right' to use proprietary extensions to the software. Those extensions may provide more benefit to the user than the open source software alone: see also, Mac OS X. That's no less real a 'right' than the 'right' to have access to the source code, which is something they've never lost because open-source always remains open-source, and they remain free to only use open-source software. > So yes, the GPL does impose restrictions in specific cases to secure rights in the general case. Those rights are already secured, because nobody forces users to use proprietary software. If they only want to use software where code is available, they have every right to do so.
        • jallmann 13y ago
          You are, once again, either misunderstanding or willfully misrepresenting everything that's being said. Users aren't being denied anything, because proprietary software doesn't exist under the GPL. Developers and distributors do lose the chance to keep their code closed. The GPL protects users, not developers. You seem to think downstream developers have an entitlement to release proprietary software, even if it goes against the wishes of the original authors. News flash: devs aren't forced to use GPL'd software, either. If you want to keep your software proprietary, you're free to use something under another license, or write something under your own copyright. Really, it's not even about being "open source" per se; the motivations of the GPL go much deeper than simply making the code available. But you obviously don't agree with those, from the other thread.
          • foobarbazqux 13y ago
            Are users of GPL software able to combine it with proprietary plugins?
            • jallmann 13y ago
              Plugins are where it gets weird. Technically there should not be proprietary plugins at all with the GPL, but it might depend on the interface or manner of linking (eg, would a HTTP-based "plugin" API be considered a derivative work?). For some cases, licensing the original software under LGPL may be sufficient to support proprietary plugins. Ultimately it's a judgement call by the original author and what use-cases or freedoms he/she wishes to support. Hopefully they've thought that far ahead, though. It's not an easy question for the majority of the population that doesn't quite lean as far as RMS does.
            • icebraining 13y ago
              Yes. The GPL doesn't restrict usage, only redistribution.
              • foobarbazqux 13y ago
• icebraining 13y ago
  No, it's just a different perspective on freedom. "[A]ll men may be restrained from invading another's rights and from doing harm to one another, and [this] law of nature... which wills the peace and preservation of all mankind... is... put into every man's hands, whereby everyone has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree as may hinder its violation" -- John Locke, Second Treatise of Government