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The BSD advertising clause has been dead for years, and it was primarily incompatible with ... the GPL. The GPL is incompatible with licenses that impose more

by pbsdp 13y ago

The BSD advertising clause has been dead for years, and it was primarily incompatible with ... the GPL. The GPL is incompatible with licenses that impose more restrictions than it does, even if those restrictions are fairly limited, like the advertising clause. I can't say I've ever heard of license incompatibility stupidity outside of the GPL. Lots of GPL problems, though: OpenSSL, dtrace, ZFS. Apple actually dropped GCC and invested in producing the liberally licensed clang BECAUSE of the GPLv3.

spacelizard 13y ago
It's a bit strange that you blame then GPL when it is just as much the authors of the incompatible licenses' fault, especially when in some cases it's completely their fault because the authors of those licenses deliberately wrote them with the intent of being incompatible with the GPL. Additionally I find it strange that you fault the values of the GPLv3 for Apple ditching gcc, rather than faulting Apple for being an abusive proprietary company that has problems with the values that the GPLv3 imposes. As if the FSF should be working to please Apple?
- pbsdp 13y ago
  Everyone else gets along; GPL is the outlier.
  - spacelizard 13y ago
    No, if you'll re-read my post you'll see how I described that even if you view this issue in a vacuum, the other parties are still at fault as well. Apple especially does not want you to "get along," and especially not if you're releasing something on their app store. Now please stop this blind hatred and FUD spreading, it's not constructive.
    - pbsdp 13y ago
      Apple implemented a full AOT/JIT/Disassembler (LLVM), debugger (lldb), static code analyzer (clang), C and C compiler (clang), and c++11 stdlib, all under a free MIT-like OSS license. There all built as libraries, can be linked against to build IDEs, JITs, etc etc etc. So how is it that they don't get along, exactly?
      - spacelizard 13y ago
        That instance is fine. It certainly is nice that they released it under a free software license, it would have been better if they used copyleft, but there is nothing wrong with the license they chose. They part where they don't want you to "get along" is the part where they distribute proprietary software, sell devices with proprietary hardware locks, forbid use of the GPL (and other free software licenses) on their app store, etc. See this blog entry for an example of how this has specifically applied in one case to some FSF-copyrighted GNU software: https://www.fsf.org/news/2010-05-app-store-compliance https://www.fsf.org/news/2010-05-app-store-compliance
        pbsdp 13y ago
        Why would it be better if LLVM and clang were copyleft? Then it couldn't be used in other products as a library, and the entire industry would be set back to where we were with GCC in the first place -- unable to fully leverage our tools to push the state of the art forward.
        spacelizard 13y ago
        It could be used as a library as long as the other projects also made their software copyleft. The goal of copyleft is freedom for the users, not "pushing the state of the art forward." If they reject certain software because of copyleft they aren't being denied freedom, they were offered freedom and they refused.
        pbsdp 13y ago
        > It could be used as a library as long as the other projects also made their software copyleft. That never happened. On the other hand, LLVM has lead to a tool renaissance. > The goal of copyleft is freedom for the users, not "pushing the state of the art forward." Users already have that freedom. They can simply refuse to use proprietary software. They don't require a paternalistic GPL license to 'enforce' a freedom they already had.

by pbsdp 13y ago

spacelizard 13y ago

It's a bit strange that you blame then GPL when it is just as much the authors of the incompatible licenses' fault, especially when in some cases it's completely their fault because the authors of those licenses deliberately wrote them with the intent of being incompatible with the GPL. Additionally I find it strange that you fault the values of the GPLv3 for Apple ditching gcc, rather than faulting Apple for being an abusive proprietary company that has problems with the values that the GPLv3 imposes. As if the FSF should be working to please Apple?

pbsdp 13y ago
Everyone else gets along; GPL is the outlier.
- spacelizard 13y ago
  No, if you'll re-read my post you'll see how I described that even if you view this issue in a vacuum, the other parties are still at fault as well. Apple especially does not want you to "get along," and especially not if you're releasing something on their app store. Now please stop this blind hatred and FUD spreading, it's not constructive.
  - pbsdp 13y ago
    Apple implemented a full AOT/JIT/Disassembler (LLVM), debugger (lldb), static code analyzer (clang), C and C compiler (clang), and c++11 stdlib, all under a free MIT-like OSS license. There all built as libraries, can be linked against to build IDEs, JITs, etc etc etc. So how is it that they don't get along, exactly?
    - spacelizard 13y ago
      That instance is fine. It certainly is nice that they released it under a free software license, it would have been better if they used copyleft, but there is nothing wrong with the license they chose. They part where they don't want you to "get along" is the part where they distribute proprietary software, sell devices with proprietary hardware locks, forbid use of the GPL (and other free software licenses) on their app store, etc. See this blog entry for an example of how this has specifically applied in one case to some FSF-copyrighted GNU software: https://www.fsf.org/news/2010-05-app-store-compliance https://www.fsf.org/news/2010-05-app-store-compliance
      - pbsdp 13y ago
        Why would it be better if LLVM and clang were copyleft? Then it couldn't be used in other products as a library, and the entire industry would be set back to where we were with GCC in the first place -- unable to fully leverage our tools to push the state of the art forward.
        spacelizard 13y ago
        It could be used as a library as long as the other projects also made their software copyleft. The goal of copyleft is freedom for the users, not "pushing the state of the art forward." If they reject certain software because of copyleft they aren't being denied freedom, they were offered freedom and they refused.
        pbsdp 13y ago
        > It could be used as a library as long as the other projects also made their software copyleft. That never happened. On the other hand, LLVM has lead to a tool renaissance. > The goal of copyleft is freedom for the users, not "pushing the state of the art forward." Users already have that freedom. They can simply refuse to use proprietary software. They don't require a paternalistic GPL license to 'enforce' a freedom they already had.