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I've worked at Microsoft and can attest that while it's OK to use open source tools internally the IP lawyers don't want anyone touching GPL v3 tools to do anyt

• steveklabnik 12y ago
  Well, the GPLv3 is probably helping open source, and harming free software ;) I would disagree with this stance though. The aim of free software is a moral one, it has nothing to do with being the most-used or the most popular.
  • snorkel 12y ago
    Sure free software has moral agenda, but imagine you work for a big company and you can't use a lot great open source tools at your job because the license is deliberately crafted to scare and challenge the IP lawyers of any software company.
    • serf 12y ago
      >imagine you work for a big company and you can't use a lot great open source tools at your job that's Big Company's fault. As an employee you'd take your complaint to them. The license is not "deliberately crafted to scare and challenge IP lawyers", it's designed to avoid the shitty tactics that some tech companys' have been using the past few years to make their primary profits : mass IP buyups and subsequent lawsuits towards all of the other members of the industry.
• sauere 12y ago
  > So yes, GPL 3 is hurting open source more than helping it. The GPL and the organization behind it, the Free Software Foundation, do not care about "open source". They care about free Software, free as in freedom. /edit: before i get a ton of downvotes: i don't fully agree with with the FSFs policies or definition of "free softare", im just pointing it out.
  • EduardoBautista 12y ago
    Yet they restrict what you can do with their software. True freedom comes from licenses like MIT and BSD.
    • AlexMax 12y ago
      The FSF prioritizes user freedom over programmer freedom. Neither one of them is "True freedom".
      • Joeri 12y ago
        I don't think the FSF distinguishes between users and programmers. To them a user has the right to be a programmer on any piece of the software, and the license reflects this.
        • cmsj 12y ago
          Yup. FSF's licenses are rooted in copyright, they say nothing about users, only distributors, because usage doesn't involve copying. AGPL would be a notable exception though. The GPL licenses give users freedom by forcing distributors to behave in certain ways.
      • deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
    • lambda 12y ago
      The GPL is designed to preserve the end-user's freedom. In order to do that, it only grants other distributors the right to copy it if they agree to grant the same rights to others they distribute it to. Under copyright law with no license at all you would have no right to copy it at all; the GPL grants you additional rights, but only if you do the same in turn. Complaining that that restricts your freedom is like complaining that it restricts your freedom to go to a country that forbids kidnapping. Sure, in stateless areas with no effective government, you may have the additional freedom to kidnap someone else, denying them their freedom. But on the whole, laws against kidnapping (or false imprisonment, or the like) are their to preserve freedom. Likewise, the additional freedom that the MIT or BSD licenses grant you is the ability to deny other users the freedom to use and modify your works derived from the code. Can we please stop having the argument that BSD or MIT give more "true freedom" than the GPL? The only additional freedom they give you is the ability to apply more restrictions to other people. Now, you may not want to make the deal that the GPL makes, trading your code for a promise that other people who distribute it continue to offer the same freedoms that you offer. You may not really care what restrictions other people place on it, or on their modifications to it, after you've released it. You may even want to have the ability to collaborate with those who use their software licensing to restrict end user freedom. Or you may not want to deal with license compatibility headaches. But arguing that "true freedom" comes from license like BSD or MIT, and not the GPL, is ridiculous; the GPL is designed to ensure that the software and all modifications to it will always remain free, while liberal licenses simply allow people to redistribute it with more restrictions, making the ecosystem less free, not more. The GPL, MIT, BSD, and any other license that meets the requirements of the free software definition, Debian free software guidelines, or open source definition, are all "truly free," they just differ in whether they attempt to preserve that freedom transitively or not.
• wcummings 12y ago
  >So yes, GPL 3 is hurting open source more than helping it. The Linux kernel would not be the success it is without a viral license
  • mbreese 12y ago
    And the Linux kernel stuck with GPL v2 for a reason...
    • AnthonyMouse 12y ago
      > And the Linux kernel stuck with GPL v2 for a reason... ...which is that they've never required copyright assignment, so changing the license would require the consent of everyone who has ever contributed.
      • lambda 12y ago
        Well, and Linus would never agree to move to the GPLv3 even if that were an option (assuming that copyright were assigned to him or an organization he had a controlling voice in). In his opinion, the GPLv2 is the perfect license, and he doesn't like the additional restrictions imposed by the GPLv3. I don't necessarily agree with him, but based on his influence in the kernel community, it would be pretty hard to change the license over his objections.
        • AnthonyMouse 12y ago
          Looking at the opinions of specific individuals is kind of missing the point. Theo de Raadt and Bill Gates don't much care for GPLv3 either. Ask it a different way: How many popular GNU/Linux distributions have zero GPLv3 binaries in them? I expect Linus has GPLv3 software on his own machine.
          • lambda 12y ago
            Theo de Raadt and Bill Gates don't much care for GPLv3 either. Right, and so like Linus and the Linux kernel, that's why they don't ship code under the GPLv3. I'm sure Linus does have GPLv3 running on his machine. He doesn't mind using the license, as it doesn't constrain him as a user in any way that he objects to. But he doesn't ship his own software under that license. I wasn't saying anything about the relevance of his opinion, to anything other than the kernel license himself. You had asserted that the kernel hadn't moved to the GPLv3 because of lack of copyright assignment; and I was just pointing out that in addition to that, the lead developer of the kernel personally dislikes the GPLv3, so even if he had the ability to change license, he probably would not have. Personally, I'm pretty happy with the GPLv3. I wish more developers would release code under it, instead of more liberal licenses, to help defeat things that I find unpleasant like Tivoization and software patents. But not everyone shares my opinion, and Linus's opinion carries a lot more weight than mine as the leader of the kernel project.
• AlexMax 12y ago
  > So yes, GPL 3 is hurting open source more than helping it. Why is it bad for the FSF to prioritize their interests ahead of Apple and Microsoft's?
  • snorkel 12y ago
    There's a strong willingness to adopt open source tools in every large company but GPL 3 is poisoning the well, and that's impeding universal adoption of the open source ecosystem. Sure FSF doesn't care, and that's unfortunate, because that stance is actually keeping proprietary enterprise software on life support. Unintended consequences I suppose.
    • belorn 12y ago
      GPL prevents DRM and patents. In what way is those two good for the open source ecosystem? Let me release a open source driver for hardware that you can't modify, and if you distribute it I will sue you for patent infringement. Since I have now donated to the open source ecosystem, I expect money, time and rewards to be sent to me for this great deed.
• cpach 12y ago
  FreeBSD et al seem to be doing fine without GPL 3.
• AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  > I've worked at Microsoft and can attest that while it's OK to use open source tools internally the IP lawyers don't want anyone touching GPL v3 tools to do anything. That's because they're Microsoft. > I imagine Apple and other proprietary software publishers have the same mandate to their troops. I have yet to hear any rational justification for this, yet people keep repeating it.
  • lambda 12y ago
    While Apple has not publicly said anything about it, it's pretty clear from their actions that they consider touching anything under the GPLv3 verboten. Every single piece of software that has new releases under the GPLv3 they have stopped updating. A few of the most important ones, like GCC, GDB, and Samba, they've even gone as far as to pour substantial amounts of money and effort into funding replacements (clang, lldb, Apple's smbd). Others that they don't consider very important they've just let languish, like bash, make, and other GNU utilities that they include on their systems.
    • AnthonyMouse 12y ago
      Yes, but why? Is there an actual reason or is it just politics? If "everybody is doing it" then either somebody knows why or it's a cargo cult.
      • lambda 12y ago
        Sorry, are you asking why Apple and Microsoft do not allow distribution of GPLv3 licensed packages? Given that they haven't made any public statements about it, it's hard to say with certainty; you can only speculate. But the major things that the GPLv3 changed, which companies like Apple and Microsoft are likely to object to, are the anti-Tivoization clauses, the patent license clauses, and the "no effective DRM" clauses. If you check the information about what changed in GPLv3 (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html), those were pretty much the only extra restrictions added. The anti-Tivoization clause says that if you distribute the software along with hardware, you must also distribute (or provide users with a way to change) any keys that are necessary for users to run their own modified version of software on that hardware. Given that both Apple and Microsoft ship locked down phones that don't allow users to modify their software, and are increasingly moving towards locked-down App Store models even on desktop and laptop computers, they may not want to risk every being obliged to follow that requirement. The patent grant clause is likely the one that worries them the most. That says that if you distribute the software, and your distribution of the software relies on patents that you either hold or license from someone else, you must either pass along the rights in those licenses (if possible), or give up the patent license (that is, if you have licensed a patent from someone but don't have the ability to transfer that license to downstream recipients, than you may only distribute the software if you give up that patent license, putting you and your users on equal footing if the holder of the patent decides to enforce it). The DRM clause may also bother them, but I doubt that they would avoid using software due to it, since it only applies to software which is itself used as part of a DRM system, saying that it can't be considered an effective technological measure (as the other freedoms provided by the GPL allow users to replace it), and so none of the legally enforced restrictions on removing DRM can apply. Since that only applies to code that is used as part of a DRM system itself, I don't think that would cause them particular problems, as long as they avoid linking any of their DRM systems to GPLed code, but there may be cases in which it would come up. Anyhow, I can't really say which of these is the reason that they don't allow it, as they have never made any public statements about that. My guess would be the patent clause, followed by the Tivoization clause, followed by the DRM cluase, in order of importance.
• brymaster 12y ago
  > So yes, GPL 3 is hurting open source more than helping it. It comes at no surprise that Microsoft, a company that vehemently spoke out against Free and Open Source Software for so long, would have these views. GPL'd code is about keeping that code open source forever. Hence clauses in GPLv3 like anti-Tivoization. Little sympathy for companies that want to take without giving back.
  • snorkel 12y ago
    I don't speak for Microsoft. I can only say there was plenty of willingness to use and contribute to open source but the whole GPL 3 question makes that confusing.
    • serf 12y ago
      contributions to the FOSS community are worth very little if strangled by licensing that will hinder their future free use. I'd much rather have a slower adoption rate than a project that is botched legally (and irreparably) down the line.
• belorn 12y ago
  Before GPLv3, Microsoft extorted millions from companies by threatening them with undisclosed patents that claimed to cover all linux distributions. GPLv3 was explicitly drafted to prevent this, and as by magic, Microsoft stop issuing the threats as soon the new license was released. So no, GPL 3 is not hurting open source. It prevented a racketeering from Micosoft that was unethical, legally grey zone then, illegal today, and direct harmful to open source in every possible way.