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The article is right - demand freedom from free! I've been working with open-source software for 15 years. Very early on it was clear to me that GPL is not ver
by apinstein 17y ago
The article is right - demand freedom from free!
I've been working with open-source software for 15 years. Very early on it was clear to me that GPL is not very compatible with commercial enterprises, for exactly the reasons specified in the article.
It is a waste of time having to evaluate or code around the ability to use/ship GPL software with your own commercial stack. A waste of time.
OTOH, all my MIT/BSD code happily works perfectly without a thought or worry about legal ramifications. MYSQL is for me the canonical example of the crap that goes on with GPL software.
All of the open-source software I produce is MIT/BSD style.
I don't have any problem with FSF wanting there to be tons of GPL software. It's just not useful for me. There are clearly some social goods from GPL software -- knowing it has to be virally free is useful to that stack of software. It just doesn't play nice enough with non-FREE software to be very useful to commercial interests.
- pingswept 17y agoYour response is interesting to me. I agree with almost everything you wrote, but all of the open-source software I produce is GPL'd. I think the difference is that you want your software to be useful to commercial interests, while I don't. I've gotten a lot of benefit from what you call the GPL "stack of software," and I'd rather advance that than the commercial stack that I (mostly) can't afford to use.
- camccann 17y agoGPL is not very compatible with commercial enterprises that sell software, I think you mean. It's perfectly compatible with commercial enterprises that only need to use software that lets them get on with their actual business. In fact, it has certain strategic advantages in this case; after all, the explicit purpose of the GPL is to maximize freedom for end users, not developers.