6 ms·

LLVM has a far more "free" license than gcc does. GPLv3 is indeed less "free" than MIT style licenses regardless of what RMS says.

chimeracoder 12y ago
> LLVM has a far more "free" license than gcc does. The Clang/LLVM license is both a free license as defined by the FSF and an open source license as defined by the OSI[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois/NCSA_Open_Source_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois/NCSA_Op...
voidlogic 12y ago
That depends on if you are encouraging "free" for societies interests or "free" for individual/corp interests. GPLv3 encourages the former, but not the later. The two interests almost always come into some degree of conflict (although in many ways are compatible). I view the flamewarz between BSDish and GPLvX licenses as similar in spirit to the arguments between laissez faire capitalism and northern European social capitalism.
- danieldk 12y ago
  For me personally, important reasons for switching from GPL licenses to Apache are: the Apache license I can read and understand; the GPL is vague in many points, leading to multiple interpretations; and license compatibilities between the GPL and other licenses (and between GPL versions/variants). Also, I don't want to force my ideology (I find FLOSS preferable) on other people, while still giving my software away. However, technical reasons such as the above were 50% of my license choice. Given the vagueness of the GPL, I can fully understand that many companies do not want to deal with that, even if they want to contribute to FLOSS in some way.
  - ue_ 12y ago
    What do you find to be vague about the GPL? I've personally never even had to visit the GPL FAQ at gnu.org.
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  I'm not encouraging either just taking the word "free" in the purest sense. GPL has more restrictions than MIT/BSD and thus is less free.
  - jimktrains2 12y ago
    The GPL isn't about the freedom of the dev to do whatever they want, it's about the freedom of the code to always be available. EDIT: Essentially, saying you aren't free because you're not free to kill me without repercussion is absurd. GPL advocates view freedom the same way: You can't do something to hurt me, but that doesn't make you less free.
    - voidlogic 12y ago
      >>The GPL isn't about the freedom of the dev to do whatever they want, it's about the freedom of the code to always be available. This is exactly the conflict I was referring too, thank you.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > The GPL isn't about the freedom of the dev to do whatever they want, it's about the freedom of the code to always be available. The GPL does nothing to assure that code will be available. It does assure that if code is available, then it will also usable under Free terms.
      - jimktrains2 12y ago
        > The GPL does nothing to assure that code will be available. It does assure that if code is available, then it will also usable under Free terms. I do believe you're wrong. If I am using software licensed under the GPL, then the code _must_ be made available. That's the crux of the GPL.
        dragonwriter 12y ago
        > If I am using software licensed under the GPL, then the code _must_ be made available. If you are distributing software under permission of a GPL license (e.g., you aren't the copyright holder) you are required to also make the source code of what you are distributing (which may not include all of the original on which it is based) available. If you are using software that you received that was licensed under the GPL, the source code may or may not be available (it may have been required to be at the moment the software was distributed, but whether it will be later or not is less clear), and the source of the upstream may or may not be available even if the source of what you received is. GPL doesn't keep the source code that it is attached to available, it assures that the software or legal derivatives will not be legally distributed except under terms that make the source code available. This may encourage the source code to remain available (if there are factors encouraging the distribution of the software), or it may not.
- GrinningFool 12y ago
  "That depends on if you are encouraging "free" for societies interests or "free" for individual/corp interests. " I disagree - the definition of software being free to modify and redistribute doesn't change based on the intent of the modifier. There are more restrictions on your freedom to do these things under GPLvX than under Apache/etc. A software author chooses which license based on the desire to encourage societal interests or individual interests, but the underlying meaning of 'free' remains constant.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Myopically considering the individual piece of code, it's easy to say that a permissive license is more free. The question of "what leads to more freedom in total" is more important, and not as easily answered.
    - GrinningFool 12y ago
      Your phrasing implies that invoking more control over the code in a project has the potential to lead to more freedom in total. I'd argue that this is ... if not more myopic, at least a more ego-centric view. That is, it implies that the author knows better than everyone else how to maximize total freedom engendered by his efforts, on the basis of how he or she permits them to be used - instead of allowing others the freedom to make their own choices.
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        We're not talking about arbitrary control; we're talking about one specific set of restrictions designed specifically for the protection of freedom. It's quite possible they fail at that, compared to alternatives, but it is not at all incomprehensible that they might succeed - restricting some behavior often leads to more freedom in general, especially when that behavior involves exercise of power over others. Proof of existence, by example: Selling a knife with a "this can't be used for mugging" clause - in a world where mugging wasn't illegal - restricts the freedom of the purchaser but only when you don't consider those they would impact if they exercised that freedom. To be clear, I'm not saying "selling proprietary software is exactly like mugging"; I'm just saying your general "restrictions always mean less freedom" doesn't hold up. All of this is not to say that I think it's entirely clear that copyleft licenses do lead to more freedom overall. My initial statement was precisely that it's not particularly clear. My personal expectation (which I'd argue for if we want to go down that path but hold weakly in that I consider other views reasonable) is that it varies from case to case.
- namuol 12y ago
  This is really just a terminology thing; I prefer "Libre" vs "Permissive".
yarrel 12y ago
Assertions without evidence etc. ;-)
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  MIT: "heres <product>, do whatever you want with it" GPL: "heres <product>, do whatever you want with it as long as you make all your changes public, oh and theres a ton of rules you need to conform to if you want to distribute <product> with <other_product>" I don't see how a license with MORE restrictions can be seen as free-er.
  - clarry 12y ago
    GPL continued: "and because we came up with all these crazy rules, you'1l probably come across other free software (including ours) whose rules you can't abide by while playing by ours, so you're not permitted to do much to remix and redistribute these two code bases... sorry, you may not! but you're still free! ehehe! you're still free because you're a user and if you're trying to exercise the two or three freedoms that are relevant to developers and distributors, your freedoms no longer matter! you still have these freedoms though, even though you may not!" And if you still want to exercise these freedoms, you're like, you want to kill people ... that's crazy!
    - bronson 12y ago
      I wish you'd said this in a less childish way. The point about GPLv2/v3 conflicts demonstrating how unfree the GPL can be is good, but the post itself is downvotable.
      - clarry 12y ago
        I'm not proud of the way I put it, but I guess that just shows how tired I am of this argument. The same hypocritical claims about GPL being free despite very obviously denying very important freedoms are repeated all over the place, and then I'm a killer and a developer (how evil of me to patch that code for someone!) and all that, because that's the most coherent arguments people can make. Ignoring the actually relevant freedoms at hand and going into meta-discussion about the meaning of freedom and making analogies concerning completely unrelated things (such as killing or otherwise harming) is how they argue when they can't address the problem -- if they don't just flat out say that I don't need that freedom to share or mix code... Yes I'm very tired of it. Life goes on, and I continue not to share a large body of GPLv2 licensed code with anybody because it would be illegal for me to do so. I keep telling them it's because the license is not free, but it just doesn't seem to work.
M2Ys4U 12y ago
It's not about being more or less free. You should ask the question "freedom for whom?" People who use Copyleft licenses want the users of the software to have freedom. People who use permissive licenses want the developers of the software to have freedom.
- diminish 12y ago
  Permissive licenses are good for commercial purposes too in embedding them into proprietary software which is freedom for commercial purposes. That is why legal departments love the freedom given by permissive licenses.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Strictly speaking, copy-left licenses can be applied to commercial purposes. Though certainly there are many purposes with which they are incompatible, and many of those are commercial in nature.
tedks 12y ago
By this logic a dictatorship is the freest form of government. No restrictions!

chimeracoder 12y ago

> LLVM has a far more "free" license than gcc does. The Clang/LLVM license is both a free license as defined by the FSF and an open source license as defined by the OSI[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois/NCSA_Open_Source_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois/NCSA_Op...

voidlogic 12y ago

That depends on if you are encouraging "free" for societies interests or "free" for individual/corp interests. GPLv3 encourages the former, but not the later. The two interests almost always come into some degree of conflict (although in many ways are compatible). I view the flamewarz between BSDish and GPLvX licenses as similar in spirit to the arguments between laissez faire capitalism and northern European social capitalism.

danieldk 12y ago
For me personally, important reasons for switching from GPL licenses to Apache are: the Apache license I can read and understand; the GPL is vague in many points, leading to multiple interpretations; and license compatibilities between the GPL and other licenses (and between GPL versions/variants). Also, I don't want to force my ideology (I find FLOSS preferable) on other people, while still giving my software away. However, technical reasons such as the above were 50% of my license choice. Given the vagueness of the GPL, I can fully understand that many companies do not want to deal with that, even if they want to contribute to FLOSS in some way.
- ue_ 12y ago
  What do you find to be vague about the GPL? I've personally never even had to visit the GPL FAQ at gnu.org.
Igglyboo 12y ago
I'm not encouraging either just taking the word "free" in the purest sense. GPL has more restrictions than MIT/BSD and thus is less free.
- jimktrains2 12y ago
  The GPL isn't about the freedom of the dev to do whatever they want, it's about the freedom of the code to always be available. EDIT: Essentially, saying you aren't free because you're not free to kill me without repercussion is absurd. GPL advocates view freedom the same way: You can't do something to hurt me, but that doesn't make you less free.
  - voidlogic 12y ago
    >>The GPL isn't about the freedom of the dev to do whatever they want, it's about the freedom of the code to always be available. This is exactly the conflict I was referring too, thank you.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > The GPL isn't about the freedom of the dev to do whatever they want, it's about the freedom of the code to always be available. The GPL does nothing to assure that code will be available. It does assure that if code is available, then it will also usable under Free terms.
    - jimktrains2 12y ago
      > The GPL does nothing to assure that code will be available. It does assure that if code is available, then it will also usable under Free terms. I do believe you're wrong. If I am using software licensed under the GPL, then the code _must_ be made available. That's the crux of the GPL.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        > If I am using software licensed under the GPL, then the code _must_ be made available. If you are distributing software under permission of a GPL license (e.g., you aren't the copyright holder) you are required to also make the source code of what you are distributing (which may not include all of the original on which it is based) available. If you are using software that you received that was licensed under the GPL, the source code may or may not be available (it may have been required to be at the moment the software was distributed, but whether it will be later or not is less clear), and the source of the upstream may or may not be available even if the source of what you received is. GPL doesn't keep the source code that it is attached to available, it assures that the software or legal derivatives will not be legally distributed except under terms that make the source code available. This may encourage the source code to remain available (if there are factors encouraging the distribution of the software), or it may not.
GrinningFool 12y ago
"That depends on if you are encouraging "free" for societies interests or "free" for individual/corp interests. " I disagree - the definition of software being free to modify and redistribute doesn't change based on the intent of the modifier. There are more restrictions on your freedom to do these things under GPLvX than under Apache/etc. A software author chooses which license based on the desire to encourage societal interests or individual interests, but the underlying meaning of 'free' remains constant.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Myopically considering the individual piece of code, it's easy to say that a permissive license is more free. The question of "what leads to more freedom in total" is more important, and not as easily answered.
  - GrinningFool 12y ago
    Your phrasing implies that invoking more control over the code in a project has the potential to lead to more freedom in total. I'd argue that this is ... if not more myopic, at least a more ego-centric view. That is, it implies that the author knows better than everyone else how to maximize total freedom engendered by his efforts, on the basis of how he or she permits them to be used - instead of allowing others the freedom to make their own choices.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      We're not talking about arbitrary control; we're talking about one specific set of restrictions designed specifically for the protection of freedom. It's quite possible they fail at that, compared to alternatives, but it is not at all incomprehensible that they might succeed - restricting some behavior often leads to more freedom in general, especially when that behavior involves exercise of power over others. Proof of existence, by example: Selling a knife with a "this can't be used for mugging" clause - in a world where mugging wasn't illegal - restricts the freedom of the purchaser but only when you don't consider those they would impact if they exercised that freedom. To be clear, I'm not saying "selling proprietary software is exactly like mugging"; I'm just saying your general "restrictions always mean less freedom" doesn't hold up. All of this is not to say that I think it's entirely clear that copyleft licenses do lead to more freedom overall. My initial statement was precisely that it's not particularly clear. My personal expectation (which I'd argue for if we want to go down that path but hold weakly in that I consider other views reasonable) is that it varies from case to case.
namuol 12y ago
This is really just a terminology thing; I prefer "Libre" vs "Permissive".

yarrel 12y ago

Assertions without evidence etc. ;-)

Igglyboo 12y ago
MIT: "heres <product>, do whatever you want with it" GPL: "heres <product>, do whatever you want with it as long as you make all your changes public, oh and theres a ton of rules you need to conform to if you want to distribute <product> with <other_product>" I don't see how a license with MORE restrictions can be seen as free-er.
- clarry 12y ago
  GPL continued: "and because we came up with all these crazy rules, you'1l probably come across other free software (including ours) whose rules you can't abide by while playing by ours, so you're not permitted to do much to remix and redistribute these two code bases... sorry, you may not! but you're still free! ehehe! you're still free because you're a user and if you're trying to exercise the two or three freedoms that are relevant to developers and distributors, your freedoms no longer matter! you still have these freedoms though, even though you may not!" And if you still want to exercise these freedoms, you're like, you want to kill people ... that's crazy!
  - bronson 12y ago
    I wish you'd said this in a less childish way. The point about GPLv2/v3 conflicts demonstrating how unfree the GPL can be is good, but the post itself is downvotable.
    - clarry 12y ago
      I'm not proud of the way I put it, but I guess that just shows how tired I am of this argument. The same hypocritical claims about GPL being free despite very obviously denying very important freedoms are repeated all over the place, and then I'm a killer and a developer (how evil of me to patch that code for someone!) and all that, because that's the most coherent arguments people can make. Ignoring the actually relevant freedoms at hand and going into meta-discussion about the meaning of freedom and making analogies concerning completely unrelated things (such as killing or otherwise harming) is how they argue when they can't address the problem -- if they don't just flat out say that I don't need that freedom to share or mix code... Yes I'm very tired of it. Life goes on, and I continue not to share a large body of GPLv2 licensed code with anybody because it would be illegal for me to do so. I keep telling them it's because the license is not free, but it just doesn't seem to work.

M2Ys4U 12y ago

It's not about being more or less free. You should ask the question "freedom for whom?" People who use Copyleft licenses want the users of the software to have freedom. People who use permissive licenses want the developers of the software to have freedom.

diminish 12y ago
Permissive licenses are good for commercial purposes too in embedding them into proprietary software which is freedom for commercial purposes. That is why legal departments love the freedom given by permissive licenses.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Strictly speaking, copy-left licenses can be applied to commercial purposes. Though certainly there are many purposes with which they are incompatible, and many of those are commercial in nature.

tedks 12y ago

By this logic a dictatorship is the freest form of government. No restrictions!