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Da fuck? "Making a program proprietary is an exercise of power." So is releasing source code and limiting what they can do with it. Or forcing them to do extra

Da fuck? "Making a program proprietary is an exercise of power." So is releasing source code and limiting what they can do with it. Or forcing them to do extra things (share source) if they do certain things (modify source). Stallman believes that linking against a DLL constitutes a derived work that would be subject to the GPL's copyleft nature. The legal validity of that belief is unknown. You're free to call that freedom if you like. I'll be over here in a corner considering it an abuse of power. "If we confuse power with freedom, we will fail to uphold real freedom." On that I do not disagree.

naner 12y ago
I'm not really an advocate for the GPL, but I think when people express this sentiment they are going out of their way to misunderstand things. The 'limits' imposed by the GPL just limit people from reducing the freedoms provided to the code that is covered... So it limits your ability to use GPL code to reduce the freedoms of others. In GPL-speak freedom means code transparency while you're defining freedom to mean something else (the ability to do whatever you want with code... including reducing GPL'd code transparency). It sounds convoluted to try and explain this but to me it seems pretty simple and self-explanatory.
- millstone 12y ago
  I honestly don't think it's simple. How can I possibly use GPL code to reduce anyone's freedom? By creating some derivative work? By doing so, I have not diminished your access to anything that already exists! The way I understand it, the GPL guards against the possibility that some non-free derivative work will prove more popular, and so crowd out the free original - "to turn free software proprietary" as the FSF states it. This crowding-out may be a legitimate concern, but it's a subtle one: it's protecting code by preventing a certain class of competition, an act which may not be in the interest of users, who would probably welcome more choices. I can draw an analogy to "poison pill" provisions: they protect the company from takeovers, but often work against the interest of shareholders.
  - monochr 12y ago
    "I honestly don't think it's simple. How can I possibly use GPL code to reduce anyone's freedom? By creating some derivative work? By doing so, I have not diminished your access to anything that already exists!" Suppose you were a farmer that left town for a week or two. In that time I came in, fed your chickens and then took all the resulting eggs. How can the above be theft? I haven't diminished your access to anything you already owned!
    - 72deluxe 12y ago
      Great analogy. I have to avoid GPL and LGPL code like the plague because I have to release close-sourced commercial software for my employer, and look for BSD licensed code for my own software because I have to eat.
      - elsjaako 12y ago
        In the GNU narrative, you are the bad guy. You are depriving your users of freedom by releasing closed-source software. I have heard Stallman literally say that stealing food is bad, but working on proprietary software is worse.
        72deluxe 12y ago
        It's an interesting statement to make! I think both GPL and non-GPL have their merits and good/bad points, but I have worked hard on something and don't want to give it away. Stallman would likely steal the bread that I had taken to put on my table then.
    - Gurkenmaster 12y ago
      It's not theft because you can copy the "chickens" in this case.
    - fractalb 12y ago
      I think the example appears to be in support of GPL. The farmer here compares to whoever releases GPL code and who feeds the chickens are the users of the GPL code. Am I wrong?
- rbanffy 12y ago
  > when people express this sentiment they are going out of their way to misunderstand things. A very wise alien once said: "Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom except the freedom to act irresponsibly." It was a great movie, BTW.
kijin 12y ago
Of course it's an exercise of power. Putting any license whatsoever on any piece of code is an exercise of power. Stallman doesn't refrain from exercising power any more than he refrains from taking advantage of existing copyright law. He just tries to wield his weapons in a way that he thinks will further his ideals. You may, of course, disagree with his ideals, but that doesn't mean that he confuses power with freedom.
aric 12y ago
GPL and copyleft further a cause. It's primarily for increasing user freedom. User freedom isn't developer freedom. It's everyone's freedom, indirectly. You're free to disagree with its agenda. But recognize it as a cause. Other causes seem to be respected or at least understood. No one, for instance, is surprised to see that save-the-whales advocates try to save the whales. They recognize their cause. They may disagree with their cause. They may question why it's a worthy cause. They may think it's a counterproductive cause. Maybe they ultimately love the taste of whale. They may disagree with semantics. That's inevitable. It isn't helpful, however, to exhibit (or feign) ignorance of the nature and motivations that would understand it as a cause. Unfortunately, that's a common habit when it comes to those who argue against GPL. GPL isn't for everyone. It's that simple. For developers who do feel that GPL speaks to their goals, I raise a glass. When possible, I use their software and develop in kind. Why? I agree with that cause. > Stallman believes that linking against a DLL constitutes a derived work that would be subject to the GPL's copyleft nature. Basic software dependencies, with few exceptions, are subject to GPL. Why would anyone expect otherwise?
- zamalek 12y ago
  Nicely put, however, according to GNU.org: > The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). I actually can't do that with GPL code - not because my employer tells me not to but because I know that could get my employer into trouble. With MIT/BSD you run the risk of someone taking the code and never contributing back. With GPL you run the risk of excluding people from the ability to participate. There is no license that encompasses all rights and freedoms because it's probably impossible to create a set of rules that would encompass everyone. Our freedoms are strangely mutually exclusive in some ways. I think forrestthewoods issue with GPL is that it is toted at 'the' way to preserve freedom - where the truth is that it's the way to preserve one form of freedom. That's why I never, ever, say "freedom" when talking about GPL and rather always say "free as in beer."
  - djur 12y ago
    But you only risk getting your employer into trouble because they're committed to releasing proprietary software. The FSF considers proprietary software evil; the GPL inconveniencing developers of such software is a central goal, not collateral damage. Now, if the concern is that you can't modify a GPLed text editor or compiler or browser or other such tool at your workplace, that shouldn't be an issue. Unless you're releasing modified binaries from GPL code, you are under no obligation to distribute your changes to the source.
belorn 12y ago
You are hiding in a corner, seemingly without knowing why the theory exists or what it is. Strange as it might sound, but the theory behind GPL with linking was not made by Stallman. Many years ago Steve Jobs asked Stallman if Apple could link some proprietary compiler software with the GPLed GCC. Stallman initially thought it seemed legal, but asked a lawyer whose expertise in law and legal theory naturally surpassed that of Stallman. The lawyer replied that a judge would look at the final product and ask if it was two separate programs, or whether it was "really" one program with differently labeled parts. This lawyer concluded that the product would most likely be seen as a single program in the eyes of a judge and jury, and thus create a single work, i.e. a derivative work, if Apple's proprietary compiler parts and GCC was combined. This is the basis that forms the legal recommendation that FSF has made regarding copyright and linking. If someone believes that a judge/jury would act differently, they are perfectly free to test it in court. By now it is going to be almost 30 years of industry legal practice in dealing with the question, but in the legal question is as simple as stated above.
quadrangle 12y ago
GPL requirements don't apply to just making modifications. They only apply when you publish the modifications for others to use. In other words, they have no effect on your freedom, they only serve to protect other's freedoms by restricting you from imposing non-free terms on those other recipients of your published code. Admittedly, this does have a clearly negative side-effect: it causes incompatibilities in cases that otherwise would remain free. But even that is not the case for your own modifications you use yourself and don't publish.

naner 12y ago

I'm not really an advocate for the GPL, but I think when people express this sentiment they are going out of their way to misunderstand things. The 'limits' imposed by the GPL just limit people from reducing the freedoms provided to the code that is covered... So it limits your ability to use GPL code to reduce the freedoms of others. In GPL-speak freedom means code transparency while you're defining freedom to mean something else (the ability to do whatever you want with code... including reducing GPL'd code transparency). It sounds convoluted to try and explain this but to me it seems pretty simple and self-explanatory.

millstone 12y ago
I honestly don't think it's simple. How can I possibly use GPL code to reduce anyone's freedom? By creating some derivative work? By doing so, I have not diminished your access to anything that already exists! The way I understand it, the GPL guards against the possibility that some non-free derivative work will prove more popular, and so crowd out the free original - "to turn free software proprietary" as the FSF states it. This crowding-out may be a legitimate concern, but it's a subtle one: it's protecting code by preventing a certain class of competition, an act which may not be in the interest of users, who would probably welcome more choices. I can draw an analogy to "poison pill" provisions: they protect the company from takeovers, but often work against the interest of shareholders.
- monochr 12y ago
  "I honestly don't think it's simple. How can I possibly use GPL code to reduce anyone's freedom? By creating some derivative work? By doing so, I have not diminished your access to anything that already exists!" Suppose you were a farmer that left town for a week or two. In that time I came in, fed your chickens and then took all the resulting eggs. How can the above be theft? I haven't diminished your access to anything you already owned!
  - 72deluxe 12y ago
    Great analogy. I have to avoid GPL and LGPL code like the plague because I have to release close-sourced commercial software for my employer, and look for BSD licensed code for my own software because I have to eat.
    - elsjaako 12y ago
      In the GNU narrative, you are the bad guy. You are depriving your users of freedom by releasing closed-source software. I have heard Stallman literally say that stealing food is bad, but working on proprietary software is worse.
      - 72deluxe 12y ago
        It's an interesting statement to make! I think both GPL and non-GPL have their merits and good/bad points, but I have worked hard on something and don't want to give it away. Stallman would likely steal the bread that I had taken to put on my table then.
  - Gurkenmaster 12y ago
    It's not theft because you can copy the "chickens" in this case.
  - fractalb 12y ago
    I think the example appears to be in support of GPL. The farmer here compares to whoever releases GPL code and who feeds the chickens are the users of the GPL code. Am I wrong?
rbanffy 12y ago
> when people express this sentiment they are going out of their way to misunderstand things. A very wise alien once said: "Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom except the freedom to act irresponsibly." It was a great movie, BTW.

kijin 12y ago

Of course it's an exercise of power. Putting any license whatsoever on any piece of code is an exercise of power. Stallman doesn't refrain from exercising power any more than he refrains from taking advantage of existing copyright law. He just tries to wield his weapons in a way that he thinks will further his ideals. You may, of course, disagree with his ideals, but that doesn't mean that he confuses power with freedom.

aric 12y ago

GPL and copyleft further a cause. It's primarily for increasing user freedom. User freedom isn't developer freedom. It's everyone's freedom, indirectly. You're free to disagree with its agenda. But recognize it as a cause. Other causes seem to be respected or at least understood. No one, for instance, is surprised to see that save-the-whales advocates try to save the whales. They recognize their cause. They may disagree with their cause. They may question why it's a worthy cause. They may think it's a counterproductive cause. Maybe they ultimately love the taste of whale. They may disagree with semantics. That's inevitable. It isn't helpful, however, to exhibit (or feign) ignorance of the nature and motivations that would understand it as a cause. Unfortunately, that's a common habit when it comes to those who argue against GPL. GPL isn't for everyone. It's that simple. For developers who do feel that GPL speaks to their goals, I raise a glass. When possible, I use their software and develop in kind. Why? I agree with that cause. > Stallman believes that linking against a DLL constitutes a derived work that would be subject to the GPL's copyleft nature. Basic software dependencies, with few exceptions, are subject to GPL. Why would anyone expect otherwise?

zamalek 12y ago
Nicely put, however, according to GNU.org: > The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). I actually can't do that with GPL code - not because my employer tells me not to but because I know that could get my employer into trouble. With MIT/BSD you run the risk of someone taking the code and never contributing back. With GPL you run the risk of excluding people from the ability to participate. There is no license that encompasses all rights and freedoms because it's probably impossible to create a set of rules that would encompass everyone. Our freedoms are strangely mutually exclusive in some ways. I think forrestthewoods issue with GPL is that it is toted at 'the' way to preserve freedom - where the truth is that it's the way to preserve one form of freedom. That's why I never, ever, say "freedom" when talking about GPL and rather always say "free as in beer."
- djur 12y ago
  But you only risk getting your employer into trouble because they're committed to releasing proprietary software. The FSF considers proprietary software evil; the GPL inconveniencing developers of such software is a central goal, not collateral damage. Now, if the concern is that you can't modify a GPLed text editor or compiler or browser or other such tool at your workplace, that shouldn't be an issue. Unless you're releasing modified binaries from GPL code, you are under no obligation to distribute your changes to the source.

belorn 12y ago

You are hiding in a corner, seemingly without knowing why the theory exists or what it is. Strange as it might sound, but the theory behind GPL with linking was not made by Stallman. Many years ago Steve Jobs asked Stallman if Apple could link some proprietary compiler software with the GPLed GCC. Stallman initially thought it seemed legal, but asked a lawyer whose expertise in law and legal theory naturally surpassed that of Stallman. The lawyer replied that a judge would look at the final product and ask if it was two separate programs, or whether it was "really" one program with differently labeled parts. This lawyer concluded that the product would most likely be seen as a single program in the eyes of a judge and jury, and thus create a single work, i.e. a derivative work, if Apple's proprietary compiler parts and GCC was combined. This is the basis that forms the legal recommendation that FSF has made regarding copyright and linking. If someone believes that a judge/jury would act differently, they are perfectly free to test it in court. By now it is going to be almost 30 years of industry legal practice in dealing with the question, but in the legal question is as simple as stated above.

quadrangle 12y ago

GPL requirements don't apply to just making modifications. They only apply when you publish the modifications for others to use. In other words, they have no effect on your freedom, they only serve to protect other's freedoms by restricting you from imposing non-free terms on those other recipients of your published code. Admittedly, this does have a clearly negative side-effect: it causes incompatibilities in cases that otherwise would remain free. But even that is not the case for your own modifications you use yourself and don't publish.