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Does it really matter? If a software author wants for people to use/distribute his software under a specific license, that's his prerogative. And the GPL is a

Does it really matter? If a software author wants for people to use/distribute his software under a specific license, that's his prerogative. And the GPL is a truly free and open source license, it does allow you to use it commercially and for whatever reason, it does allow you to create derivates, all it asks is that in case you redistribute a derivate, you must also give the source-code on request. It's not even an EULA, it's just a copyright license. And btw, compared to BSD/MIT, the GPL also contains a patents grant (implicit but powerful enough for version 2, explicit for version 3). And unfortunately in this universe, the big companies contributing to open-source also have really big patents portfolios, therefore I always look suspiciously at code licensed with BSD/MIT. And unfortunately patent trolls are a reality. If you prefer more permissive licenses, then go for the Apache 2.0 ;-)

Karunamon 12y ago
If a software author wants for people to use/distribute his software under a specific license, that's his prerogative. We're discussing the merits of particular licenses, particularly their impact on the software world, so this is kind of tautological, don't you think? In any case, I was not aware of that difference between Apache and BSD, so you have my sincere thanks for pointing that out. I've got a few things on Github to modify methinks...
- bad_user 12y ago
  Well, I wanted to point out that as far as open-source goes, it has a pretty good definition and in the larger scheme of things, the actual open-source license used does not matter, all that matters is to get people to contribute. But people contribute when they've got reasons to do so and many people believe in copyleft. And the GPL is an interesting case, because it happened because its author hated copyright, so he decided to turn it on its head and use it to his advantage. And in a world in which copyright (and other IP laws) keep getting worse, copyleft gets even more relevant. To the issue of whether copyleft did any good versus MIT/BSD, well, would have Apple open-sourced WebKit if it wasn't for KHTML's LGPL license? I'm inclined towards no, but truth is, we'll never know. On GCC on the other hand, its authors not only used GPL, but actually made it hard in the actual code for proprietary extensions to happen. This might have been good 15-20 years ago, when the landscape was dominated by proprietary compilers, but now I consider that we're better off with LLVM taking off.
zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
> Does it really matter? Yes, it does. You set up a pretty big straw man there, allow me to illustrate: "Smoking is bad" "I don't know, I have very good friends who smoke." There is undoubtedly great software that was shipped under the GPL but they became successful because they are great software, not because of the license they use.
- marrs 12y ago
  The only straw man I see in this thread is the one you just set up. If encouraging your project's success is secondary to preserving the freedom to scrutinise, modify, or redistribute its code, then GPL should be considered. Windows is successful by many metrics, but a failure where those freedoms are concerned. Obviously this is a good trade-off for Microsoft. It's not a good trade-off for Linux. Where derivation is concerned, MIT & BSD guarantee diametrically opposed freedoms to the GPL. Which freedoms are more important depends on the intentions of the author, and the nature of the project.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    Freeness is a terrible metric to measure success - who cares if it's freely available if nobody uses it?
    - marrs 12y ago
      That depends on what you're trying to succeed at. If the primary goal is to be free then freeness is the primary measure of success and popularity comes second. The question here is about the choice of licence affecting the success of free software. My argument is that, if success is more likely under an MIT style licence, this still may not be enough to sway me if I want a guarantee that users of my software are able to scrutinize the source code, or that derivatives of my software will remain free.
      - Karunamon 12y ago
        Freeness in of itself is not a goal. Dirt is free. Air is free. I can put a "hello world" app out there and release it under GPL, but is it useful? Does it actually solve any problems?

Karunamon 12y ago

If a software author wants for people to use/distribute his software under a specific license, that's his prerogative. We're discussing the merits of particular licenses, particularly their impact on the software world, so this is kind of tautological, don't you think? In any case, I was not aware of that difference between Apache and BSD, so you have my sincere thanks for pointing that out. I've got a few things on Github to modify methinks...

bad_user 12y ago
Well, I wanted to point out that as far as open-source goes, it has a pretty good definition and in the larger scheme of things, the actual open-source license used does not matter, all that matters is to get people to contribute. But people contribute when they've got reasons to do so and many people believe in copyleft. And the GPL is an interesting case, because it happened because its author hated copyright, so he decided to turn it on its head and use it to his advantage. And in a world in which copyright (and other IP laws) keep getting worse, copyleft gets even more relevant. To the issue of whether copyleft did any good versus MIT/BSD, well, would have Apple open-sourced WebKit if it wasn't for KHTML's LGPL license? I'm inclined towards no, but truth is, we'll never know. On GCC on the other hand, its authors not only used GPL, but actually made it hard in the actual code for proprietary extensions to happen. This might have been good 15-20 years ago, when the landscape was dominated by proprietary compilers, but now I consider that we're better off with LLVM taking off.

zak_mc_kracken 12y ago

> Does it really matter? Yes, it does. You set up a pretty big straw man there, allow me to illustrate: "Smoking is bad" "I don't know, I have very good friends who smoke." There is undoubtedly great software that was shipped under the GPL but they became successful because they are great software, not because of the license they use.

marrs 12y ago
The only straw man I see in this thread is the one you just set up. If encouraging your project's success is secondary to preserving the freedom to scrutinise, modify, or redistribute its code, then GPL should be considered. Windows is successful by many metrics, but a failure where those freedoms are concerned. Obviously this is a good trade-off for Microsoft. It's not a good trade-off for Linux. Where derivation is concerned, MIT & BSD guarantee diametrically opposed freedoms to the GPL. Which freedoms are more important depends on the intentions of the author, and the nature of the project.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  Freeness is a terrible metric to measure success - who cares if it's freely available if nobody uses it?
  - marrs 12y ago
    That depends on what you're trying to succeed at. If the primary goal is to be free then freeness is the primary measure of success and popularity comes second. The question here is about the choice of licence affecting the success of free software. My argument is that, if success is more likely under an MIT style licence, this still may not be enough to sway me if I want a guarantee that users of my software are able to scrutinize the source code, or that derivatives of my software will remain free.
    - Karunamon 12y ago
      Freeness in of itself is not a goal. Dirt is free. Air is free. I can put a "hello world" app out there and release it under GPL, but is it useful? Does it actually solve any problems?