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> there are very few permissively licensed projects which aim at end users. Lack of citation and data noted. I'm assuming good faith and going to approach thi

by anon3_ 11y ago

> there are very few permissively licensed projects which aim at end users. Lack of citation and data noted. I'm assuming good faith and going to approach this as I would a fellow colleague :) I'm also going to assume you perhaps haven't been introduced to the vibrant ecosystem of permissive licensed software. The article also doesn't mention how GPL is a show-stopper at some companies where we are building proprietary solutions. Oracle, IBM, Sony, Apple, Microsoft, Boeing all are monetized empires that profit not just from binary blobs, but from providing a superior product. Also, being the patent holder is lucrative. How do you intend on running a business and feeding your employees, let alone making investors happy following the virtues of GPL? Consulting and support only goes so far. > Most of them are stepping stones towards further software development. Ever hear of DragonEgg? (GCC was used to bootstrap LLVM/clang in it's early days.) Devs use GPL software to write permissive software. Sometimes they do so because they have no choice but to reinvent the wheel because of GPL's rules.

dublinben 11y ago
>providing the user with the best products You've completely missed the point of the article, and the entire purpose of Free Software, if you think this is about 'providing users with products' and generating a return on investment.
- gress 11y ago
  If you don't want to generate a return on the investment of your time, it means you have an alternate source of wealth. Most of us do not have that luxury, and therefore cannot share in the vision of Free Software.
- anon3_ 11y ago
  > if you think this is about 'providing users with products' and generating a return on investment. In who's eyes? Consumers want the best product. Investors want a payout. How does GPL satisfy either of these? GPL doesn't have the nimbleness to be viable with the market. It doesn't respect creativity and time of developers or investors - leaving consumers left to pick a proprietary / permissive alternative. You don't need to be GPL to be open: You can MIT/BSD/Apache and still volunteer to not give out binary blobs [1] [1] https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=491435 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=491435
  - __david__ 11y ago
    > You don't need to be GPL to be open: You can MIT/BSD/Apache and still volunteer to not give out binary blobs That's fine but it's only one level deep. What about the people that download your source and accept the terms of your license? They are totally free to make binary blobs and refuse to give source to their downloaders or their changes back to you. The GPL directly addresses that and keeps the code free, no matter who gets it from who. It's really the only way to guarantee software freedom.
  - yarrel 11y ago
    Consumers get better software Investors want a quicker payout. That's basically the economic argument for Open Source. How does the GPL support this better than complicit licenses? You'll have to pay me to find out. Because market.
LoSboccacc 11y ago
even if I work at a startup and I can do what the hell I want, I still go with lgpl, mit or bsd and stay miles from gpl gpl is just annoying to deal with, especially v3. downvote edit: fanboy gotta fanboy. it's not like downvoting can change my previous experiences.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  Why is v3 more annoying for you than v2?
  - SomeCallMeTim 11y ago
    Can't speak for commenter above, but v3 has a "patent license" clause that is literally impossible for any large company to comply with. Not just difficult or undesirable, but impossible. GPLv3 requires you to offer a free license of any patent you have a license to that might apply to the GPLv3 software to anyone who might want to use that software. Almost any large company has at one time or another purchased broad patent licenses that cannot be sublicensed. So GPLv3 is an absolute non-starter for any large company. You want to doom a product, license it under GPLv3. It may not instantly kill it, but it will slowly strangle it.
    - LoSboccacc 11y ago
      it is also more difficult to demonstrate project independence. if two bits touch, GPLv3 spreads. v2 at least is worded in a way that allows non spreading if you can demonstrate the functionality can be replaced by a third party lib without altering the software functionality also it makes unnecessarily hard to comply. in GPLv2 it was quite easy to determine who was an user and who was entitled to receive the code. GPLv3 makes this unnecessarily difficult because it overreacted at previous GPLv2 shortcoming. Think for example deploying on a kiosk.
      - JupiterMoon 11y ago
        > Think for example deploying on a kiosk. I thought that it depended upon who owns the kiosk and if software upgrades are a normal part of its operation?
JupiterMoon 11y ago
> how GPL is a show-stopper at some companies where we are building proprietary solutions Is this not one of the the main purposes of the GPL? To prevent companies taking the users freedom by "building proprietary solutions". > It also fails to mention that sometimes providing the user with the best products means protecting the investment and creative effort painstakingly poured into development of a product. Nope it doesn't fail to mention this. Your opinion here is totally orthogonal to the original premise of the free software movement (and of the GPL). The GPL was written on the premise that users are better off with objectively worse performing software that maintain the four freedoms. You probably disagree with me on whether software freedom is more important than software quality but it is important to understand the basis of our disagreement first.
pwny 11y ago
> The article also doesn't mention how GPL is a show-stopper at some companies where we are building proprietary solutions. > Oracle, IBM, Sony, Apple, Microsoft, Boeing all are monetized empires that profit not just from binary blobs, but from providing a superior product. Also, being the patent holder is lucrative. I'm really not a huge fan of the GPL but you have to realize those are by design. To a supporter of the license, that's actually a plus. > How do you intend on running a business and feeding your employees, let alone making investors happy following the virtues of GPL? Consulting and support only goes so far. If the GPL doesn't fit your business plan, just don't use it. Do you see Open-Source projects using leaked closed-source code (or complaining that they can't do so)? No one is preventing companies from rewriting equivalent code and the authors had the right to select whatever terms they wanted when they created their project. It's their creative output after all.
- anon3_ 11y ago
  We also have lives to live - limited resources, money, and days on Earth. It's more intricate that the way you view it outside the world of academics, non-profits and eurozone states with social benefits that give you the freetime to do that. If you're open to knowing more, I could elaborate.
jessaustin 11y ago
> there are very few permissively licensed projects which aim at end users. Lack of citation and data noted. Four sentences later in TFA: But when I think of projects I use every day which are programs I actually run (for example, as an artist I use Blender, Gimp and Inkscape regularly), most of these are under the GPL. Those are three major data points. Do you have any data or citations to contribute?
ben0x539 11y ago
> I'm assuming good faith and going to approach this as I would a fellow colleague :) Wow, this is the most passive-aggressive display of good faith I've seen so far.

by anon3_ 11y ago

dublinben 11y ago

>providing the user with the best products You've completely missed the point of the article, and the entire purpose of Free Software, if you think this is about 'providing users with products' and generating a return on investment.

gress 11y ago
If you don't want to generate a return on the investment of your time, it means you have an alternate source of wealth. Most of us do not have that luxury, and therefore cannot share in the vision of Free Software.
anon3_ 11y ago
> if you think this is about 'providing users with products' and generating a return on investment. In who's eyes? Consumers want the best product. Investors want a payout. How does GPL satisfy either of these? GPL doesn't have the nimbleness to be viable with the market. It doesn't respect creativity and time of developers or investors - leaving consumers left to pick a proprietary / permissive alternative. You don't need to be GPL to be open: You can MIT/BSD/Apache and still volunteer to not give out binary blobs [1] [1] https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=491435 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=491435
- __david__ 11y ago
  > You don't need to be GPL to be open: You can MIT/BSD/Apache and still volunteer to not give out binary blobs That's fine but it's only one level deep. What about the people that download your source and accept the terms of your license? They are totally free to make binary blobs and refuse to give source to their downloaders or their changes back to you. The GPL directly addresses that and keeps the code free, no matter who gets it from who. It's really the only way to guarantee software freedom.
- yarrel 11y ago
  Consumers get better software Investors want a quicker payout. That's basically the economic argument for Open Source. How does the GPL support this better than complicit licenses? You'll have to pay me to find out. Because market.

LoSboccacc 11y ago

even if I work at a startup and I can do what the hell I want, I still go with lgpl, mit or bsd and stay miles from gpl gpl is just annoying to deal with, especially v3. downvote edit: fanboy gotta fanboy. it's not like downvoting can change my previous experiences.

JupiterMoon 11y ago
Why is v3 more annoying for you than v2?
- SomeCallMeTim 11y ago
  Can't speak for commenter above, but v3 has a "patent license" clause that is literally impossible for any large company to comply with. Not just difficult or undesirable, but impossible. GPLv3 requires you to offer a free license of any patent you have a license to that might apply to the GPLv3 software to anyone who might want to use that software. Almost any large company has at one time or another purchased broad patent licenses that cannot be sublicensed. So GPLv3 is an absolute non-starter for any large company. You want to doom a product, license it under GPLv3. It may not instantly kill it, but it will slowly strangle it.
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    it is also more difficult to demonstrate project independence. if two bits touch, GPLv3 spreads. v2 at least is worded in a way that allows non spreading if you can demonstrate the functionality can be replaced by a third party lib without altering the software functionality also it makes unnecessarily hard to comply. in GPLv2 it was quite easy to determine who was an user and who was entitled to receive the code. GPLv3 makes this unnecessarily difficult because it overreacted at previous GPLv2 shortcoming. Think for example deploying on a kiosk.
    - JupiterMoon 11y ago
      > Think for example deploying on a kiosk. I thought that it depended upon who owns the kiosk and if software upgrades are a normal part of its operation?

JupiterMoon 11y ago

> how GPL is a show-stopper at some companies where we are building proprietary solutions Is this not one of the the main purposes of the GPL? To prevent companies taking the users freedom by "building proprietary solutions". > It also fails to mention that sometimes providing the user with the best products means protecting the investment and creative effort painstakingly poured into development of a product. Nope it doesn't fail to mention this. Your opinion here is totally orthogonal to the original premise of the free software movement (and of the GPL). The GPL was written on the premise that users are better off with objectively worse performing software that maintain the four freedoms. You probably disagree with me on whether software freedom is more important than software quality but it is important to understand the basis of our disagreement first.

pwny 11y ago

> The article also doesn't mention how GPL is a show-stopper at some companies where we are building proprietary solutions. > Oracle, IBM, Sony, Apple, Microsoft, Boeing all are monetized empires that profit not just from binary blobs, but from providing a superior product. Also, being the patent holder is lucrative. I'm really not a huge fan of the GPL but you have to realize those are by design. To a supporter of the license, that's actually a plus. > How do you intend on running a business and feeding your employees, let alone making investors happy following the virtues of GPL? Consulting and support only goes so far. If the GPL doesn't fit your business plan, just don't use it. Do you see Open-Source projects using leaked closed-source code (or complaining that they can't do so)? No one is preventing companies from rewriting equivalent code and the authors had the right to select whatever terms they wanted when they created their project. It's their creative output after all.

anon3_ 11y ago
We also have lives to live - limited resources, money, and days on Earth. It's more intricate that the way you view it outside the world of academics, non-profits and eurozone states with social benefits that give you the freetime to do that. If you're open to knowing more, I could elaborate.

jessaustin 11y ago

> there are very few permissively licensed projects which aim at end users. Lack of citation and data noted. Four sentences later in TFA: But when I think of projects I use every day which are programs I actually run (for example, as an artist I use Blender, Gimp and Inkscape regularly), most of these are under the GPL. Those are three major data points. Do you have any data or citations to contribute?

ben0x539 11y ago

> I'm assuming good faith and going to approach this as I would a fellow colleague :) Wow, this is the most passive-aggressive display of good faith I've seen so far.