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The opposite has been the case, though, in practice: When using MIT-licensed software that's popular, proprietary software companies have been happy to contribu

The opposite has been the case, though, in practice: When using MIT-licensed software that's popular, proprietary software companies have been happy to contribute back upstream, because it reduces their maintenance requirements. And since when does a for-pay piece of software eclipse the original free version in popularity? If it did happen, then I'd assert that the "proprietary company" must have done a lot of work to make that possible. In that unlikely case, they must have invested a nontrivial amount in the creation of a powerful tool, and they deserve the profits it generates. A far more likely scenario is that a proprietary company forks an MIT-licensed project, does something creative with it, sells it to a few people, and then the open-source community would copy the cool features and add them to the MIT project. The actual code to a new feature is typically not as hard to create as the design of the feature, which has already been done by our hypothetical proprietary company. Then the company will need to innovate again to stay relevant, and the free project can copy those features as well. A healthy ecosystem can include some companies that don't share. It's all part of the network effect. If you can cite any situation where a community surrounding a free software library or other product has been killed or even harmed by a piece of proprietary software that is based on the same code, then you might have a point, but I don't think it's happened. It DOES happen that proprietary software runs circles around the equivalent free software (Adobe Photoshop, for instance), but that's not because the for-pay software is stealing free code. It's because when you have hundreds of full-time developers you can produce a lot more than the same number of people can do in their spare time. And when those full-time paid developers can contribute to open source (as is frequently the case with MIT/BSD licensed projects), those open source projects flourish as well. Again, see LLVM/Clang.

marrs 11y ago
But all of the examples you cite (with the exception of Photoshop) are used by developers. The article was talking specifically about serving the interests of users of applications. I actually think you chose a bad example with the Adobe suite. Not one of the creative apps runs on Linux, I need an internet connection to keep the DRM system happy, and I have no guarantee that I will be able to open a PSD/AI/etc that I created 10 years ago on an older version of the software - a major concern for a serious amateur.
- SomeCallMeTim 11y ago
  >I actually think you chose a bad example with the Adobe suite. It's actually a perfect example: * Any DRM it has obviously is annoying and could prevent you from using a valid copy (though I've never seen it not work). * It's crazy expensive. * Its UI is annoying. And yet it's by far the most used piece of software when it comes to editing photos (with the possible exception of Adobe Lightroom). FWIW, PSD is a pretty well standardized file format, and files created in older versions of PhotoShop have always reliably worked in newer versions of the app. It's the other way around, especially if you're using transformations that don't exist in the older app, where you most frequently encounter problems. Which means that if you don't pay their ongoing extortion fees, you might end up getting a PSD that you can't open because of some new feature the older app doesn't support. Yes it's annoying. But it's also hands down the best, and no professional graphic artist would be taken seriously without it. Gimp doesn't even come close in functionality -- but even worse, the various tutorials and scripts you can follow or acquire for PhotoShop don't work in Gimp. >The article was talking specifically about serving the interests of users of applications. Sure it was, but in my example I point out one of many apps that is vastly superior to its open source equivalents, and yet it is the one that serves users the best. Yes Adobe extorts money from those users. Yes it would be nice if it were just open and free. But the reason that Adobe can make software that is so much better is that it can extort that money from users. So what good is the GPL in fighting apps like this? It accomplishes nothing with respect to large companies like Adobe, because they can just pay to reimplement what they need. The argument is that the GPL will allow better software to be written with capital-f-Freedom than proprietary. That the GPLed libraries will grow in quantity and eventually outcompete proprietary tools. Other than developer tools (and precious few of those even qualify, honestly), name a GPL application that's better than its closed source rivals. Write a list of all of them that you can think of, in fact. If you hit a half dozen, I'd be surprised -- and there are dozens if not hundreds of solid proprietary packages that make the open source packages look embarrassingly bad by comparison. Yes you can find GPL apps that are Good Enough for some purposes. I do know people who use and swear by Gimp, for example, or Inkscape. But except for people who use Free tools for philosophical (or financial) reasons, the vast majority of end users want the mainstream, proprietary software that for the most part works the way they expect. Users are being better served by apps that work well and have the features they need. It happens those apps typically are proprietary. Some philosophies sound good on paper, but in reality fall apart. The GPL largely falls into that trap, IMO, except for the awesome developer tools that are available for free. And Firefox. I still like Firefox. :)

marrs 11y ago

But all of the examples you cite (with the exception of Photoshop) are used by developers. The article was talking specifically about serving the interests of users of applications. I actually think you chose a bad example with the Adobe suite. Not one of the creative apps runs on Linux, I need an internet connection to keep the DRM system happy, and I have no guarantee that I will be able to open a PSD/AI/etc that I created 10 years ago on an older version of the software - a major concern for a serious amateur.

SomeCallMeTim 11y ago
>I actually think you chose a bad example with the Adobe suite. It's actually a perfect example: * Any DRM it has obviously is annoying and could prevent you from using a valid copy (though I've never seen it not work). * It's crazy expensive. * Its UI is annoying. And yet it's by far the most used piece of software when it comes to editing photos (with the possible exception of Adobe Lightroom). FWIW, PSD is a pretty well standardized file format, and files created in older versions of PhotoShop have always reliably worked in newer versions of the app. It's the other way around, especially if you're using transformations that don't exist in the older app, where you most frequently encounter problems. Which means that if you don't pay their ongoing extortion fees, you might end up getting a PSD that you can't open because of some new feature the older app doesn't support. Yes it's annoying. But it's also hands down the best, and no professional graphic artist would be taken seriously without it. Gimp doesn't even come close in functionality -- but even worse, the various tutorials and scripts you can follow or acquire for PhotoShop don't work in Gimp. >The article was talking specifically about serving the interests of users of applications. Sure it was, but in my example I point out one of many apps that is vastly superior to its open source equivalents, and yet it is the one that serves users the best. Yes Adobe extorts money from those users. Yes it would be nice if it were just open and free. But the reason that Adobe can make software that is so much better is that it can extort that money from users. So what good is the GPL in fighting apps like this? It accomplishes nothing with respect to large companies like Adobe, because they can just pay to reimplement what they need. The argument is that the GPL will allow better software to be written with capital-f-Freedom than proprietary. That the GPLed libraries will grow in quantity and eventually outcompete proprietary tools. Other than developer tools (and precious few of those even qualify, honestly), name a GPL application that's better than its closed source rivals. Write a list of all of them that you can think of, in fact. If you hit a half dozen, I'd be surprised -- and there are dozens if not hundreds of solid proprietary packages that make the open source packages look embarrassingly bad by comparison. Yes you can find GPL apps that are Good Enough for some purposes. I do know people who use and swear by Gimp, for example, or Inkscape. But except for people who use Free tools for philosophical (or financial) reasons, the vast majority of end users want the mainstream, proprietary software that for the most part works the way they expect. Users are being better served by apps that work well and have the features they need. It happens those apps typically are proprietary. Some philosophies sound good on paper, but in reality fall apart. The GPL largely falls into that trap, IMO, except for the awesome developer tools that are available for free. And Firefox. I still like Firefox. :)