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Show HN: Linenoise NG – GNU Readline Replacement, with UTF8 and Windows (BSD)

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Re: Show HN: Linenoise NG – GNU Readline Replacement, with UTF8 and Windows (BSD)

#41

Post by epistasis »

orangeshark wrote: post #37
epistasis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me preface my comment by saying that the purpose of my comment is to let you know why I, an unconverted heathen, do not find your chain of comments compelling. I do not mean to convince you of my point of view, or to refute your points, but tell you why I'm unmoved. Repeating the same mantra, more forcefully, does not make it any more convincing or true. I find RMS's reasoning fundamentally flawed, overly simplis…

My understanding of the freedom for GPL is to guarantee the end user to have the freedom. What freedom does a user of a software have if all the open source code is used by some proprietary software? Of course, this does not guarantee freedom to developers, the users of these free software libraries. As an end user of software I like the concept of the GPL and the freedoms it wants to provide, but as a developer not…

> What freedom does a user of a software have if all the open source code is used by some proprietary software?

Exactly the same freedom that the user has if that proprietary software did not use the GPL software. It's unchanged. These two worlds do not differ, either the proprietary product doesn't exist, or it reimplemented whatever code was GPLd. The GPL has had no positive impact, there is no more source code available.

Meanwhile, the GPL has restricted the freedom of users from distributing the code as part of a different project.

The GPL is not about freedom for users, it is about control for the original authors. It is about making sure that nobody benefits from the GPL code without making all the rest of the code GPL. Now you may say, that this control of users and programmers means there is more freedom for users. I don't know how, but presumably because there is now more GPL code out there than if it had been an open source license. THAT'S the assumption and the leap that I do not believe, based on the data at hand. I do not believe that the GPL makes more source code available than BSD.

And further, I take umbrage at the unwillingness to even acknowledge that the GPL denies the freedoms granted by open source licenses, all because "freedom" has been narrowly redefined into one thing only: the "freedom from" somebody else using your code without contributing back the changes. Which is a lot like the "freedom from" somebody else using your code without paying you. "Restrictive" means less "freedom," just using a different word that is not loaded with peculiar definitions.

Compared to something like BSD, the GPL is about freedom for the code authors to restrict use of the source code. That is absolutely 100% fine! Go to town! But don't tell me its about user freedom, that's not OK. It makes no sense at all to me. It comes across to me like War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. IMHO, history has proven that the "user freedom" arguments about the GPL are wrong, it's about "programmer freedom." People and companies, including me, use GPL when we want to make code available but still want to control it. It's all about having less freedom for people that use the code.

Re: Show HN: Linenoise NG – GNU Readline Replacement, with UTF8 and Windows (BSD)

#42

Post by kazinator »

Fork of linenoise in the TXR language:

http://www.kylheku.com/cgit/txr/log/linenoise

Doc:

http://www.nongnu.org/txr/txr-manpage.html#N-025AAA27

These changes are in a different direction. I don't have windows or UTF-8 support, though. I started a branch to convert it to use wchar_t. Maybe I can cherry pick some things out of NG.

Re: Show HN: Linenoise NG – GNU Readline Replacement, with UTF8 and Windows (BSD)

#43

Post by kazinator »

fceller wrote: post #36
cmsd2 wrote: post #29

there are a lot of forks of linenoise out there now. this one looks good, but it's a big task to pick through all the divergent copies of the code and figure out which ones have genuine improvements and which ones are now rotting. there's a rust one too which i recently added mingw/msvc support to. that's actually an example of how this splintering could be causing problems because we've just vendored some upstream v…

That is one of the reason, why I renamed it the LINENOISE NG. The interface is compatible with the original LINENOISE, but it works on linux, Mac and Windows and it supports UTF-8.

Too bad about the C++, though; my condolences.

(The original authors should have made the header comment "against the idea that a line editing lib needs to be 20,000 lines of C code, or any quantity of C++".)

Re: Show HN: Linenoise NG – GNU Readline Replacement, with UTF8 and Windows (BSD)

#44

Post by cthalupa »

davexunit wrote: post #21
_ph_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of programs, which cannot use GPL for some of its restrictions, e.g. commercial software. But also in general, it is quite restrictive to have to change your softwares license just to use a certain library. Consequently, a lot of non-gpl open source software rather not uses readline than changing their license. I am very happy about any more liberally licensed alternative.

>There are a lot of programs, which cannot use GPL for some of its restrictions, e.g. commercial software. You mean proprietary software. People that write free software do not want their work used in software that does not guarantee that users will have the same freedoms that they gave to others. I think the thing that a lot of people overlook here is that the proprietary software developers want to impose their own…

Redis is proprietary software? Things licensed under the CDDL?

Let's look at a very easy and very real situation where the (imo) absurd restrictions of the GPL are actively hurting the Linux community:

ZFS on Linux. We have a fully features and powerful logical volume manager and filesystem that you have to jump through hoops to use and cannot be distributed as part of Linux due to license disputes. Software that was originally developed in an entirely proprietary environment that would have never had the source code see the light of day if it was required to use the GPL due to contractual obligations on other pieces of software used.

btrfs, et al, still have not caught up. With a more sane licensing approach, we could have had years of ZoL improving our lives as a default available filesystem/volume manager, and those with idealistic differences strong enough to want a "truly" open version could have been working on btrfs or other alternatives.

You are attempting to paint the world as completely bifurcated, and it just simply isn't the case.

Re: Show HN: Linenoise NG – GNU Readline Replacement, with UTF8 and Windows (BSD)

#46

Post by BjoernSchiessle »

epistasis wrote: post #41
orangeshark wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the freedom for GPL is to guarantee the end user to have the freedom. What freedom does a user of a software have if all the open source code is used by some proprietary software? Of course, this does not guarantee freedom to developers, the users of these free software libraries. As an end user of software I like the concept of the GPL and the freedoms it wants to provide, but as a developer not…

> What freedom does a user of a software have if all the open source code is used by some proprietary software? Exactly the same freedom that the user has if that proprietary software did not use the GPL software. It's unchanged. These two worlds do not differ, either the proprietary product doesn't exist, or it reimplemented whatever code was GPLd. The GPL has had no positive impact, there is no more source code ava…

> I don't know how, but presumably because there is now more GPL code out there than if it had been an open source license. THAT'S the assumption and the leap that I do not believe, based on the data at hand.

One example which disprove you believes and whatever data you refer to is the Objective-C compiler. NeXT wouldn't have released it as Open Source if gcc wouldn't be GPL licensed. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C

Further it sounds like you want to argue that the GPL is not a Open Source license. This is also wrong by all reliable sources, e.g. the Open Source Initiative: https://opensource.org/licenses

Re: Show HN: Linenoise NG – GNU Readline Replacement, with UTF8 and Windows (BSD)

#47

Post by shizzy0 »

orangeshark wrote: post #37
epistasis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me preface my comment by saying that the purpose of my comment is to let you know why I, an unconverted heathen, do not find your chain of comments compelling. I do not mean to convince you of my point of view, or to refute your points, but tell you why I'm unmoved. Repeating the same mantra, more forcefully, does not make it any more convincing or true. I find RMS's reasoning fundamentally flawed, overly simplis…

My understanding of the freedom for GPL is to guarantee the end user to have the freedom. What freedom does a user of a software have if all the open source code is used by some proprietary software? Of course, this does not guarantee freedom to developers, the users of these free software libraries. As an end user of software I like the concept of the GPL and the freedoms it wants to provide, but as a developer not…

I like the concept of freedom as an American, but as a cotton farmer not so much.

Re: Show HN: Linenoise NG – GNU Readline Replacement, with UTF8 and Windows (BSD)

#48

Post by epistasis »

BjoernSchiessle wrote: post #46
epistasis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What freedom does a user of a software have if all the open source code is used by some proprietary software? Exactly the same freedom that the user has if that proprietary software did not use the GPL software. It's unchanged. These two worlds do not differ, either the proprietary product doesn't exist, or it reimplemented whatever code was GPLd. The GPL has had no positive impact, there is no more source code ava…

> I don't know how, but presumably because there is now more GPL code out there than if it had been an open source license. THAT'S the assumption and the leap that I do not believe, based on the data at hand. One example which disprove you believes and whatever data you refer to is the Objective-C compiler. NeXT wouldn't have released it as Open Source if gcc wouldn't be GPL licensed. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.o…

It seems that the key part of your source is:

>In order to circumvent the terms of the GPL, NeXT had originally intended to ship the Objective-C frontend separately, allowing the user to link it with GCC to produce the compiler executable. After being initially accepted by Richard M. Stallman, this plan was rejected after Stallman consulted with GNU's lawyers and NeXT agreed to make Objective-C part of GCC.[7]

Given that both NeXT and Stallman changed their minds on this issue, I'm not sure that you can argue that Objective-C would not have eventually been open sourced. Especially given Clang.

I'm not sure why you perceive that I think that GPL is not Open Source. Quite the contrary. I'm basically arguing that "Free" software misses the point of open source software. Which is in counter to these very well known opinions:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.h...

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.en.h...

And primarily I object to Stallman's hijacking of the term "free" where the only thing I see is control.

Re: Show HN: Linenoise NG – GNU Readline Replacement, with UTF8 and Windows (BSD)

#49

Post by jumpwah »

epistasis wrote: post #41
orangeshark wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the freedom for GPL is to guarantee the end user to have the freedom. What freedom does a user of a software have if all the open source code is used by some proprietary software? Of course, this does not guarantee freedom to developers, the users of these free software libraries. As an end user of software I like the concept of the GPL and the freedoms it wants to provide, but as a developer not…

> What freedom does a user of a software have if all the open source code is used by some proprietary software? Exactly the same freedom that the user has if that proprietary software did not use the GPL software. It's unchanged. These two worlds do not differ, either the proprietary product doesn't exist, or it reimplemented whatever code was GPLd. The GPL has had no positive impact, there is no more source code ava…

The FSF defines freedom as the four freedoms. Copyleft is about preserving those four freedoms. Copyleft is still free software in terms of the four freedoms. Sure, you could take freedom as being able to do completely anything (or more things than just the four freedoms), but this is like saying the declaration of human rights is bad because it doesn't give you the freedom to enslave others.

So the question comes down to whether or not you think nonfree software is a bad thing. If you don't think nonfree software is bad, then how does it hold that you're saying you care more about user freedom than those who use copyleft?

To me, those who really like and care about freedom to use, study, modify and share software have no problem with copyleft. The people that seem to have a problem with it seem to just want to deny users that freedom. That's really what it is all about. I don't know how on earth you came across this as being like "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength", when not having the four freedoms in the case of nonfree software is the real slavery here. And copyleft prevents such nonfree software.

TLDR haiku by RMS:

    Using GPL
    is encroaching on our right
    to encroach on yours
BTW, the LGPL, GPL and AGPL licenses are all "open source" in the sense that they are approved by the OSI, who are the ones who created and defined the term "open source" in the first place. So saying the GPL is not an "open source" license is technically incorrect and confusing.

Re: Show HN: Linenoise NG – GNU Readline Replacement, with UTF8 and Windows (BSD)

#50

Post by phant0mas »

epistasis wrote: post #41
orangeshark wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the freedom for GPL is to guarantee the end user to have the freedom. What freedom does a user of a software have if all the open source code is used by some proprietary software? Of course, this does not guarantee freedom to developers, the users of these free software libraries. As an end user of software I like the concept of the GPL and the freedoms it wants to provide, but as a developer not…

> What freedom does a user of a software have if all the open source code is used by some proprietary software? Exactly the same freedom that the user has if that proprietary software did not use the GPL software. It's unchanged. These two worlds do not differ, either the proprietary product doesn't exist, or it reimplemented whatever code was GPLd. The GPL has had no positive impact, there is no more source code ava…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxIEDNyZOkA&feature=youtu.be...

Martin Fink, EVP & CTO of HP on why we should use the GPL

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