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Is the GPL Really Declining?

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Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#131

Post by dom0 »

josephg wrote: post #20
djsumdog wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally understand where you're coming from and I shared some of this. I still believe heavily in the GPL and I think more permissive license have allowed a lot of companies to wave the banner of OSS while not having to really contribute things back to the community. I come from a perspective of hating the corporate world for the two decades I've been in it; feeling deeply overpaid compared to the guy who cleans my…

> The people who originally wrote a lot of OSS and Linux software were envisioning a world where Adobe tools would be replaced by Gimp/Inkspace and the Ubuntu desktop would make Windows obsolete except for specific MS software/tasks. That never happened. The reason that never happened has nothing to do with the licenses. It happened because most purely open source programs have abysmal UX. Every time I open Inkscape…

TBH

Most open source stuff actually is poorly engineered, if engineered at all, because a lot of it is developed by beginner-level coders. Now, I do of course know that many, many commercial products are full of crap, too ... but engineering excellence still mostly goes into commercial products. Obviously. It goes where the money is, and in most product categories that can't/won't be open source.

Almost every open source project is completely focused on implementation, all the while implementation is only one facet of a software project. All other facets are usually neglected.

Yes, there are quite some projects one might call "industrial-strength XY" -- but the vast majority aren't and never will be. This is also not just a numbers game; a large number of crap-quality open source stuff is incorporated into widely deployed stacks. Just take libraries for file formats, just a couple days ago we got a dozen or so CVEs in libtiff ranging anywhere from denial of service to arbitrary code execution. That thing will be on most web servers.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#132

Post by dbcurtis »

geokon wrote: post #127

I'm a bit surprised "dual licensing" hasn't come up at all in this discussion. To me that is the most logical next-step from the GPL. (ex: The Qt/JUCE people are using it to great effect) - If you want to work on expanding on what I started and then sharing it with everyone, then that's great! - If you want to make money with my work - then lets get in touch and work out some compensation. Seems only fair.. no? It's…

Yes, indeed. The submitter needs to sign over copyright. Otherwise you don't have the right to relicense their work under some other for-compensation license. All GNU projects require copyright assignment, for an example. The GPL license is silent on copyright assignment of pull requests, so you have to execute a document outside the license. I believe some other open source licenses address this directly, but I'm not sure which ones.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#133

Post by dbcurtis »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #129
geokon wrote: post #127

I'm a bit surprised "dual licensing" hasn't come up at all in this discussion. To me that is the most logical next-step from the GPL. (ex: The Qt/JUCE people are using it to great effect) - If you want to work on expanding on what I started and then sharing it with everyone, then that's great! - If you want to make money with my work - then lets get in touch and work out some compensation. Seems only fair.. no? It's…

I'm not 100% sure but I think the GPL prevents itself from being used in a dual license scenario on purpose.

No, to find the answer, fall back to copyright law. If you own the copyright to some body of code in entirety, you can license it under as many licenses as you want. GPL for the community, proprietary trade-secret in exchange for money, and everything works fine.

But.... if you take a pull request from someone, either they have to sign over copyright to their patch, or else you have to involve them in every relicensing negotiation, because now they are a copyright holder, too, in the work.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#134

Post by [deleted] »

libeclipse wrote: post #4

I think there's two split types of developers. When I was younger, mostly hanging around on IRC servers and forums, coding just my own cool projects, I strongly believed in the GPL. All of my projects had it, and I wouldn't even dream of allowing someone to use my code without making their entire project open too. That's the first type I think. The second type is the more HN-style professional programmer. Now as I've…

[deleted]

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#135

Post by ajross »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #129
geokon wrote: post #127

I'm a bit surprised "dual licensing" hasn't come up at all in this discussion. To me that is the most logical next-step from the GPL. (ex: The Qt/JUCE people are using it to great effect) - If you want to work on expanding on what I started and then sharing it with everyone, then that's great! - If you want to make money with my work - then lets get in touch and work out some compensation. Seems only fair.. no? It's…

I'm not 100% sure but I think the GPL prevents itself from being used in a dual license scenario on purpose.

It doesn't. There's nothing a "license" can do to prevent that. If I own the copyright to something, and I license it to party A under license X and party B under license Y, that's perfectly legal. This happens all the time in the commercial world where big software licenses are often written per-customer. If you make one of those licenses a blanket GPLv3 grant to the whole world, that's perfectly fine.

Where it gets sticky is the "ownership" issue. This only works if you're the sole copyright holder. If you've taken contributions from community members to your GPL project, you can't then relicense those to anyone else without approval, of course. This is the big reason behind the desire on the part of big projects for copyright assignment aggreements. Even the FSF does it so they can migrate software to GPLv4 when needed.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#136

Post by mook »

phkahler wrote: post #118
libeclipse wrote: post #4

I think there's two split types of developers. When I was younger, mostly hanging around on IRC servers and forums, coding just my own cool projects, I strongly believed in the GPL. All of my projects had it, and I wouldn't even dream of allowing someone to use my code without making their entire project open too. That's the first type I think. The second type is the more HN-style professional programmer. Now as I've…

>> I want anyone to be able to do whatever they want to with my code. That includes developers wanting to create a proprietary application. Telling them they can't is not freedom. You emphasized anyone but by allowing developers to take the code proprietary, their users (which are using your code) are being denied the freedom you promote. This is of course the distinction between GPL and BSD-type licenses. One gives…

Don't forget the weak-copyleft licenses like the MPL, where it's perfectly fine to use it in commercial projects, but all users are guaranteed access to the copyleft source code (but not the proprietary code on top).

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#137

Post by dbcurtis »

wcummings wrote: post #111
libeclipse wrote: post #4

I think there's two split types of developers. When I was younger, mostly hanging around on IRC servers and forums, coding just my own cool projects, I strongly believed in the GPL. All of my projects had it, and I wouldn't even dream of allowing someone to use my code without making their entire project open too. That's the first type I think. The second type is the more HN-style professional programmer. Now as I've…

You're overlooking a big reason for the using the GPL I think: GPL projects are more attractive to certain communities of contributors. People are more willing to invest (potentially a lot of) their time in an open source project if they don't feel they're being taken advantage of. A lot of people don't feel great writing code for free if it's going to be relicensed and incorporated into a commercial product.

I've said for a long time that people should choose a license they way the choose a screwdriver, not the way they choose a religion. Your comment touches on both parts of that.

Want code to be open forever, and for you and your contributors to not be taken commercial advantage of? GPL could be a good choice. Do you desire total world domination (for a new protocol, for instance) then go with something like MIT that allows both open and commercial implementations to interoperate easily, without a lot of license drama.

And yes, some people may "feel" as you say, that they only want to contribute to GPL projects. Sometimes for religious reasons, sometimes other reasons.

For my part, there are some kinds projects that I would not contribute to under MIT/BSD style license, because I would want my work to be available to some community without being taken advantage of. Certain pet hobbies of mine fall in that category. OTOH, there are many BSD license projects where I am happy to send a patch or two because I benefit from the ecosystem in numerous ways, including commercial support for said BSD software.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#138

Post by joshuamorton »

phkahler wrote: post #118
libeclipse wrote: post #4

I think there's two split types of developers. When I was younger, mostly hanging around on IRC servers and forums, coding just my own cool projects, I strongly believed in the GPL. All of my projects had it, and I wouldn't even dream of allowing someone to use my code without making their entire project open too. That's the first type I think. The second type is the more HN-style professional programmer. Now as I've…

>> I want anyone to be able to do whatever they want to with my code. That includes developers wanting to create a proprietary application. Telling them they can't is not freedom. You emphasized anyone but by allowing developers to take the code proprietary, their users (which are using your code) are being denied the freedom you promote. This is of course the distinction between GPL and BSD-type licenses. One gives…

>You emphasized anyone but by allowing developers to take the code proprietary, their users (which are using your code) are being denied the freedom you promote. This is of course the distinction between GPL and BSD-type licenses. One gives developers all the freedom they want while the other ensures that all users (including those using derivative works) are given those freedoms.

Their users are not being denied the freedom to use my code, their users are being denied the freedom to use their code, which is their right.

The cynic in me really thinks its important to wonder why there exists a GNU, and not an organization formed around and sustained by the MIT license.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#139

Post by marcinkuzminski »

ploggingdev wrote: post #130

How do investors view a startup that only builds GPL licensed software. Eg- Let's say Gitlab used only GPL, would it be a major red flag to investors? What about businesses, would they be willing to be buy GPL licensed software? Any examples of startups that only build GPL licensed software?

When we went to raise money for RhodeCode which was GPL at that time, it was no issue for investors. Nowe we're AGPL and switching the license was no issue for current investors too.

Also so far no questions about AGPL beeing a problem for our customers.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#140

Post by oblio »

erikbye wrote: post #99
josephg wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does it look like we're not working on it? Frankly, yes. I can't speak for the experience on linux, but on mac Inkscape needs to: - Support high dpi displays - It needs to scroll and zoom smoothly. (There's no reason for it to lag while scrolling and zooming on a modern computer. Every other app on my system manages it). - It needs to use the operating system's menubar instead of xquartz. - Use native controls for…

Ok. You are talking about problems with the software on a proprietary system... Sorry, I don't support closed platforms. These problems do not exist on the Linux version.

You're both right.

The problem is, his side is "winning". Linux is quite hostile to proprietary software, so not that many people will use Linux since apps > OS. So if OSS doesn't push for better apps even on proprietary systems, it won't even get out of this catch 22.

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