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Is the GPL Really Declining?

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Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#221

Post by ymse »

ex_amazon_sde wrote: post #220
buserror wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree, up to a point, however I still use the GPL because it at least gives me a leg to stand on for people actually ripping your code and selling it as is... (What I call the packagers) I'm sure that if Linux wasn't GPL, you'd have 'vendors' selling 'HP Linux' and 'Corp Linux' to their locked in customers in no time at all. The only reason Linux grew up to this point is that the vendors are forced to contr…

I've been in few famous tech $megacorp. I've seen Open Source projects with many companies behind them perform poorly because of BSD/MIT. It's in the best interest of a large company to contribute until the project gains a large userbase willing to pay for extra features, while selling forks (with added proprietary features). Then a company quietly pulls out of upstream development to focus on developing and selling…

Openstack is a prime example of this.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#222

Post by belorn »

pjmlp wrote: post #161
belorn wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predicting the death of Debian in 10 years is a odd call since I have not seen any indication of decline in the use of Debian and its derivatives. Last time someone checked, projects in debian where around 90% GPL.

How many of those 90% GPL projects are actually used in the real world across companies, specially the SV loved ones?

A lot. I don't remember a exact study on popcon top 100, but just going main top 5, let see.

top 1: Gnu sed. License: GPL.

top 2 (if you ignore libs): base-passwd. GPL

top 3: GNU core utilities: Mostly if not exclusively GPL.

top 4: debianutils: SMAIL GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE

top 5: dpkg: GPL (got bsd parts is distributed as a whole under gpl).

http://popcon.debian.org/main/by_inst if you want to dig through it. A lot of the top is part of base install. Further down we got things like wget, which surprise surprise, is gpl. Could always try to make a debian machine without udev, which is GPL. Honestly, making a debian installation, using debian main archives, without any copyleft'ed software would be a nice project just to see if anything resembling a function operative system would remain. One would have to start by using BSD kernel (which is supported), and go from there to try mimic a bsd operative system.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#223

Post by belorn »

watwut wrote: post #109
belorn wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your workplace distribute the software you write to their customers, what political ideology does the license force onto them?

What does that have to do with anything? OSS and tech generally likes to praise itself as more rational fact based, but demagoguery is sometimes downright ridiculous. If I distribute open source library under GPL, the advantage of GPL is supposed to be that users of my library have to provide source code to their users. Making it "viral" and preventing them to do close source business. It was written this way because…

I find it offputing when a business put people in jail because someone shared a exact copy of a program. That ideology is a large part why people put their work under gpl. As a fact, no person have ever been sent to jail for sharing a GPL'ed software with a friend. If you oppose people getting sent to jail or given fines that will last a person a life time, then it perfect rational not to help companies that do this. Some add clauses which says "do no evil", others put common legal obstacles so the practical results will be that code aren't used by them.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#225

Post by watwut »

smichel17 wrote: post #152
watwut wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do with anything? OSS and tech generally likes to praise itself as more rational fact based, but demagoguery is sometimes downright ridiculous. If I distribute open source library under GPL, the advantage of GPL is supposed to be that users of my library have to provide source code to their users. Making it "viral" and preventing them to do close source business. It was written this way because…

That's just the thing: software freedom does have moral value. Power imbalances are abused. That's how you end up with stuff like nsa backdoors. Software freedom helps fix the power imbalance between users and developers.

That is kinda like saying that letters being private make it harder to caught terrorists, so we should make it question of morality to make all letters public.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#226

Post by erikbye »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #103
erikbye wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a bit of a problem. Proprietary OS users are going to judge Inkscape (or Gimp, or any other Free Software) from what they see on their platform. If it lags and doesn't support High DPI on their platform, they're going to assume the same is true of the GNU/Linux version. Some users won't switch because of this faulty assumption. Native UI… while there is little point it catering to users who won't switch anyway…

To me, cross-platform is not the holy grail--Linux is fragmented enough as it is. And certainly not to a platform like Apple's. Porting free software to a walled garden is grotesque.

I think focus and efforts should be directed at making good software for Linux. And I do not think that porting OSS and free software to closed systems is a good strategy for converting users.

Users switch from macOS and Windows to Linux for all kinds of reasons, but there is no point in trying to "lure" them in any way. It will be of own volition.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#227

Post by erikbye »

oblio wrote: post #140
erikbye wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Linux is big and unspecific. But if we talk about a user count of Linux on the desktop vs OS X/macOS on the desktop, then Linux is not far behind, according to various statistics. Linux numbers are actually a lot higher than the recorded stats, as those are just based on web browser information. Many Linux users do not even use a browser that is counted in these statistics.

People often seem to forget just how small Apple's desktop marketshare is.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#228

Post by erikbye »

tanderson92 wrote: post #156
oblio wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

erikbye never indicated that he cares whether OSS gets out of the catch 22. I develop a Linux distribution and I know that I do not care. I care about my experience and other users' experiences, but not people who use MacOS. I value software freedom of the things I work on much more than a Mac user.

I don't even see the catch 22. There are more than enough Linux users for a thriving ecosystem, has been for many years, and it's only growing.

Like I said in a comment above, Apple's desktop share is incredibly small percentage wise, but more than big enough for them to sell desktop hardware.

Now hardware vendors also offer Linux (Dell, System76).

Linux/Unix absolutely crushes it when it comes to server/infrastructure, academia, and research. Who cares if official numbers call desktop marketshare of 2% or 5%.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#229

Post by ygaf »

buserror wrote: post #68
ygaf wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If my project had been BSD, I might have seen someone making money from my project and associate my name with something that I had zero control on. If he went along with his product being forced to be open, what then? It still has your name associated with it, he might still sell some copies. I'm just not getting the principles.

I would just have taken his source, compiled it and provided it for free -- he had no real intentions of opening it, and in fact never released his 'code' afterward, which proved my point. it's not the first time I see that, at my previous company, a guy took most of my in-house (closed source) middleware layers and was selling them as a 'product' as is on the interweb.

I don't think it's right to call that having control. But whatever, your post was more honest than the average GPL advocate's.

Re: Is the GPL Really Declining?

#230

Post by erikbye »

oblio wrote: post #202
tanderson92 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

erikbye never indicated that he cares whether OSS gets out of the catch 22. I develop a Linux distribution and I know that I do not care. I care about my experience and other users' experiences, but not people who use MacOS. I value software freedom of the things I work on much more than a Mac user.

> I develop a Linux distribution and I know that I do not care. Well, you should care. You should care when your clients or friends send you a file in a format that you can't open or transform properly on Linux. When you want to print something and your printer doesn't have drivers for it. When you want to play an AAA game and it's not available for Linux. Etc., etc.

Why is the lack of certain AAA games held more against Linux than macOS?

Linux has 1950+ games on GOG and 6500+ on Steam. Some of them AAA.

When it comes to file formats, I'm sure there are certain formats that poses a problem, but at least not the most commonly file formats exchanged. Like Microsoft Office formats; LibreOffice opens pptx, ppt, xls, xlsx, docx, doc, docm, etc.

Inkscape as mentioned above, opens Adobe illustrator files.

Both GIMP and Krita opens Photoshop files. Krita perhaps being the most appealing alternative to Photoshop users (UI-wise).

And normally, if you have clients, they don't arbitrarily send you arbitrary files in random formats. You have agreed on a workflow and file type.

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