My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL • Hacker News Board

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#21

Post by oarsinsync » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 3:34 PM UTC

neuland wrote: post #15

> The GPL is the legal embodiment of this Golden Rule: in exchange for benefiting from my hard work, you just have to extend me the same courtesy. This is a great article that's focused on just explaining why GPL is good. But I'm wondering what people think about enforcing this part of the GPL. I was very disheartened to see the Linux community's and other GPL projects' attitude to enforcement actions brought by indi…

> I was very disheartened to see the Linux community's and other GPL projects' attitude to enforcement actions brought by individuals.

Can you share some examples of what's happened that's disheartening? I'm assuming based on context that the reaction to individuals enforcing GPL violations have been negative, which I would agree is disheartening. If you don't enforce the terms, the terms are valueless, and you might as well just use a more permissive license.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#22

Post by School-Cotton » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 3:36 PM UTC

oarsinsync wrote: post #2

This very clearly and simply describes the differences between absolute freedom, limited freedom, and the value of limiting freedom. In a way, it's similar to the paradox of tolerance, and a tolerant society needing to be intolerant of those that are intolerant. Or to quote Team America: freedom isn't free. I may be re-thinking my own use of BSD licensing in favour of something more copyleft in future too.

My view is: if you don’t care what people do with your software and just want anyone who finds it useful to use it, including anyone from Stallman-esque ideologues to cogs in the FAANG machine and everyone in between, then use BSD, MIT or similar.

If you care about “free software” as an ideological movement and only want to give your software to people who are, in exchange, willing to help advance it, then use copyleft.

I am sure that some copyleft fans will have different interpretations or motivations. I’m just giving mine :)

(This all applies to contributions done in an individual’s free time. Companies contributing to open source for strategic reasons might think about these decisions in different terms).

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#23

Post by mipmap04 » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 3:39 PM UTC

neuland wrote: post #15

> The GPL is the legal embodiment of this Golden Rule: in exchange for benefiting from my hard work, you just have to extend me the same courtesy. This is a great article that's focused on just explaining why GPL is good. But I'm wondering what people think about enforcing this part of the GPL. I was very disheartened to see the Linux community's and other GPL projects' attitude to enforcement actions brought by indi…

I'm not involved in those communities. Do they generally dislike when people go after individuals legally for violating the license?

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#24

Post by godshatter » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 3:40 PM UTC

First, I'm not a lawyer, but I've always seen the MIT license as being more "free", whereas the GPL is more "fair". Both licenses are pretty much the same for users of the code. Where they differ is that the MIT license gives you the freedom to make an awesome change to the free code you were given, and add it to your closed source application with no obligation to give those enhancements you made to the code to anyone else. This is more "free". You made the enhancements, why shouldn't you keep them for yourself? It's not unethical since the developer chose that license knowing what it entailed, but it's just less "fair". The GPL is all about making sure that those awesome changes you made can be used by others so that they can make other awesome changes to the code. You were given free code that benefited you, so you should pass on any changes you made to the code to others so they can also benefit from it. And so on. That's my basic understanding of the differences, anyway.

I personally prefer the GPL way, but I have yet to use either license on code I've written.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#25

Post by theturtletalks » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 3:40 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #13

theturtletalks wrote: post #7

I about to launch an open core SaaS and all these articles about open source software getting exploited and how copyleft should be the way to go is getting me confused. The software is for e-commerce. So if users use it to make more money, is that considered commercial use? Would the copyleft license require them to get a commercial license then? Would this cause less adoption and less use of the software? What kind…

No, copyleft doesn't prevent commercial use. In fact, preventing commercial use is impossible with the GPL.

Sorry I was under the impression copyleft meant that commercial users must purchase a license and normal users could use it for free. Is this what CockroachBD just did?

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#26

Post by briandear » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 3:40 PM UTC

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #6

> Capitalism is about enriching yourself - not enriching your users and certainly not enriching society. Capitalism is not about enriching anyone, it's about being free to do whatever you want with your resources. Free software developers use their resources to enrich society (and I applaud their work). Mark Zuckerberg uses his resources to enrich himself. Both are being capitalistic, as long as they don't steal or k…

[dead]

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#27

Post by Certhas » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 3:41 PM UTC

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #6

> Capitalism is about enriching yourself - not enriching your users and certainly not enriching society. Capitalism is not about enriching anyone, it's about being free to do whatever you want with your resources. Free software developers use their resources to enrich society (and I applaud their work). Mark Zuckerberg uses his resources to enrich himself. Both are being capitalistic, as long as they don't steal or k…

Wikipedia states both, operation for profit and private ownership, as defining characteristics:

"Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit."

Classically free software works more like a gift economy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

No capitalist society ever worked without a state that enforces rules and social constructs (such as private property or contracts).

Simple example of how simply talking about (some abstract notion of) freedom misses this: A gift based (ideas) economy could work without a state enforcing copyright. A capitalist (ideas) economy requires a state enforcing copyright.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#28

Post by TuringTest » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 3:41 PM UTC

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #6

> Capitalism is about enriching yourself - not enriching your users and certainly not enriching society. Capitalism is not about enriching anyone, it's about being free to do whatever you want with your resources. Free software developers use their resources to enrich society (and I applaud their work). Mark Zuckerberg uses his resources to enrich himself. Both are being capitalistic, as long as they don't steal or k…

There's a category error in treating commons as property.

Even though Wikipedia copyright is nominally owned by the respective writer of each individual edit, the fact that it's licensed as copyleft allow anyone to treat it as a public good an benefit from something that you don't own.

See a framework like the Universal Basic Assets (UBA)[1] manifesto: it distinguishes between Private assets, Public assets, and Open assets - each having different roles and expectations in relation to society and how each resource can be exploited.

Trying to reduce everything to XIX century economical and political concepts is limiting in terms of discourse; we have acquired much better understanding of society-wide dynamics since then.

[1] http://www.iftf.org/uba/

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#29

Post by Agathos » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 3:41 PM UTC

theturtletalks wrote: post #7

I about to launch an open core SaaS and all these articles about open source software getting exploited and how copyleft should be the way to go is getting me confused. The software is for e-commerce. So if users use it to make more money, is that considered commercial use? Would the copyleft license require them to get a commercial license then? Would this cause less adoption and less use of the software? What kind…

You may be confusing the GPL with the Creative Commons "non-commercial" restriction. (I do find the latter a bit confusing myself.)

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#30

Post by inapis » Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

>Capitalism is about enriching yourself - not enriching your users and certainly not enriching society.

Is all capitalism bad? I bought Alfred, Fantastical, Little Snitch and Better Touch Tool. I certainly feel my life has been enriched because of those tools. Does all enrichment have to be direct and linked, by say, bartering code or work? Such a binary representation of ideologies very conveniently forgets that humans operate on shades of gray. Crony capitalists need to be dealt with but that doesn't imply the system itself is shit. Even in a socialist system, the power gets concentrated somewhere and if you try to implement a flat organisation, a lot of projects slow to a crawl because everyone has different needs and expectations. And if I'm enriched, isn't the society also enriched? If paid software improves my productivity so that I can focus on more important tasks that help improve society, isn't that an indirect benefit? Does all "enrichment" have to be direct, linkable and traceable?