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My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

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Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#191

Post by UglyToad »

jbotz wrote: post #153
aroberge wrote: post #103

I teach Physics and Math. As a student, I enjoyed the freedom to consult textbooks, learn about new computation methods and be able to use them later when needed without worrying about potential restrictions. And I want my students to enjoy the same freedom. In my first projects, I used the GPL license but have moved since to almost always using the MIT License or, sometimes and when appropriate, CC-0. When I find so…

I think you misunderstand copyright... you can't violate a license (that's based on copyright) by using ideas you saw in the source code. You really have to actually copy , verbatim, a significant chunk of code to be in violation of a software copyright. Sure, what constitutes a significant chunk is somewhat open to interpretation, but nobody who releases their software under the GPL is likely to ask a court for a ri…

I'm interested in this. From what I have read unless you do a 'clean room' rewrite, that is a team reads the code and describes the algorithm to another team with no view of the code, your work can be classified as a derivative work?

Now there are grey areas for sure, but my problem with the GPL is knowledge should be a commons, not a field day for lawyers and a creator of 'thought crimes'. Maybe I have misunderstood that regarding derivative works but it still seems by enforcing obligations GPL doesn't meet my personal definition of free.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#192

Post by ubasu »

Here's my rant of the day:

The meme that the GPL is "less free" sounds very Orwellian.

What it really means is that I cannot freely use someone else's creation without restriction, and that I have to respect the wishes of the original author about how their work should be used.

That is because GPL was intended to be a hack on the copyright system (hence "copyleft"), but it always respected the idea of copyright - it does not call for the abolition of copyright.

This talk of GPL being "not free" smells of propaganda so that people (big corporations?) can reuse and repackage others' valuable work for free without any kind of compensation or acknowledgement. (TFA says the same thing)

Feel free not to use GPL'ed code if you find it too restrictive, but please don't contribute to spreading propaganda against it (and get off my lawn while you're at it)

[For the record, I work on proprietary software myself and haven't written any FOSS code, but I use GPL software daily - Linux, gcc, emacs etc]

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#193

Post by pessimizer »

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #18
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.

It's the difference between political freedom and metaphorical freedom (knowledge & rights). Political freedom I define as not being subject to violence unless you're attacking someone or stealing (material objects) from someone. Metaphorical (software) freedom is being in control of your computer, that means: you run free software (you know what you're running) and you can use and distribute it freely. There is noth…

Property rights are the primary domain of politics. If you personally define a certain formulation of property rights as a natural state, your opinions on how freedom should be defined are going to spring from that formulation.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#194

Post by jeena »

Hehe that is what I tell my friends who ask me to help them to install some windows software to filter something for their children, etc. will happen:

"Fun fact: the first time I used Linux was as a teenager, in order to get around the internet filtering software my parents had installed on our Windows PC at home. ↩"

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#195

Post by detaro »

kyle-rb wrote: post #189
bunderbunder wrote: post #174

> Your parents probably taught you about the Golden Rule when you were young: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The GPL is the legal embodiment of this Golden Rule Funny. For me, the Golden Rule still leads me to the opposite conclusion: I want people to share their work with me open-handedly, without telling me what I can do with it or what other software I am allowed to combine it with. The more st…

>The most annoying example of this is when companies open-source their works under a copyleft license in an obvious attempt to get free labor from the community while reserving the ability to actually profit from that work for themselves. Similar to this, Qt has a LGPL license option, but when using it for a proprietary product, they really push you to buy their commercial license, and have basically no info on how t…

Their messaging on that can be a bit (probably intentionally) unclear sometimes (and from what I hear they have pushy salespeople), but many companies use it successfully under LGPL terms, and for typical desktop apps the compliance effort isn't that large. (embedded devices etc are a different problem, I suspect that's where they make most of their licensing money)

They also are providing a lot of value to the open-source communities building on Qt, so I don't think they are a great example for what GP mentioned.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#196

Post by UglyToad »

haberman wrote: post #70

> If the people with their fingers on that button held these same ideals, we wouldn’t need the GPL. The reality, however, is that we live in a capitalist world. Our socialist free software utopia is ripe for exploitation by capitalists, and they’ll be rewarded for doing so. Capitalism is about enriching yourself - not enriching your users and certainly not enriching society. We like to talk in favor of abstract ideal…

Hmm, I may have misunderstood your point, but as someone socialist / communist leaning I actually intensely dislike the GPL, as far as my admittedly limited, understanding of it goes.

GPL needs enforcement which requires the force of law and loss of personal freedom. Perhaps I actually do agree with you after all then, but there's a second axis, Libertarian vs Authoritarian, where I think GPL requires Authoritarian enforcement?

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#197

Post by pessimizer »

rmtech wrote: post #165

Can somebody clarify for me - if you write 9,990 lines of proprietary code and include 10 lines of GPL code, the whole 10,000 becomes GPL, right? And then the whole 10,000 becomes public property according to the GPL so the person who wrote the 9,990 lines of proprietary code starves to death and dies because you can't monetize public property, and our food system only accepts money in exchange for food, not "good de…

If you wrote 9,990 lines of proprietary code and included 10 lines of proprietary code from another company, I imagine that your entire program would have to be approved of by the other company in writing, or you wouldn't be able to distribute it.

What's supposed to be the difference here?

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#198

Post by jeena »

eitland wrote: post #181
Quekid5 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It enriches everyone, even those who I don't necessarily agree with. That's definitely a valid PoV, but you just have to realize/accept that it may empower people who have power over you. I'm mostly talking about economic power here, but with the absurd expansion of lobbying, etc., this may extend to political power, cf. Turbotax[1]. Again: It's ultimately up to you, but for me... I don't want to give big conglomer…

> That's definitely a valid PoV, but you just have to realize/accept that it may empower people who have power over you. Newtons Equations has also empowered the powerful for a while now but I think we are still happy that they are available for free for everyone without any limitations.

Nobody can take them, change them and close them and sell you a better version of them. So, I have no idea how you made the connection to MIT here.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#199

Post by [deleted] »

pessimizer wrote: post #190
hlkps wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My iPhone has a BSD-licenced kernel. Having that kernel under that licence benefits me as an end user of the product. Maybe having used another kernel would've resulted in a less stable mobile that would not have taken off.

I doubt any licensing makes your phone more stable, but if it were unstable, the GPL would certainly certainly make it easier/cheaper to fix.

[deleted]

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#200

Post by theturtletalks »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #54
theturtletalks wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's absolutely not what copyleft means. The concept of copyleft is the core of viral open source licenses like GPL. CockroachDB did something completely opposite - they migrated away from open source licenses.

Thank you for clearing that up. I’m going to read more into it.
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