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My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

drewdevault.com

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Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#281

Post by Wowfunhappy »

gridlockd wrote: post #274
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody wants to read the source code to such garbage as "stfupy3.org" How do you know? It could be exactly what I need for some esoteric reason! Within the past year, I've found several useful projects on Github that their authors who appeared to consider them worthless. --- Edit: As an example, I really wanted a simplistic dictionary app for my iPhone, which used the definitions built into iOS so it could work off…

> How do you know? It could be exactly what I need for some esoteric reason! No true scotsman wants to read that garbage. > Within the past year, I've found several useful projects on Github that their authors who appeared to consider them worthless. If the authors truly believed it was worthless, they wouldn't have expended the energy to publish it. But that's not the point anyway. If you drown out your good work wi…

Take a look at the example I edited in above (it looks like our posts crossed). I really do think that app's author considered it fairly worthless, it barely has a readme and it was explicitly given a WTFPL license.

I would have thought my barely-tweaked fork was worthless to, and almost didn't share it, but I'm glad I did.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#282

Post by icebraining »

cr0sh wrote: post #267
megous wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a very natural human reaction to push back against the idea that someone else might profit from your work--whether or not you have any real opportunity to profit yourself. Purpose of GPL is not to avoid profiting from other people's work. It's to give user's freedom to inspect, modify and re-use the software. I now have a mental blacklist of GPL violators, that I bought or were given the HW of, that is useless…

> It's to give user's freedom to inspect, modify and re-use the software. The GPL is this, but I believe it is something else, too. I believe that when you make your code GPL, you are saying to others who want to use your code, or especially to extend it and publish those changes, that you want to be paid. How? In code. You are basically saying "Yes, go ahead and have fun with this work, but - if you want to change i…

It should be noted that the GPL requires you to pay forward , not back. You are under no obligation to release the code publicly or contribute to the original project.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#283

Post by the_af »

module0000 wrote: post #233
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you understand this already, but corporations can repackage and sell GPL code. The main thing you're granting in choosing a permissive license is the right to deny others the right to enjoy future improvements to the code. This is why in practice permissively licensed code is more successful in industry. Industries like to exercise the right to make proprietary improvements to open source code.

> can repackage and sell GPL code Can you give me some detail about how/when this happens? I was under the impression that you can sell support (or other ancillary services) for GPL'd code, but not for the code itself.

No, that interpretation is wrong. GPL'd code can be sold no problem. Yes, even the source code. No, it doesn't make much sense in an age when anyone can download it for free, but nobody is stopping you either.

In the past, when the internet was slower and fewer people had access to it, it made more sense to sell CDs of GPL'd code.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#284

Post by nfoz »

anderspitman wrote: post #220
normalhuman wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open Source failed. It remains as something that is useful to build software, but its political aims were defeated. The political goal was to give users absolute control over their computational environments. In reality, we have less and less control, because computations moved to the cloud (corporation-controlled servers) and the most used devices regressed to a non-hackable state (mobile gadgets). Even if you use a…

That's an interesting take. Somewhat random question that came to my mind: Do you think it's more important for a user to be in control of their computation, or of their data, or are they equally important?

I'm not the parent, but IMO the end-user should be in control of the computation on a computer... and that concepts of "ownership" don't really apply to data. So when you say "their data", it is very unclear what that should mean.

I'm a copyright abolitionist, so I think when you write a book, you can only "own" that physical copy. When someone reads that book, the words in the sequence that they read them are now part of their memory and autonomy of thought. And so on.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#285

Post by icebraining »

module0000 wrote: post #233
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you understand this already, but corporations can repackage and sell GPL code. The main thing you're granting in choosing a permissive license is the right to deny others the right to enjoy future improvements to the code. This is why in practice permissively licensed code is more successful in industry. Industries like to exercise the right to make proprietary improvements to open source code.

> can repackage and sell GPL code Can you give me some detail about how/when this happens? I was under the impression that you can sell support (or other ancillary services) for GPL'd code, but not for the code itself.

"Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license."

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#286

Post by gnomewascool »

abacadaba wrote: post #279
gnomewascool wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large portion of programming books are still under neither a FOSS nor a CC license, and hence fully protected by copyright. (I've encountered some where the main text of the book is not under a FOSS license, while the code is, but that's also not universal.) In such cases, you're not allowed to just re-use large code segments from the book (commercially or in an open source piece of code). Hence the case of a book…

If you infringe gpl code though, you're obligated to provide your source. If you infringe some other copyrighted code, you're just liable for damages. Is this correct at all? Like if Microsoft accidentally included some gpl code in Windows, could they theoretically be required to open source it? Or would just have to stop distributing?

No. If you're found violating the GPL, then you have some time (which I don't remember off the top of my head) to provide the source; if you don't do that you'll be treated as having infringed any generic copyright — being liable for damages, having to cease distribution etc.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#287

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

wrs wrote: post #96
simion314 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>First, I'm not a lawyer, but I've always seen the MIT license as being more "free", If you are a lawyer can you maybe be more clear about "more free" , more free relative to what? AFAIK GPL protects the user freedom and I think you are referring at the programmers freedom, GPL is a license that respects the users/society as a group, most people here are developers sothey will say that this is less free for them as a…

If “users” = “not programmers” (which I think must be the definition here) then neither license gives users anything except the freedom to hire programmers to do something they want more cheaply. (I include buying software and downloading free-as-in-beer software in “hiring programmers”.) With MIT/GPL the programmers can afford to charge a lot less to do the same job. It’s fundamentally programmer freedom in either c…

Actually, that's not really true either. Usually, the company that holds the copyright can afford to charge more for proprietary software, but they also can afford to pay less for software developers, because they hold both the monopoly for the software the user wants, and the monopoly for the work the programmer wants to do/is qualified for. With free software, both sides can potentially just skip the middleman.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#288

Post by lone_haxx0r »

TuringTest wrote: post #115
TuringTest wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism has an enormous blind spot, in that it doesn't contains ethic provisions on what happens in a free market to people not able to create value that others are willing to pay for. Given the relentless tendency of capitalism to optimize towards eradicating any inefficiency, it contains as a natural consequence the propensity to expel those people out of the system - i.e. the ethical proposition of capitalism i…

(Replying to lone_haxx0r here, as the thread went dead while I was writing this): > Why don't you 'steal' from your own pocket and help the poor? See? That's exactly what I was referring to with "frowned upon by those who see capitalism as an ethical system" and with "capitalism has an enormous blind spot" . There's a rational argument perfectly consistent with libertarian free market principles, by which a governmen…

> - You were signed into that contract by your parents when you were born, as they had the legal authority over your rights to decide on your behalf.

> - As soon as you legally become an adult, you can step out of that social contract by leaving the country at any time. By remaining in your country, you consent to its social contract, so you pay taxes to the government by your own will.

This is where you're wrong. By saying "you can step out of that social contract by leaving the country at any time." you could justify any political system, including monarchy, dictatorships, etc. as long as people can leave the country.

You might as well say: "If you don't like the country you were born in, just kill yourself." because you're rejecting the discussion about justice entirely.

> - There's a free market of countries with open borders; people can vote with their feet in this market and migrate to their preferred one. You have no obligation to pay taxes at any one of them, but they have no obligation to accept you nor provide you with services if you're not willing to play by their rules.

That would work if switching countries had a negligible cost. Switching to another country is not as easy as choosing a pair of shoes.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#289

Post by icebraining »

antidesitter wrote: post #238
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you understand this already, but corporations can repackage and sell GPL code. The main thing you're granting in choosing a permissive license is the right to deny others the right to enjoy future improvements to the code. This is why in practice permissively licensed code is more successful in industry. Industries like to exercise the right to make proprietary improvements to open source code.

> the right to enjoy future improvements to the code Why is that a “right”?

Because the license gives you the legal entitlement to do so.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#290

Post by icebraining »

abacadaba wrote: post #279
gnomewascool wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large portion of programming books are still under neither a FOSS nor a CC license, and hence fully protected by copyright. (I've encountered some where the main text of the book is not under a FOSS license, while the code is, but that's also not universal.) In such cases, you're not allowed to just re-use large code segments from the book (commercially or in an open source piece of code). Hence the case of a book…

If you infringe gpl code though, you're obligated to provide your source. If you infringe some other copyrighted code, you're just liable for damages. Is this correct at all? Like if Microsoft accidentally included some gpl code in Windows, could they theoretically be required to open source it? Or would just have to stop distributing?

You're never forced to follow the license; you just have to accept that you've committed copyright infringement, and may have to pay statutory damages for each copy, besides stopping the distribution of any more.
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