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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

#311

Post by neuland »

pedrocr wrote: post #266
neuland wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you want to maximize use of open source software in general and/or that specific open source project. If you're goal is to minimize the number of people using your work without following the agreed terms, it is worth it to shoo away non-compliant companies or companies that don't share the values of open source. Like another poster said, why use GPL if you don't actually care that companies are violating the…

>Only if you want to maximize use of open source software in general and/or that specific open source project. >Like another poster said, why use GPL if you don't actually care that companies are violating the terms. Both of these are wrong according to Linux/GregKH. They both very deeply care about both those things and argue very convincingly that you get more of both of them by their strategy than with lawsuits. T…

I don't think you understand. From the perspective of a pro-lawsuit person, there can only be upside. If they lose the lawsuit, it's the same effectively as the status quo. The company will continue abusing your contribution. But if you win, you win. Similarly, if you scare off people that are not interested in open source values (ie. they're using open source only b/c people have convinced them that in practice it's better b/c they can offload maintenance of their code to the project), that's basically fine too.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#312

Post by icebraining »

_ph_ wrote: post #229
jbotz wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Strictly speaking, as soon as you looked at the GPL code you are tainted. A developer with a good memory will struggly not to pick up code he read through. After all, if you are looking at others people code, you are looking at the interesting parts - and if you see a cleverly written function - so anything which is longer as a single expression - you are in risk violating the copyrights of the creator. As I am respe…

So do you provide attribution to every MIT/BSD project you look at? Otherwise, you're also in risk of violating the copyright of the creator.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#313

Post by c22 »

cjbprime wrote: post #295
c22 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about a society where individuals are free to let their dogs poop all over but most choose not to since it's unattractive and they've been raised in a society where personal responsibility is of paramount value? This is the society I want to live in, and I think if you look at it pragmatically this is a society in which a lot of us already live (I have heard of very few cases where someone has actually been fine…

I guess I just don't believe cooperation problems scale. e.g. https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-liberta...

It's the same cooperation problem regardless. GPL only works because enough people agree to respect the system that allows it to function. If no one payed lawyers to argue over licensing issues and no one supported courts in which to hear the arguments then the GPL would just be words on paper. Since we fundamentally live in a world where cooperation happens all the time I know that a utopian interpretation of this world is also possible. In fact, it's been my observation that people's willingness to cooperate increases as a function of societal excess, so if we are going to keep putting all our eggs in this maximize-production maximize-efficiency capitalist mindset that has taken hold in the last century it seems almost inevitable that natural cooperation will increase and we can rely less on codified regulations with the threat of force.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#314

Post by icebraining »

la_barba wrote: post #90

I agree with the author that the GPL engenders a sharing atmosphere, and given its wild success, much more than any other license. It would be amazing if all software could be like this, but you also need to take into account how you're going to make money, and not just for subsistence, as a sustained income so people can take up a job, enjoy a decent life, and save some $ for retirement. Only a handful of high profi…

Plenty of people make average developer salaries writing GPL code, you just never heard of them. Look into open source business software, especially custom development, and you'll find thousands of small and medium companies hiring. I've worked for them over a few years, in multiple countries.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#315

Post by [deleted] »

godshatter wrote: post #24

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 anyo…

[deleted]

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#316

Post by pedrocr »

neuland wrote: post #311
pedrocr wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Only if you want to maximize use of open source software in general and/or that specific open source project. >Like another poster said, why use GPL if you don't actually care that companies are violating the terms. Both of these are wrong according to Linux/GregKH. They both very deeply care about both those things and argue very convincingly that you get more of both of them by their strategy than with lawsuits. T…

I don't think you understand. From the perspective of a pro-lawsuit person, there can only be upside. If they lose the lawsuit, it's the same effectively as the status quo. The company will continue abusing your contribution. But if you win, you win. Similarly, if you scare off people that are not interested in open source values (ie. they're using open source only b/c people have convinced them that in practice it's…

That's only true if your only options are a lawsuit or sitting on your hands. Linus and Greg explain how they do a bunch of other stuff that ends up actually working. So that's a false dichotomy.

And it's not even true that there's no downside to losing. You may get a precedent settled that actually invalidates enforcing the license. Then you've screwed up your own enforcement and everyone else's.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#317

Post by dbcurtis »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #204
dbcurtis wrote: post #71

People should chose a software license the way they choose a screwdriver, not the way they chose a religion. Choose the tool that accomplishes the job. Do you want to avoid commercial exploitation without repayment-in-kind in the form of contributing back? Use GPL or similar (although this is getting creaky in the case of SaaS deployments). Do you want total world domination for your new protocol? Release a reference…

> Do you want total world domination for your new protocol? Release a reference implementation under MIT or similar. Not sure this would be the right strategy in this case (assuming by world domination you mean your protocol gets maximal use). Because your protocol/impl could be forked into a closed variant with proprietary extensions, defeating the purpose of an open protocol. At which point you might be stuck maint…

Well you are talking about control of the product road map, which isn't really something that the license can do much about. GPL is just as forkable as MIT or BSD. And as to being "stuck" maintaining code that you don't want to... well, just stop already.

Control over the evolution of a protocol isn't easy to bake into a license. It is probably better to look at tools like trademark where you can require passing compliance tests to fly a logo, for instance.

Again, be clear about your goals. Controlling the evolution of a protocol forever is different from launching and declaring victory once it takes on a life of its own. Both are legit, but require different tool kits.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#318

Post by cjbprime »

c22 wrote: post #313
cjbprime wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I just don't believe cooperation problems scale. e.g. https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-liberta...

It's the same cooperation problem regardless. GPL only works because enough people agree to respect the system that allows it to function. If no one payed lawyers to argue over licensing issues and no one supported courts in which to hear the arguments then the GPL would just be words on paper. Since we fundamentally live in a world where cooperation happens all the time I know that a utopian interpretation of this w…

I don't think people are especially willing to cooperate in the absence of enforced rules, even with regard to the GPL. They didn't "choose" to live in countries where governments will perform force against them if they break the rules -- that's a very rosy view of consent and cooperation. And even in such a world, GPL violations are so common that for a while I think most Android phones in existence weren't even trying hard to pretend to comply with GPL.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#319

Post by ghaff »

icebraining wrote: post #301
ghaff wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment as a whole made it pretty clear they were talking about modified code that is redistributed. (I can, of course, take code and modify it for internal use and I don't have obligations under the GPL.)

Redistribution doesn't mean public. I've worked for years extending A/LGPL code that we redistributed, yet much of it never saw the light of day, since our clients have no interest in publishing it (although they are free to do so, of course).

You’re essentially working as contractors for the company in that case though. So you’re effectively part of the company and aren’t really distributing as the term is generally understood.

Of course there is some ambiguity as there always is.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#320

Post by Wowfunhappy »

gridlockd wrote: post #298
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just because that one thing happens to not be entirely worthless, doesn't mean that anything has value. Also, since you're not even a professional developer, I'm not directing that advice at you.

> Also, since you're not even a professional developer, I'm not directing that advice at you.

I think your implicit assumption that most Github projects are created as a form of resumé building is incorrect.

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