60x speed-up of Linux “perf”
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60x speed-up of Linux “perf”
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Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”
#2Yet another case of GPL virality causing more issues than it solves.
E: Downvoters, have you read the article? The program started a new process for each address lookup instead of using a library because that library is GPL.
Shall we have a discussion?
Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”
#3> Michał Sidor suggests building against libbfd, something that the Debian maintainers don’t want to do.
"don't want to" isn't quite correct - they can't.
Perf is licensed under the GPLv2, libbfd under the GPLv3. The licenses are incompatible, which makes the combination unredistributable - which is what Debian would be doing with it.
Debian is legally not allowed to do this.
Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”
#4[deleted]
Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”
#5> Michał Sidor suggests building against libbfd, something that the Debian maintainers don’t want to do. "don't want to" isn't quite correct - they can't . Perf is licensed under the GPLv2, libbfd under the GPLv3. The licenses are incompatible, which makes the combination unredistributable - which is what Debian would be doing with it. Debian is legally not allowed to do this.
Unless perf has the standard clause allowing use of later versions of GPL. That would make it GPLv3 if linked against libbfd.
Unfortunately it does not.
Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”
#6Yet another case of GPL virality causing more issues than it solves. E: Downvoters, have you read the article? The program started a new process for each address lookup instead of using a library because that library is GPL. Shall we have a discussion?
No. That is the case of Linus Torvalds not using the standard "or later" clause. He has his (bad) reasons.
The incompatibility is caused by "lack of restrictions" clause. Without that, GPL becomes essentially BSD with all the corporate thievery that entails.
Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”
#7Yet another case of GPL virality causing more issues than it solves. E: Downvoters, have you read the article? The program started a new process for each address lookup instead of using a library because that library is GPL. Shall we have a discussion?
No. That is the case of Linus Torvalds not using the standard "or later" clause. He has his (bad) reasons. The incompatibility is caused by "lack of restrictions" clause. Without that, GPL becomes essentially BSD with all the corporate thievery that entails.
The "or later" clause is a backdoor. Not wanting backdoors in your license doesn't seem like a bad reason to me.
Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”
#8Yet another case of GPL virality causing more issues than it solves. E: Downvoters, have you read the article? The program started a new process for each address lookup instead of using a library because that library is GPL. Shall we have a discussion?
No. That is the case of Linus Torvalds not using the standard "or later" clause. He has his (bad) reasons. The incompatibility is caused by "lack of restrictions" clause. Without that, GPL becomes essentially BSD with all the corporate thievery that entails.
What is a good source to get an understanding of all the Licenses and their relation?
Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”
#9Yet another case of GPL virality causing more issues than it solves. E: Downvoters, have you read the article? The program started a new process for each address lookup instead of using a library because that library is GPL. Shall we have a discussion?
IMO it's not "GPL virality" that is at the root of the issue here. The authors' decision to license theis works this way causes the problem. You can still ask both libraries' authors for relicensing their work in a less restricted / more compatible way.
If they don't want to do that, then being authors and owning their copyrights, that's their right to do. That's nothing I would blame on the GPL.
I mean we should be grateful that these authors made their works available free of cost in the first place.
Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”
#10Yet another case of GPL virality causing more issues than it solves. E: Downvoters, have you read the article? The program started a new process for each address lookup instead of using a library because that library is GPL. Shall we have a discussion?
It seems odd that the takeaway is "GPL sucks because it got in my way" and not "both authors' explicit wishes were respected." Assuming that this is in error and this isn't what the authors wanted to happen then it's fixable by someone changing their license.