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60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

eighty-twenty.org

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Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#31

Post by NelsonMinar »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #22
junon wrote: post #2

Yet 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?

I guess MIT and Apache would be better, so that company can make billions on the code and contributors would still be poor (see AAPL -> FreeBSD)

You understand there's nothing in the GPL that prevents companies from making billions on the code without compensating the contributors?

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#33

Post by Someone »

kaikki wrote: post #8
AstralStorm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It isn’t easy, but these can help:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-so... has a feature matrix for about 40 licenses

- https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/solution/joinup-... has a comprehensive set of features you might want a license to have, and shows matching licenses.

You still would have to read up on what terms such as “trademark”, “copyright” or “copyleft” mean.

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#34

Post by junon »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #22
junon wrote: post #2

Yet 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?

I guess MIT and Apache would be better, so that company can make billions on the code and contributors would still be poor (see AAPL -> FreeBSD)

There's nothing that prevents me from using GPL code commercially...

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#35

Post by jcranmer »

kaikki wrote: post #8
AstralStorm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Here's a brief summary of major licenses:

MIT, X11, BSD (2- or 3-clause), and more similar ones I can't name off the top of my head: these are the basic do-what-you-want license, the only requirements are things that every (good) license already has, such as standard limitation-of-warranty clauses and retention of copyright notice requirements.

Apache (v2): This is the next stage up, which means that the text is lengthier and somewhat denser legalese, but also covers more topics such as trademarks and especially patents. The patent clause here includes a provision that any patent licenses are revoked if you sue the authors for patent infringement.

MPL (v2): This is a weak copyleft requirement, which means that you must provide any changes to the source code when you distribute the binary and additionally the resultant code must be licensed under the same terms, although it only applies on a per-file basis. EPL, CDDL are broadly similar to the MPL, with a few differences in the legal minutiae.

LGPL: Weak copyleft again, except now it's on a per-library basis. [Although, to be honest, the definition of per-library basis isn't entirely clear for non-C/C++ code.]

GPL: Strong copyleft, which means that you pretty much have to use GPL if you reuse the code.

AGPL: Even stronger than GPL, you have to distribute sources to anyone who uses your code over the network.

With the GPL family, there's a distinction between version 2.1 and version 3 that retains relevance, because some people objected to the changes in GPLv3 (notably the anti-Tivoization clause and patent clause changes) and refused to move to GPLv3, with the Linux kernel being the most notable project to refuse to do so.

As for relation, well, any license more complicated than Apache includes lots of legal minutiae that makes it somewhat hard to render judgement if two licenses are compatible or not. In general, though, you can usually use an earlier license in this list in a project that uses a later license, but usually only if both licenses are the latest version (as the most recent updates added some compatibility escape hatches).

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#36

Post by lnxg33k1 »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #31
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess MIT and Apache would be better, so that company can make billions on the code and contributors would still be poor (see AAPL -> FreeBSD)

You understand there's nothing in the GPL that prevents companies from making billions on the code without compensating the contributors?

The thing is with GPL you have to contribute back, see how much Linux has grown in functionalities and how backwards are other kernels with MIT

--- You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange;

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#37

Post by josteink »

AstralStorm wrote: post #6
junon wrote: post #2

Yet 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.

> That is the case of Linus Torvalds not using the standard "or later" clause. He has his (bad) reasons.

Linus does not think GPLv3 is a good or fitting license for the Linux-kernel and that it changes too much things to be considered a new version of the same license as GPLv2.

So he refuses to add the “or later” backdoor which would effectively relicense “his” kernel with a license he does not approve of.

Is that not his right?

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#38

Post by simion314 »

junon wrote: post #2

Yet 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?

> more issues than it solves.

Can you explain how you reach this conclusion? Assuming the GPL did not exist and the author would have made stuff proprietary, would that be better ?

Some people like me would share code with GPL3 or later, why the f* should we give it to you as BSD? are you running on your devices only BSD code or MIT code ? or are you running proprietary software but for some reason making all stuff BSD will make your job easier since you could mindlesly copy paste shit in your proprietary stuff?

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#39

Post by ziml77 »

tonyg wrote: post #29
ziml77 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it just me or is the incompatibility especially absurd given that perf is currently using libbfd, just 1 step removed via addr2line? I wonder if a patch to addr2line would be accepted which allows the executable to stay running to accept multiple requests through stdin.

addr2line already does this, and it's exactly what TFA is making use of to get the speedup.

Oops. Literally the only line that I didn't read. I thought the author was providing a patch to link against libbfd for users to manually apply (which afaik wouldn't violate the licenses as long as no one redistributes the patched binary).

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#40

Post by adwn »

simion314 wrote: post #38
junon wrote: post #2

Yet 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?

> more issues than it solves. Can you explain how you reach this conclusion? Assuming the GPL did not exist and the author would have made stuff proprietary, would that be better ? Some people like me would share code with GPL3 or later, why the f* should we give it to you as BSD? are you running on your devices only BSD code or MIT code ? or are you running proprietary software but for some reason making all stuff B…

> Assuming the GPL did not exist and the author would have made stuff proprietary, would that be better ?

That's a false dichotomy – there are many more open source licenses which wouldn't have led to the problem described in the article.

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