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60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

eighty-twenty.org

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Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#101

Post by drran »

TillE wrote: post #75
lathiat wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of the crux of a long history of these licensing arguments. That dynamic linking is problematic because it potentially creates a derived work. And then you might distribute that derived work. But shelling out to something or in some cases having an automated script create or download the derived work automatically is sometimes acceptable. It’s a bit of a silly line in some ways. But it’s a long story.

I'm skeptical that there's a coherent legal distinction to be drawn between using a dynamic library with dlopen etc and running a similar executable with arguments. It's functionally identical usage of some public interface.

License holder grants you permission to do Foo, but not Bar. For example, it may be legal to show a film at site A (e.g. Netflix), but not at site B (e.g. YouTube), because the license holder said so. Functionality of both sites are almost identical.

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#102

Post by jabl »

csdreamer7 wrote: post #95
nonbirithm wrote: post #62

It is a tough feeling to see someone else's design for a library that would be literally perfect for my needs, but I'm unable to use it because of the license, so I have to spend weeks implementing my own inferior version while carefully avoiding making the code too similar to what I happen to remember. I'm past believing that I'm smart enough to always be able to come up with/reimplement a competent enough solution…

This is the comment that points out the issue. perf is licensed under GPL v2 only and libbfd is a GNU tool that is licensed GPL v3 and higher. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=911815 Really wish the Linux kernel would start mandating new patches to be GPL v2 and higher and get buy in from the largest contributors. A decade later new code would like replace the smaller contributors code and we could c…

You might as well blame GNU for updating from GPLv2+ to GPLv3+, creating the problem in the first place.

Since, realistically, neither Linux nor GNU will budge, maybe the practical solution would be to look into integrating with the equivalent library in the LLVM ecosystem (assuming it exists).

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#103

Post by aseipp »

for1nner wrote: post #61
dvdkhlng wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The authors' decision to license theis works this way causes the problem. I'm not sure how you can rationally make an argument for a framework that literally limits the use of improved or more performant code/technology/understanding simply because it does not share a philosophical view of IP/ownership/sharing. This is the core of the problem with IP in the real world as well, and I find it mind-boggling that we do…

Actual IP law and how it conducts itself in the real world has plenty of issues to be sorted out, but there are tons of potential "inefficiencies" in the real world that could be exploited and rectified across a vast array of things, but aren't, due to combinations of social politics, law, philosophy, etc preventing it. That some potential efficiency is on the table in theory, but can't be reaped due to those things, is nowhere remotely close to "mind boggling"

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#104

Post by mistrial9 »

saurik wrote: post #96

FINALLY AN ACTUAL ANSWER!! :D I had done a bunch of research into this a while ago and filed an issue with the Ubuntu bug tracker, but was told it was due to ABI stability (which did not make any sense). https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1894407 Understanding that there is actually an underlying license problem is like finally being told all of the reasons for everything that happened on LOST ;P.

> This bug affects 3 people (!)

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#105

Post by dataflow »

TillE wrote: post #75
lathiat wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of the crux of a long history of these licensing arguments. That dynamic linking is problematic because it potentially creates a derived work. And then you might distribute that derived work. But shelling out to something or in some cases having an automated script create or download the derived work automatically is sometimes acceptable. It’s a bit of a silly line in some ways. But it’s a long story.

I'm skeptical that there's a coherent legal distinction to be drawn between using a dynamic library with dlopen etc and running a similar executable with arguments. It's functionally identical usage of some public interface.

They don't seem to claim there is a distinction on the mechanics there? Rather their distinction seems to be "are these part of the same overall program, or two separate ones", however you measure that: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPlugins

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#106

Post by jabl »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #41
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

But companies wouldn't use it anyway since it's GPL. Enter MPLv2, with the best of both worlds: - not viral copyleft - but users DO have to contribute back

MPLv2 is a fine weak copyleft license, but I'm not really sure it prevents people from not contributing back if that's what they want: just put your proprietary code in a different file, add minimal API's to the MPL code so you can use it.

So in that sense it's only very marginally 'better' than a fully permissive license.

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#107

Post by nightpool »

dataflow wrote: post #105
TillE wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical that there's a coherent legal distinction to be drawn between using a dynamic library with dlopen etc and running a similar executable with arguments. It's functionally identical usage of some public interface.

They don't seem to claim there is a distinction on the mechanics there? Rather their distinction seems to be "are these part of the same overall program, or two separate ones", however you measure that: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPlugins

By claiming that using dlopen to load some code makes your program a derivative work of the library it's using, but shelling out to it doesn't, they're implicitly making a claim as to the distinction of the mechanics.

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#108

Post by marcodiego »

pathseeker wrote: post #58
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)

Right, and GPL is making all of us open source devs rich. I can't fathom getting into open source and then getting mad when people use your tools to great success.

GPL didn't made me rich but it allows me to use high quality open source free software.

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#109

Post by tpxl »

nonbirithm wrote: post #62

It is a tough feeling to see someone else's design for a library that would be literally perfect for my needs, but I'm unable to use it because of the license, so I have to spend weeks implementing my own inferior version while carefully avoiding making the code too similar to what I happen to remember. I'm past believing that I'm smart enough to always be able to come up with/reimplement a competent enough solution…

Don't feel down about that. If someone's job is writing database engines or JSON parsers, you can't do a better job than them while also writing business logic. We should be glad some people chose to provide such code in a matter we can use it, and when we can't, a patchjob that does the trick is just as good.

Re: 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”

#110

Post by guerrilla »

dvdkhlng wrote: post #9
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?

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…

Can someone ELI5 to me where the problem is because both perf and bfd seem to be GPL. Why would the former not be allowed to link to the latter?
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