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LLVM relicensing update and call for help

blog.llvm.org

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Re: LLVM relicensing update and call for help

#91

Post by shoozza »

chayleaf wrote: post #80
arka2147483647 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a practical matter, it means you cant just copy the files into your sources to some subdir, or you cant just link it statically. So you cant release a single-exe version of your project. These are things some projects like to do, and GPL blocks that. So all thing considered, it may be easiest to just not use GPL code.

you can't copy MIT-licensed files without crediting it either. And you can statically link GPL code, assuming you release the source to all app users. You might be confusing it with LGPL, which says you can link to proprietary apps dynamically, but have to release source in all other cases.

You can also link to proprietary apps statically if you provide the object files: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/3127...

Re: LLVM relicensing update and call for help

#93

Post by rocqua »

Smithalicious wrote: post #79
Decabytes wrote: post #32

Racket had to do this to go from lGPL to Mit, it was a long process. But they did it to make the language more accessible to developers. Developers are scared away by lGPL. Not all contributions were relicensed (resulting in code being rewritten), and we lost some code in the standard library (the csv parser). Now Racket is trying to make it more friendly to people by created a new language (called Rhombus for now) t…

> Developers are scared away by lGPL. For me it's very much the opposite, I refuse to contribute code to anything licensed under the MIT/BSD/etc family of languages. It makes me sad to see so much confusion, incorrect information, naiveté and paranoia going around regarding the GPL that it's scaring people off. I think that most of these people would feel differently if they understood better. I think the systematic…

I don't think people who shy away from GPL are in favor of the free software movement. People who advocate for MIT like licenses like 'open source', but they usually explicitly reject the ideas from free software.

Some of these concerns are simply commercial, and some are philosophical. I think people might have been convinced to dislike GPL. But I don't think that was misinformation or confusion. It might be fear-mongering about the effects of a 'viral license', but we can only guess at their effects.

Personally I dislike GPL because it limits developers like me, and because I find the (roughly true) idea 'you can only use GPL code if you're own code is GPL' too coercive. I don't think that is a virtuous method for improving the world.

Re: LLVM relicensing update and call for help

#94

Post by still_grokking »

kitd wrote: post #77
still_grokking wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPL software, and extensions to it, are free and will stay like that. That can't be said about software under the above mentioned licenses.

OP also said it was a sign of 'quality'. Not sure how GPL promises that over other OS licenses.

I'm the OP and I'm not a native speaker but to my knowledge "quality" denotes in English besides a few other things the meaning of "value" (in the sense of worthiness) or (related to that meaning) "excellence". Something being high-quality makes this thing valuable.

I didn't mean "code quality", or the like, as a license can not enforce that obviously.

Re: LLVM relicensing update and call for help

#95

Post by rocqua »

chayleaf wrote: post #80
arka2147483647 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a practical matter, it means you cant just copy the files into your sources to some subdir, or you cant just link it statically. So you cant release a single-exe version of your project. These are things some projects like to do, and GPL blocks that. So all thing considered, it may be easiest to just not use GPL code.

you can't copy MIT-licensed files without crediting it either. And you can statically link GPL code, assuming you release the source to all app users. You might be confusing it with LGPL, which says you can link to proprietary apps dynamically, but have to release source in all other cases.

I thought useing GPL code without modifications was acceptable without any licensing, or is that a 'lesser GPL' license?

Re: LLVM relicensing update and call for help

#96

Post by rocqua »

dagmx wrote: post #55
still_grokking wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPL software, and extensions to it, are free and will stay like that. That can't be said about software under the above mentioned licenses.

I'm not sure how the GPL guarantees that it will stay like that anymore than those other licenses? You can always relicense GPL content as long as everyone agrees. You can also change it to source on request versus always accessible.

If you wrote the code, you can refuse to relicense.

Re: LLVM relicensing update and call for help

#97

Post by pjmlp »

Decabytes wrote: post #32

Racket had to do this to go from lGPL to Mit, it was a long process. But they did it to make the language more accessible to developers. Developers are scared away by lGPL. Not all contributions were relicensed (resulting in code being rewritten), and we lost some code in the standard library (the csv parser). Now Racket is trying to make it more friendly to people by created a new language (called Rhombus for now) t…

Without GPL, people wouldn't be enjoying their Linux distribution, but naturally this is a moot point given how the BSD distributions have taken over the UNIX world.

Re: LLVM relicensing update and call for help

#98

Post by pjmlp »

rocqua wrote: post #93
Smithalicious wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Developers are scared away by lGPL. For me it's very much the opposite, I refuse to contribute code to anything licensed under the MIT/BSD/etc family of languages. It makes me sad to see so much confusion, incorrect information, naiveté and paranoia going around regarding the GPL that it's scaring people off. I think that most of these people would feel differently if they understood better. I think the systematic…

I don't think people who shy away from GPL are in favor of the free software movement. People who advocate for MIT like licenses like 'open source', but they usually explicitly reject the ideas from free software. Some of these concerns are simply commercial, and some are philosophical. I think people might have been convinced to dislike GPL. But I don't think that was misinformation or confusion. It might be fear-mo…

If those people are coherent I assume they are also contributing and running one of the BSDs as their main UNIX.

Re: LLVM relicensing update and call for help

#99

Post by rocqua »

varajelle wrote: post #67
wumpus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many major corporations (like, say, IBM) have no problem with LGPL. Where did you find a bunch of developers who thought it was a problem?

It's not the developers who are afraid, it's the companies who want to use the code for free, for proprietary purpose, and redistribute it. They want to take as much as possible but don't want to give anything.

I would rephrase to "they want to take as much as possible but don't want to give back the entire codebase using the free software".

Re: LLVM relicensing update and call for help

#100

Post by pjmlp »

purple_turtle wrote: post #51
dagmx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, how does the GPL promise that versus the other common open source licenses? E.g MIT, BSD or Apache?

As I understand it: MIT code can be freely taken into proprietary fork, with software modified and sold and no patches contributed. Not sure how often it happens? Has it actually happened and is it a plausible attack? Nowadays at least AGPL is needed to defang "and we will sell it as service rather than selling software" workaround for GPL.

Apple derived OSes, the Windows TCP/IP stack before Windows Vista, PlayStation OSes, Nintendo and Playstation SDK, the BSD stuff taken into commercial UNIXes, just from top of my head, there are surely other examples.
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