Open Sourcers Drop Software Religion for Common Sense • Hacker News Board

Re: Open Sourcers Drop Software Religion for Common Sense

#31

Post by tptacek » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 1:56 PM UTC

nikcub wrote: post #28

tptacek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know there isn't an easy alternative to it, but that Github list is pretty wonky; things like impress.js and Devise are at the top of it, but are clearly not among the most important pieces of open source software. Similarly, I review other people's Rails apps for a living and have never seen a project use that particular top-of-the-list form builder. I can only conclude that the number of Github users "watching" a…

I noticed that - the fork list isn't a good representation either. It would be interesting to get a sample across github, bitbucket, google code and whatever that site is called that .NET developer use. I don't think a survey of all of those site s combined would fall far from the 90-95% BSD/MIT license rate you see in the GitHub sample (again, talking about web related open source software). Anecdotally, I have also…

Like another commenter noted, the FSF (wow what a bad logo) recently did a survey of Debian packages that rebuts the 90-95% claim.

But there's no way to apples-apples this anyways. Communities like Rails produce starbursts of itsy bitsy little packages like form-building gems, and have MIT licensing norms. You'd need to normalize somehow for value or code base size.

What I'd say is that "GPL use is plummeting" is an extraordinary claim, that extraordinary evidence has not been marshaled to support it, and that a more likely phenomenon is that the GPL is roughly as strong as it's ever been in its original domain (the licensing of large, complex, expensive- to- produce software packages) and probably not as prevalent in some of the newer more... uh... casual... software development domains.

Re: Open Sourcers Drop Software Religion for Common Sense

#32

Post by tptacek » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 1:58 PM UTC

nikcub wrote: post #29

tptacek wrote: post #17

Ironically, Sleepycat couldn't have executed without the GPL; it's a fundamental part of their business model, which relies on dual licensing. There's more to the GPL than "religion". When you release code under BSD, MIT, or Apache, you give up all control of it. Anyone is free to commercialize it without adding any value. The better marketing & sales team can and will beat the origin of the software in the market. I…

The way this has come about with relation to web and internet software is that the actual applications being built are closed source but a lot of the libraries and commodity pieces of software are being open sourced with permissive licenses. for eg. Twitter, Google, Facebook etc. produces and consumer a lot of open source software but their core products are still close source. You can segment out portions of your so…

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with MIT licensing code, but again: MIT licensing concedes more from the author to the public, and is an irrevocable grant, so from a purely pragmatic standpoint, "if you have to ask, GPL; at least that way you can change your mind later".

Also, hopefully it goes without saying: what's good for a ridiculously fast-growing startup surfing on a tsunami of VC money is not necessarily good for a solo practitioner.

Re: Open Sourcers Drop Software Religion for Common Sense

#33

Post by kbolino » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 2:58 PM UTC

nikcub wrote: post #7

vy8vWJlco wrote: post #2

The "practicality" argument doesn't hold water with me: none of it matters without freedom. If you care about code, the GPL gives you freedom by requiring that people give back in the manner they take: with code. It is only necessary because people weren't giving back. I can understand that someone might want to shirk the quid-pro-quo responsibilities of the GPL, but I won't be paying for that kind of anti-social pro…

"freedom by requiring" < see the contradiction? true freedom has no requirements or demands.

True freedom also doesn't exist. The mere act of publishing something carries with it an implicit claim of copyright. Thus, the GPL substitutes one set of restrictions for another.

Re: Open Sourcers Drop Software Religion for Common Sense

#34

Post by zeruch » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 3:31 PM UTC

It's strange to see that now, inasmuch as years ago, when I worked at VA Linux Systems, the general attitude was of philosophical affinity with Open Source pragmatism. It wasn't dogmatic religion. I still think that's sensible and it always seemed to me like many also felt this way...and the GPL was not necessarily a hindrance to that. It was simply one tool among several in the licensing toolbox.

Re: Open Sourcers Drop Software Religion for Common Sense

#35

Post by klez » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 6:01 PM UTC

I think the article is using wrong examples if they talk about web companies such as Facebook, Google or Twitter.

The GPL doesn't force you to free code you don't distribute, for example the code behind your server. This means that, if Facebook did use a GPLed library to, say, show you advertisemnts based on your 'likes', they wouldn't have to GPL their modifications (if any) or the part of proprietary software that used that specific library, let alone their whole infrastructure.

So this argument simply doesn't apply to this kind of software.

A license that forces you to release your modifications even if you don't distribute your software (again, a web application for example) is the Afero GPL, that is just another beast.

TL;DR If you don't distribute or sell software, the GPL is not a concern.