GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3
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GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3
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Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3
#2If the author is required to publish the source code, guess what his second to market competitors will have to do as well? Free software is not an ideological exercise. It has its benefits. The author missed out on a huge opportunity.
The author is greedy. GPL v3 successfully cut off the parasite. Good riddance.
Now, he does make a good point though. We have to think strategically. Read gnu.org for details but here is the cinch: if there are commercial alternatives to what you are making, make your licensing liberal (arguably android because iOS existed and WinPoo 7 was apparently in the works). This encourages adoption of foss. However, when foss has the market cornered, don't let the big guys take your ball and run home. Use GPL v3.
The author is greedy. GPL v3 successfully cut off the parasite. Good riddance.
Now, this was a real soap box. Let me hop off it real quick.
Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3
#3"Because that one little "worm" - used simply to support a startup script, could have created a situation where we would have been required to open source our entire product."
Someone assist in my enlightenment: Under what sort of enforcement circumstances would that requirement to open-source a lot of code actually be likely? As opposed to some enforcement action where you remove the offending code.
Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3
#4"Because that one little "worm" - used simply to support a startup script, could have created a situation where we would have been required to open source our entire product." Someone assist in my enlightenment: Under what sort of enforcement circumstances would that requirement to open-source a lot of code actually be likely? As opposed to some enforcement action where you remove the offending code.
As far as I know, this can't happen. The author is being highly paranoid, presumably due to being misinformed.
Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3
#5"Because that one little "worm" - used simply to support a startup script, could have created a situation where we would have been required to open source our entire product." Someone assist in my enlightenment: Under what sort of enforcement circumstances would that requirement to open-source a lot of code actually be likely? As opposed to some enforcement action where you remove the offending code.
It can't happen. However, the plaintiff may offer to forgo monetary damages in exchange for you open-sourcing. So it becomes pay money, or open-source.
Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3
#6[deleted]
Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3
#7Why should distributing GNU grep necessitate releasing the source of other things that you distribute? It only seems obvious to me that they would then have to distribute the source of GNU grep.
Are they linking to grep but grep doesn't have the linking exception?
Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3
#8I became an AGPL3 fan after reading many papers from the 50s->70s, before the rise of open source & the Unix sharing habits. I believe its a crying shame that all those wonderful tools and systems that I read about disappeared into the void and got hidden by closed-source approaches to development and licensing. I am fully aware that this limits certain avenues of commercialization, and I am fully OK with that. I believe that an AGPL3 world is a better world for computer science and technology.
From my perspective as an engineer in the enterprise, we value functionality very highly; if you sell us a GPL3-based hardware solution, we care that it works. We're not going to copy and resell it. We have our own products to care about and do excellent things with.
Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3
#9GPL3 is restricted to the boundaries of the executable so he would just have to give access to the grep source code if/when requested. End of story.
Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3
#10If you want the benefits of open source without the responsibility of sharing consider a BSD licensed product.