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FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project

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Re: FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project

#91

Post by dragonwriter »

_delirium wrote: post #41
lucian1900 wrote: post #18

Why the fuck would a library not use the Library GPL? It's the same stupidity as readline.

Readline being GPL was actually a pretty good idea imo– it's gotten some pieces of software to open-source themselves solely because they wanted to use readline (the clisp implementation of Lisp is the most famous example). Seems like a reasonable quid pro quo: you want to use my nice open-source library, then you need to open-source also.

Readline being GPL was actually a pretty good idea imo– it's gotten some pieces of software to open-source themselves solely because they wanted to use readline

That's pretty much the entire value proposition of the GPL, and it was pretty important in the early days of F/OSS when the value propositions of F/OSS was less clear -- "you have to open your stuff if you want to use my stuff".

But very early on in F/OSS, the argument was made that F/OSS was actually good for the people releasing their software as F/OSS -- not just good for the downstream recipients. And to the extent that that value proposition has been accepted, GPL-style licensing is less beneficial. If you believe that F/OSS is good for the licensor as well as the licensee, there is no reason, as a licensor, to use the license on your software as a bribe to get other people to open their software.

While initially -- before lots of big players clearly saw the value of F/OSS and adopted it for things they released even outside of GPL-style license-based compulsion -- the GPL was useful both for those who believed in the value proposition of F/OSS and those who were ideologically attached to F/OSS independent of the value proposition, its now useful mostly to the latter group and a negative to the former.

Re: FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project

#92

Post by tedks »

endgame wrote: post #68
anonymouz wrote: post #23

Anyone surprised by the fact that the FSF puts its principles about the purity of free software licenses before pragmatism hasn't been paying much attention. The GPLv3 is the flagship license of the FSF and they think it fixes some issues with the GPLv2, so it's hardly surprising that they will refuse to relicense their high priority projects under the older license. "But you'll gain more users" has never been a reas…

> "But you'll gain more users" has never been a reason for the FSF to compromise on their principles. Actually, rms recommended a more liberal license for Ogg/Vorbis. http://lwn.net/2001/0301/a/rms-ov-license.php3

The FSF's stance on this has been very clear, to me at least, since I first read the gnu.org essays when I was maybe 15 years old.

This is the most relevant section I can quote:

> Using the ordinary GPL is not advantageous for every library. There are reasons that can make it better to use the Lesser GPL in certain cases. The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any particular advantage, so it is better to use the Lesser GPL for that library.

From https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html

Stallman's recommendation of a liberal license for the vorbis libraries seems similar: there are already proprietary standards and proprietary libraries for lossy audio compression, so using a copyleft license won't convince anyone to switch their license.

This particular instance with LibreDWG is the polar opposite of that: no other library exists that does what LibreDWG does, so it makes sense to keep LibreDWG on the GPLv3, to entice projects like LibreCAD to use the GPLv3.

The sort of entitlement that this request displays is somewhat astonishing -- do the LibreCAD developers really expect the FSF to back down not only on its principles, but also its strategies?

Re: FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project

#93

Post by millerc »

AutoKorrect wrote: post #87
millerc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to forget the primary reason why the GPL came to be, the principle that caused RMS to rewrite EMACS as an open source product in the first place: if a piece of software is closed, or in this case "not open enough", they want it rewritten under a new license. This story only seems to be a case of political pressure to do so, regardless of the effort a rewrite may cause. In this regards, FSF is clearly putting…

no, the GPL is mainly motivated and designed to encourage openness and collaboration among authors. It removes authority: if you wish to use the code, do whatever you want with it, as long as you share the changes with the rest of the people that are interested in it.

There's the problem right there: "as long as". If I give you candy, I should have no say who gets to eat it - or even cook with it if he fancies. I don't like gifts with strings attached, so I don't cause others to suffer them.

Re: FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project

#94

Post by tedks »

cube13 wrote: post #73
gknoy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly: The solution seems to be (unfortunately) to let LibreDWG languish, and write a new library which is GPL2, or some other license. Sounds painful, since the people who want to use it are those who until now have not been (I assume) the ones writing the library.

To be fair, it looks like the FSF is letting LibreDWG languish anyway. There hasn't been a master commit in 2 years, and the last activity in the repository was in February 2012. I'd assume that a "high priority" project would have a lot more activity than that, especially because there hasn't been a binary release yet( http://www.gnu.org/software/libredwg/ ).

The FSF hasn't had developers for GNU projects on staff in decades, if I remember correctly. They aren't letting it languish, they're actively trying to give it exposure and find new hackers for it -- that's the point of it being a high priority project as far as I can tell.

Re: FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project

#95

Post by lucian1900 »

dllthomas wrote: post #31
lucian1900 wrote: post #18

Why the fuck would a library not use the Library GPL? It's the same stupidity as readline.

LGPL as "Library GPL" is deprecated - the v3.0 version is called the "Lesser GPL". It's intended to be appropriate for some libraries, but was never intended to be used for all. See the link in my neighbor comment for more details.

The renaming was entirely political. If the author wants their library to actually be used, it should be LGPL. GPL-ing a library almost always makes it pointless.

Re: FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project

#96

Post by lucian1900 »

Flimm wrote: post #78
millerc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to forget the primary reason why the GPL came to be, the principle that caused RMS to rewrite EMACS as an open source product in the first place: if a piece of software is closed, or in this case "not open enough", they want it rewritten under a new license. This story only seems to be a case of political pressure to do so, regardless of the effort a rewrite may cause. In this regards, FSF is clearly putting…

In a lot of countries, it's impossible to put something in the public domain immediately.

MIT, BSD and to some extent Apache2 are close enough that the distinction is meaningless.

Re: FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project

#97

Post by lucian1900 »

_delirium wrote: post #41
lucian1900 wrote: post #18

Why the fuck would a library not use the Library GPL? It's the same stupidity as readline.

Readline being GPL was actually a pretty good idea imo– it's gotten some pieces of software to open-source themselves solely because they wanted to use readline (the clisp implementation of Lisp is the most famous example). Seems like a reasonable quid pro quo: you want to use my nice open-source library, then you need to open-source also.

But recently, GPL libraries have mostly only inconvenienced other open source projects, like Racket not shipping readline.

That tactic is dead.

Re: FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project

#98

Post by glesica »

joe_the_user wrote: post #77
glesica wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LibreCAD doesn't hold the copyright, so they can't change the license. The copyright is held by a private company with no particular incentive to make the Free product better, especially since the paid product wouldn't be able to use the LibreDWG code.

So a more or less a "random circumstance" is the reason the FSF should be changing it's principles? I mean, there may be times when the FSF does stick foolishly to principles but the "because we've decided it's OK to be halfway open and accept putting copyright control in the hands of a random company, you should bend for us" argument does not seem compelling. It sounds like the mom and kids dynamic "can't I break th…

I never said the FSF should change its principles. I was just pointing out that the GP's suggestion wasn't possible.

Re: FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project

#99

Post by glesica »

millerc wrote: post #55
glesica wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LibreCAD doesn't hold the copyright, so they can't change the license. The copyright is held by a private company with no particular incentive to make the Free product better, especially since the paid product wouldn't be able to use the LibreDWG code.

You seem to forget the primary reason why the GPL came to be, the principle that caused RMS to rewrite EMACS as an open source product in the first place: if a piece of software is closed, or in this case "not open enough", they want it rewritten under a new license. This story only seems to be a case of political pressure to do so, regardless of the effort a rewrite may cause. In this regards, FSF is clearly putting…

This comment is basically nonsense. Not saying I agree or disagree, it just makes no sense as a response to my comment. I was making a factual correction. The GP suggested that LibreCAD change their license. I pointed out that doing so is not possible and not likely to become possible. That is all.

Re: FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project

#100

Post by dllthomas »

lucian1900 wrote: post #95
dllthomas wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LGPL as "Library GPL" is deprecated - the v3.0 version is called the "Lesser GPL". It's intended to be appropriate for some libraries, but was never intended to be used for all. See the link in my neighbor comment for more details.

The renaming was entirely political. If the author wants their library to actually be used, it should be LGPL. GPL-ing a library almost always makes it pointless.

> The renaming was entirely political.

Well sure; the FSF is essentially a political organization. I'm not sure what point you're making here. The renaming was a statement that the organization believes the license is not always what is most appropriate for libraries. This is entirely relevant to the original point, which was a refutation of the notion that the FSF is dumb for not using the clearly-appropriate-because-they-named-it-that "Library GPL".

> If the author wants their library to actually be used, it should be LGPL.

If the author wants their code to be used as broadly as possible, it should be public domain. If the author, maybe, has some concerns other than just how broadly the code is used, then some more restrictive license may be appropriate - BSD, LGPL, or GPL, depending on your particular goals.

> GPL-ing a library almost always makes it pointless.

If your only goal is broad adoption, then this is certainly the case. Somehow, I think the FSF has goals other than broad adoption of their software.

Even so, it is certainly the case that releasing your library under the GPL will mean that many projects will avoid it. Whether this trade-off is worthwhile depends not only on the weight you place on various goals, but also on the nature of the library: something that adds huge amounts of value relative to alternatives, and relative to proprietary libraries that might serve as other parts of a final application, will be a lot more likely to change the license of prospective projects than something that is easily replaced or displaces other things of more value. This is actually more-or-less the FSF's position, per my understanding, on libraries: "we encourage GPL but do what makes sense." This was their reasoning on readline, and that definitely drove some GPLing of software before workalike alternatives surfaced. This was presumably their reasoning here. This is not to say that the reasoning is necessarily correct.

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