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“I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

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Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#111

Post by ClumsyPilot »

belorn wrote: post #105
epaga wrote: post #48

I'm still bummed out that for years, GPL was the "standard" go-to open source license. So many projects became useless for any commercial projects whatsoever. GPL advocates say it's so that your code isn't exploited by corporations. But I'd say that choosing GPL means it's more important to you that your code "is not exploited by corporations" than that it can be used for good by people with commercial interests. Tho…

Licenses are about choices. I do not want 7 year old girls to be sued. I don't want people to go to jail for helping others to take part in culture and enjoy art. I want children (or everyone?) to have access to all of culture, knowledge and art regardless of their parents wealth. I want that researcher has access to research papers and software technology in order to enable the improvement of the human race, especia…

"People who want to use code for good with commercial interests could sign an agreement that follow those above wishes"

WI absolitely support the idea of getting comoanies to contribute to OSS they use, but in most cases the projects are not prepared for this.

There is no obvious standard way to pay that I could take to my boss

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#112

Post by mannerheim »

epaga wrote: post #48

I'm still bummed out that for years, GPL was the "standard" go-to open source license. So many projects became useless for any commercial projects whatsoever. GPL advocates say it's so that your code isn't exploited by corporations. But I'd say that choosing GPL means it's more important to you that your code "is not exploited by corporations" than that it can be used for good by people with commercial interests. Tho…

> So many projects became useless for any commercial projects whatsoever.

Which is why Linux is used in zero commercial projects.

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#113

Post by jokoon »

saurik wrote: post #69
epaga wrote: post #48

I'm still bummed out that for years, GPL was the "standard" go-to open source license. So many projects became useless for any commercial projects whatsoever. GPL advocates say it's so that your code isn't exploited by corporations. But I'd say that choosing GPL means it's more important to you that your code "is not exploited by corporations" than that it can be used for good by people with commercial interests. Tho…

The GNU Foundation--and the GPL--put one thing at its most important focus: that "users"--the people who are actually using the software and entrusting it with their data or their lives--have guaranteed freedoms. People--such as myself--who use the GPL believe that these freedoms are extremely important: that "users" should be able to get access to the source code for programs and be able to modify them (...and befor…

> and then not grant the freedoms we GPL-folk care about to actual "users" is unacceptable: it simply isn't why we are writing open source software, as the open source part is supposed to be able to benefit "users".

Why is it unacceptable? Why are people writing open source software then? "Benefiting users" can be done in various ways.

In my view, the GPL only manages to protest and protect software against the problems of intellectual property, copyright and capitalism. It's only about politics.

I agree with the sentiment, but that's really all it does, it doesn't solve legal problems. I'm curious to see which software licensed under BSD or similar suffered problems where the GPL would have protected them against.

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#114

Post by diegoperini »

darthrupert wrote: post #81
foxes wrote: post #55

Why is a few snippets of code so valuable anyway? We don't GPL scientific research, you expect people to cite you, and then build off your work, the licensing in a sense is far more permissive. You don't GPL maths text books and then require proofs to be licensed back. Other knowledge doesn't seem to propagate in society like this. The human element of the programmer who can understand, adapt and develop some program…

"Few snippets of code" can be pretty large. I see a lot of value in not pointlessly reinventing the wheel. GPL encourages/enforces people who fix things to give those changes back to upstream where they may benefit everyone. So ideally only one set of fixes per problem has to be globally implemented and maintained. The implications for global wealth are non-trivial. How much Linux alone has done, I wonder?

> I see a lot of value in not pointlessly reinventing the wheel. GPL encourages/enforces people who fix things to give those changes back to upstream where they may benefit everyone.

One can argue GPL encourages reinventing the wheel by not being permissive enough.

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#115

Post by mannerheim »

epaga wrote: post #85
CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the GPL license make it "useless for any commercial projects whatsoever"? Many commercial projects use GPL software. The only thing you have to do is provide sources under the same license if you release binaries. If you're not even willing to do that I understand some people rather have you not use their software.

"Not even"? This is a huge requirement for most cases. A small GPL library for, say, some statistics calculation, would mean an entire product's source code would need to be released if it used the library.

You could alternatively go to the owner of the copyright for the software and pay for a license to use it in proprietary software. This is commonly done (see Qt).

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#117

Post by jokoon »

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #29

BSD is about being kind to everyone, even unkind people. GPL is about being kind to everyone, as long as they are as kind as you. When sharing something valuable under a GPL license, you’re incentivizing others to be kind like you. Obviously, if you’re a millionaire like Carmack, you don’t need others’ kindness to get by, so from his point of view a BSD license is better, as his goal is simply to disseminate his code…

I'm not supporting capitalism (with all its problems), copyright or intellectual property, but in the real world, kindness doesn't really exist. Setting up a market for kindness is not going to work very well.

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#118

Post by trasz »

pjmlp wrote: post #70
epaga wrote: post #48

I'm still bummed out that for years, GPL was the "standard" go-to open source license. So many projects became useless for any commercial projects whatsoever. GPL advocates say it's so that your code isn't exploited by corporations. But I'd say that choosing GPL means it's more important to you that your code "is not exploited by corporations" than that it can be used for good by people with commercial interests. Tho…

You will see my opinions are mostly commercial, however it was GPL and its religious movement (against the man, 70's style) that gave us Linux and GCC. Most likely Windows and UNIX clones would have kept taking their pieces out of BSD, after the 386BSD lawsuit was settled without any other alternatives to reach out for. You can see this from how much Playstation OS gets upstreamed into FreeBSD.

Compared to how much PlayStation OS gets upstreamed into Linux? If you don’t want to upstream, you won’t; if you want, you will. GPL doesn’t force anyone to give back, it merely prevents one from using your project if they don’t.

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#119

Post by eitland »

drran wrote: post #73
paavohtl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean the GPL actually defends your right to do whatever you want with the software including selling or renting it out. But realistically, practically, you can't. There is nothing to sell if the software has to be open source. The list of commercial GPL applications is really short compared to the millions of applications which include BSD-licensed code.

This is not true. Many small but successful companies are released their code using AGPL3 license, so you can see and contribute to the code, but cannot compete with them using the same code. The typical business model is a paid hosting and paid support for the product.

> so you can see and contribute to the code, but cannot compete with them using the same code.

You actually can.

You just cannot without giving back.

That's the intended beauty of it.

Edit: let me point out that I am not an AGPL evangelist. I'm less annoyed at it than I used to be but I still prefer liberal licenses for almost everything.

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