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GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3

gdamore.blogspot.com

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Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3

#21

Post by jlgreco »

cjbprime wrote: post #11
jlgreco wrote: post #7

Why 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?

You're correct. There is no circumstance under which he's compelled to open up his source code. If the hardware system he's selling has some kind of crypto (like login passwords that you don't know!) that disallows modifications to the base system, GPLv3 can require you to give up enough control to let the user install their modified grep too. (That's still not giving away your source code, but it is more than just g…

Good point, you couldn't include GPLv3'd code into something like a Tivo, but that is hardly an unintended side-effect of the license. Whining about that would be rather silly. ;)

Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3

#22

Post by jamesaguilar »

pnathan wrote: post #8

I 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 bel…

IMO, they disappeared exactly because they embraced the ideals you love. Of course people aren't going to work on extending and polishing these systems if they can't get paid to (at least not at the same magnitude as for the closed solutions). At least, that is what history seems to indicate so far, except in a relatively limited space where companies have both the technical expertise to modify the source AND the economic incentive to avoid paying for closed licenses.

Although that is not the situation this guy finds himself in. He seems to just be confused.

Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3

#23

Post by callahad »

cjbprime wrote: post #18
[deleted] wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Untrue. > By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. - http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

For even greater emphasis: the FSF has a vested interest in promoting a maximally broad interpretation of the GPL. It's not legal advice, but when even their own FAQ says you're in the clear, you're likely to be pretty damn "safe."

Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3

#24

Post by pjscott »

eternalban wrote: post #13

"But if you're a business trying to create value, this is actively harmful." Your sense of entitlement is mind boggling. /Someone/ wrote the code you are complaining about and /their/ idea of /value/ is that it should be open sourced under a "viral" license.

If you read "harmful" as "harmful to my own interests", then the statement is value-neutral. I consider this a plausible interpretation.

Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3

#25

Post by vlasta2 »

cjbprime wrote: post #18
[deleted] wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Untrue. > By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. - http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

Agree, but I think the GPL examples about communication mechanisms are pretty weird and sometimes absurd. Consider this scenario:

Someone takes a GIMP plug-in licensed under GPL and converts it to a Photoshop plug-in (which is a DLL and shares memory space with Photoshop).

According to GPL, Photoshop would now have to be open-sourced, but the person, who converted the plug-in does not have access to Photoshop source code.

What now? Goes GPL actually forbids the existence of this? What if the converted plug-in with the source code is published? Is that actually illegal? What if they only publish the adapted source code and not the binary? What if a third person compiles it and publishes the binary? Who would be the guilty party?

Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3

#26

Post by pjscott »

callahad wrote: post #23
cjbprime wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Untrue. > By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. - http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

For even greater emphasis: the FSF has a vested interest in promoting a maximally broad interpretation of the GPL. It's not legal advice, but when even their own FAQ says you're in the clear, you're likely to be pretty damn "safe."

The FSF wants the GPL to be a license that people will actually use, and within that constraint, they want it to be interpreted in a way that most strictly protects software freedom, as they see it. If they just wanted it to be as broad as possible, they would be shooting themselves in the feet; it's easy for ticked-off software creators to switch to a less restrictive license if they own the copyright to software under the GPL.

This, for example, is why the FSF always mentions explicitly that they do not consider merely using a tool like grep as part of a shell script to be a derived work. They have to be reasonable, or they lose their power.

Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3

#27

Post by flomo »

vlasta2 wrote: post #25
cjbprime wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Untrue. > By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. - http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

Agree, but I think the GPL examples about communication mechanisms are pretty weird and sometimes absurd. Consider this scenario: Someone takes a GIMP plug-in licensed under GPL and converts it to a Photoshop plug-in (which is a DLL and shares memory space with Photoshop). According to GPL, Photoshop would now have to be open-sourced, but the person, who converted the plug-in does not have access to Photoshop source…

I've followed GPL discussions from the sidelines for sometime, and whenever someone comes up with a 'trick' scenario like this, the standard advice is "if you'd like to do that, call your lawyer".

(The legal definition of 'derived works' is based in case law and is more complex than what you'd find in a FSF FAQ.)

Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3

#28

Post by pnathan »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #22
pnathan wrote: post #8

I 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 bel…

IMO, they disappeared exactly because they embraced the ideals you love. Of course people aren't going to work on extending and polishing these systems if they can't get paid to (at least not at the same magnitude as for the closed solutions). At least, that is what history seems to indicate so far, except in a relatively limited space where companies have both the technical expertise to modify the source AND the eco…

I might be wrong, but I don't think Honeywell, Burroughs, DEC, IBM (and the other vendors) used the open source (as we think of it today) model.

edit: As a matter of fact, part of why Unix was able to spread was the AT&T restrictions forcing it to be shared.

Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3

#29

Post by pwg »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #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.

> A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate. (GPLv3)

Using GNU grep, as GNU grep, and merely aggregating it with the whole, would seem, from the quote above, to not cause the whole to be GPLv3 covered.

The only slightly questionable part is the "combined with it such as to form a larger program" portion of GPLv3. Is using grep, to "grep", sufficient to say that grep is "combined ... to form a larger program"? If the answer is no, then yes, the author is simply misinformed.

Re: GNU grep - A Cautionary Tale About GPLv3

#30

Post by rbanffy »

mikeash wrote: post #4
fennecfoxen wrote: post #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.

As far as I know, this can't happen. The author is being highly paranoid, presumably due to being misinformed.

When a clever person is so completely misinformed about a subject that's the very core of their business, I would rather call it FUD.

And I'd also like to point out they aren't in the business of creating value, as an open source product offers more value than a black box: their want to create costs.

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