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My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

drewdevault.com

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Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#391

Post by _ph_ »

_bz2r wrote: post #390
_ph_ wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, right. Thats my point. They have enough parts in "Android" which don't fall under GPL and thus they can keep them proprietary.

"the GPL is ineffective because the non-GPL parts become proprietary" doesn't seem like a strong argument against the superiority of the GPL.

You are not getting my point. The point was, that the ability of the GPL to enforce source sharing is limited. Where source sharing and redistribution are not desired, GPL licensed software just isn't used. Or used in a way that it does not affect the propriatary parts.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#392

Post by Certhas »

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #254
Certhas wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no true Spartan... Some schools of thought use some weird notion of freedom to derive some abstract structure that has never been tried anywhere and claim it has some hypothetical properties. You want to call that "true capitalism". I like theory, I do theory, but the post was talking about existing social systems within which we operate. Your private definition of "true capitalism" has nothing to do with that sy…

If state capitalism is capitalism, then National-socialism is socialism.

You still can't define words to mean what you want them to. Common use of the term capitalism disagrees with you, and the use of the term in the posts you replied to does not align at all with your definitions, but with common usage.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#393

Post by gridlockd »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #320
gridlockd wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because that one thing happens to not be entirely worthless, doesn't mean that anything has value. Also, since you're not even a professional developer, I'm not directing that advice at you.

> Also, since you're not even a professional developer, I'm not directing that advice at you. I think your implicit assumption that most Github projects are created as a form of resumé building is incorrect.

I'm not assuming that and it's irrelevant anyway. I'm concerned with what matters, not what represents some majority. The Github profile is (part of) your portfolio and if your portfolio sucks you are worse off professionally.

If that doesn't apply or matter to you, that's fine. You can move right along.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#394

Post by the_why_of_y »

CJefferson wrote: post #142
c0l0 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] We had to either go GPL v2+, which assumes the FSF will never go crazy, [...] This is a rather common common misconception. If you use the "Version 2 of the GPL or any later version"-clause in your specific GPL licensing lingo, then any re-distributor may CHOOSE to distribute under GPLv3, or GPLv4 (if it ever exists), or, for that matter, also GPLv2. You're not bound to re-distribute under GPLv${latest} becau…

A future GPL v4 could say "Your code can be converted to the MIT license", or even "your code can be used by company X" in the event of a takeover (which I don't consider an impossible option).

> "your code can be used by company X" in the event of a takeover

The FSF is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charity; if it would institute policies to benefit a single for-profit entity, the inevitable IRS audit would be excruciatingly painful and likely result in jail time for directors.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#395

Post by oliwarner »

GPL is about user freedom. The user must always be allowed to inspect what code they're actually running.

That is restrictive on developers, but that's just the cost of doing business here. If you don't share those ideals, that you should be able to inspect and alter the source of the code you run, you will likely never "understand" GPL.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#396

Post by the_why_of_y »

neuland wrote: post #34
oarsinsync wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was very disheartened to see the Linux community's and other GPL projects' attitude to enforcement actions brought by individuals. Can you share some examples of what's happened that's disheartening? I'm assuming based on context that the reaction to individuals enforcing GPL violations have been negative, which I would agree is disheartening. If you don't enforce the terms, the terms are valueless, and you might…

The big case recently was in Germany against VMWare [0]. They lost that case. But it was controversial partly because the person (who contributed a non-trivial amount of networking code) was asking for monetary damages in addition to bringing the company into compliance. But setting the money aside, even the enforcement part was flamed by Torvalds and Greg KH [1]. The gist was that they're able to bring more people i…

I believe you are mixing up two separate Linux related lawsuits: the case against VMWare by Christoph Hellwig, who is known for his filesystem contributions, was supported by SFC and the goal was compliance with the license.

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vmware-lawsuit...

Some years earlier, there were lawsuits brought by Patrick McHardy, who contributed a non-trivial amount of networking code, that asked for monetary damages; these lawsuits were not supported by any organization.

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/jul/19/patrick-mchardy-g...

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#397

Post by eitland »

jeena wrote: post #198
eitland wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's definitely a valid PoV, but you just have to realize/accept that it may empower people who have power over you. Newtons Equations has also empowered the powerful for a while now but I think we are still happy that they are available for free for everyone without any limitations.

Nobody can take them, change them and close them and sell you a better version of them. So, I have no idea how you made the connection to MIT here.

In the same way nobody can take your MIT program and close it.

Create a better version? Sure. Make the better version closed? Sure.

But close it? No.

Same with math: once discovered and publish anyone can do anything with it.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#398

Post by cyphar »

est31 wrote: post #349
madez wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GPL is not self-serving; it is a tool to achieve a type of society, and that is the society you seem to enjoy, too. After all, by what else should be measure the permissive licences vs copyleft licences if not by their influence on society?

Are you one of those "GPL is socialism" people? You are misguided. Yes, there are lots of marxists/communists in the open source / free software community and most people in it lean left. But the GPL itself is compatible with a capitalist society. In fact, GPL can be the basis for making money with FLOSS software, by offering non-GPL'd commercial licenses. All the GPL ensures that if you want to make a proprietary fo…

I would argue if you had to paint the GPL with a particular brush it would either be anarchist or possibly (modern) Marxist. Neither are necessarily incompatible with capitalism (in the "free market" sense at least, they are incompatible in the Marxist sense of "employer/employee dichotomy").

The idea is that the GPL empowers users to modify and distribute software rather than enforcing a particular structure of developers and users.

Of course the GPL is not a system of government, so these comparisons are mostly "in spirit". In reality, it's a clever hack to give power to users by abusing the capitalist copyright system (which has historically morphed into a tool for corporations to oppress users).

But the GPL is definitely not communist nor socialist because it has no relationship to government intervention at all (other than relying on copyright laws for its strength). Marx had no interest in governments.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#399

Post by cyphar »

_ph_ wrote: post #391
_bz2r wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the GPL is ineffective because the non-GPL parts become proprietary" doesn't seem like a strong argument against the superiority of the GPL.

You are not getting my point. The point was, that the ability of the GPL to enforce source sharing is limited. Where source sharing and redistribution are not desired, GPL licensed software just isn't used. Or used in a way that it does not affect the propriatary parts.

The whole argument of Stallman is that you don't give companies the choice to use permissively licensed software (by making it economically impossible for them to rewrite the entire body of free software).

I think "there isn't enough software under the GPL" is not a criticism of the GPL's effectiveness. If anything it supports the GPL as a method for ensuring user freedom.

Re: My Personal Journey from MIT to GPL

#400

Post by bmaupin »

atq2119 wrote: post #378
seandougall wrote: post #133

I feel like where this debate breaks down is in trying to apply the same license to both reusable libraries and finished products. For a library, an MIT license is much more likely to get it adopted in a finished product that is accessible and maintained. A GPLed library can only get adopted in a GPLed project, which means there may be a ton of economic constraints that make the library's functionality inaccessible t…

This distinction is part of the reason why the LGPL exists, and why many libraries are in fact licensed under LGPL instead of GPL.

LGPL still has enough restrictions that might discourage adoption of a library. I find the MPL (Mozilla Public License) is better if you want a GPL-style license for a library and don't want users to have to worry if they need to statically or dynamically compile, etc.
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