I disagree. This is how you get the Google Play store or the "freeware" app marketplace. It sucks. As a user, I'm quite happy to continue using a traditional distribution even if it means I don't get to use a handful of flashy programs by developers that disagree with the concept of maintainers. So far that choice has been much more positive than negative for me, and I'm doing my best (by promoting the open source ecosystem) to keep it that way.
If you put in a bunch of crap that doesn't belong in an application (ads, for example), I'm glad I have a maintainer that can either strip this out thanks to the GPL (or BSD / MIT etc), or else choose not to include your app in the distribution at all.
>The real burdens that GPL places on the second dev are pretty bad problems. Releasing the build process and the surrounding code which is not related to the first guy's product is a huge problem. You don't have to be evil to see that.
The idea is that first guy is irrelevant, your user is the person that has the right to demand the code so he can change the software. If you want to sell me some software without giving me the sources then don't use GPL. If the GPL code is some trivial small thing that is not related with your product then find a BSD version or pay for a proprietary version of that library (and have fun not having the freedom to check it's code and fix/improve it)
> These programmers, for consistency, should hate proprietary software even more, because it permits no mixing at all.
I think tainting is worse than not using at all. I don't have a problem using gpl software as a user, but if it is at all programmer oriented (library / API / etc) I avoid it like the plague. I license software I write for personal projects in BSD, but I don't start with restrictions. This was a known problem with GPL, and they the LGPL was supposed to address it. Pointing out obvious concerns of programmers considering GPL shouldn't give anyone the vapors.
I consider GPL to be better than proprietary, because at least you can still see the code. Although it is just a slight step above proprietary in terms of restrictiveness.
> If I expect the end user to have libreadline installed on their machine (from debian / redhat repos, and for argument sake Debian/Red Hat/et al aren't distributing my app), I think I'd disagree. I'm not distributing any GPLd code.
Well, IANAL, but I fail to see how you are bound by the GPL in any way on that situation.
There used to be a market of proprietary software patches, that fixed stuff the software creator didn't bother changing. AFAIK, nobody ever contested its legality until EULA came and made it illegal to the end-user (instead of the distributor). There is a famous guy who sells proprietary security patches for Linux, isn't there? Your example is much clearer than patches.
The situation of RedHat distributing both isn't as clear.
> and try to prevent users from having the freedom to re-distribute the GPL software they received, with or without their own modifications.
> refuse to have you as a customer if you exersize them, that's all.
refuse to -continue- to have you as a customer, that is. you are still perfectly entitled to the source code of, and distribution thereof, what you purchased.
The GPL doesn't create an obligation that you get continued access to future updates.
I probably should leave the conversation at this point (not because I don't think there's merit in discussing it with you - just don't want to muddy the waters).
> They probably want to use it, make money off it, and give nothing back to anyone.
They do the same shit with the GPLv3 as well. Piko Interactive recently backed out of a licensing agreement with me, and just released my GPLv3 emulator in their Steam application without even telling me. When someone called them on it, they said to e-mail them for a link to the code (not enough to take my work for free, they have to play games with their obligations under the GPL.) Which by itself is useless, as it's just a UI modification. The value is the ROM image they don't include in their source, which gets you into a nasty gray area of the GPL.
It's part of the Faustian bargain all open source devs have to make: if you add a non-commercial clause, FOSS proponents will label your work "non-free" and "not open source", and you'll be banished to obscure disabled-by-default nonfree repositories on Linux distros. Which I was until I caved and moved to GPL to avoid punishing my users.
If you don't add that clause, you'll get taken advantage of. We have to rely on people being fair and sharing their profits off our work, and very often, they don't.
> I personally hate GPLv3, AGPL, LGPLv3, etc. with a fiery burning passion; thank god we were able to see some transformative projects emerge under actually free licenses before everything got ruined.
Why do you hate them so much? Is it strictly as a developer, or as a user?
As a developer I've certainly felt constrained and annoyed by them at times, and I'm very glad there are alternative open source licenses available, but as a user I can't imagine a scenario where you would hate them. After all, the freedom they guarantee is to the user, not the developer.
Even as a developer though, the family has it's place. I don't think Linux would be a thing had it had a more "permissive" license. That GPL is what forces the big corps to contribute their improvements back. If not for the GPL, I think it would be in a position similar to that of BSD, and the majority of users would have no choice but to use a proprietary OS
> I mean, to be fair and add some balance here, a lot of people find that part of the GPL to be very restrictive.
I often see comments like this, but they make no sense. If you don't agree with the GPL, then don't use software licensed under it. The same as if there's proprietary software you don't want to license, don't use it. There's nothing to debate.
> There are many organisations who have banned the use of GPL code altogether because of this
Good, they read the license and don't want to follow it, so they don't use it. Exactly as intended.
You're confusing the GPL viral nature, which is a central feature, with something different that you wished for, but isn't real.
And by the way, since Linux is GPL, those same companies almost always make an exception, don't they now?
> So the maintainers should be legally required to maintain the software, for free, forever, just because you depend on it? That is an insane level of entitlement.
I didn’t get that, at all, from the GP. They just said that it’s not (in their opinion) fair to build up a user base that becomes dependent, then use that dependency as leverage.
That’s basically the Sackler Family method.
I release a bunch of code, as MIT. If someone wants to use it, fork it, sell it, whatever. Just don’t expect me to be on the hook for maintaining it, or guaranteeing it.
If I want to drastically change it, or even do something evil, like have it phone home, I could do that (I won’t). I could also change the license, going forward, as these folks did.
I’m under no obligation to maintain my stuff for any reason, other than I use it, myself, so I want it to be good.
That said, I consider myself to be an excellent steward, of really good software, that no one (except Yours Truly) uses. That’s fine with me, but I take great care of my stuff, anyway.
If I sign a contract, then that’s a different matter.
> And, because their software is open source, someone will inevitably create a better competing library based on the ideas behind the GPL one.
Or, in some cases, just buy a proprietary license from the authors? That is often an option (not always but sometimes, we are doing it).
Surely if these software developers are making a living selling software, presumably by licensing it and so on, they understand and are very familiar with how that works?
> That new library? Apache license.
Because they will just keep it in house and not release it. Which...is exactly what GPL is designed to discourage. Some benevolent companies like Google might but not others are not.
At least I don't see a problem with authors choosing a license they like. I will not put them down or criticize for choosing GPL, there are good reasons to choose GPL sometimes.
> I personally want to make a living making software products, not services. GPL doesn’t seem to offer me a way to do this.
These two things are pretty unrelated.
For Android apps, a common model to have a paid version in the play store and still publish the source code on github with GPL. Here the GPL actively protects you against somebody coming, doing some minor modifications and then pushing their own paid-for version to the app store while not publishing the source code (which they could easily do with other licenses).
> The reason some programmers hold GPL in contempt [....is] that it potentially taints codebases it mixes with.
These programmers, for consistency, should hate proprietary software even more, because it permits no mixing at all.
And yet, they tend to be the ones writing it.
People who use the GPL want an alternate ecosystem, away from that. Microsoft builds theirs, Oracle buys theirs, Google builds theirs; why should a band of programmers not organized under a brand name not have theirs?
Bluntly, don't like the GPL? That's totally fine; go build your own ecosystem with whatever terms you like.
> most of their extensions are GPLv3 [...] in practice the only way to use their extension is either to release your apps code
Which is exactly what improves and helps grow the open-source world?
GPL makes a product's code, and by infection/extension, other people's code, to be all released under a GPL license. GPL guarantees that users of open-source code won't act as leeches and will themselves contribute more open-source code. Isn't the act of choosing that license, in itself, "a huge commitment" to open-source?
Then they say: OK, seems you want to keep your code private, in order to preserve your IP and leverage over other competitors, and protect your lucrative interests... well that's fine too! You don't want our open-source license forcing you to contribute your code? Fine, we'll waive that requirement. Just pay up.
>This is a clear user freedom that is guaranteed by the GPL.
Yes, and that freedom is being guaranteed to fewer and fewer end users of GPLed software because of those feelings you're dismissing.
Linux is probably the success story for GPL, and even in that case Google has bundled it with proprietary software (Android now outnumbers all other operating system installs, IIRC). Yes people can make their own distributions, but they're for the most part irrelevant to 99% of users of Android devices. Probably 99.99% if you include people who never install Google proprietary apps (the Play Store; Google Maps; etc.) on their devices.
The point of GPL wasn't to serve the 1%, but to expand software freedoms to everyone. To start a revolution in software, and to supplant closed source and restrictive licenses. Look around, though; most people are ignoring what freedoms they are offered and basking in proprietary software options.
Open source is beautiful when it works. But freedom to redistribute something without value is about as relevant as debating whether a tree falling alone in a forest makes a noise.
> So a good number of them -- at least the ones that are knowledgeable about software licensing -- won't even go near your software
Yes, very good thing for me. I'm building a Web alternative to Google Maps. It's OK if no big company reuses my code. I just want to make it free to see, and to contribute, not to use without contribution.
If I was building a library, that sure would be a different matter.
> if you think this is about 'providing users with products' and generating a return on investment.
In who's eyes?
Consumers want the best product.
Investors want a payout.
How does GPL satisfy either of these?
GPL doesn't have the nimbleness to be viable with the market. It doesn't respect creativity and time of developers or investors - leaving consumers left to pick a proprietary / permissive alternative.
You don't need to be GPL to be open: You can MIT/BSD/Apache and still volunteer to not give out binary blobs [1]
> In case of GPL, you merely sell support licenses.
This really isn't an option for a lot of things, and gives you some really perverse incentives to make things complex enough that they need support. Who's going to buy support licenses for /bin/ls, or most of coreutils, or most of libc?
You'll get people buying support licenses for MySQL and other difficult to configure & operate codebases, but not for the vast majority of code they use on their systems.
I work for a big company that runs a shit-ton of open source, we sponsor the two/three biggest projects we use, but by volume it's 0.1% of the total number of open source projects we use, at best.
This is a general problem for open source, everyone's using a huge long tail of infrastructure code that needs to be maintained, but any one company has no strong reason to support it.
I disagree. This is how you get the Google Play store or the "freeware" app marketplace. It sucks. As a user, I'm quite happy to continue using a traditional distribution even if it means I don't get to use a handful of flashy programs by developers that disagree with the concept of maintainers. So far that choice has been much more positive than negative for me, and I'm doing my best (by promoting the open source ecosystem) to keep it that way.
> Maintainers don't have a right
If you're creating open source software, they quite literally do! https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
If you put in a bunch of crap that doesn't belong in an application (ads, for example), I'm glad I have a maintainer that can either strip this out thanks to the GPL (or BSD / MIT etc), or else choose not to include your app in the distribution at all.
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