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    • CommentAuthorgiddie
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2008
     # 1
    (spilling over from the developer's mailing list)
    On 4/16/08, Jorgen Schaefer wrote:
    You are confusing that with the argument that the GPL does not allow you to make your code non-free - i.e. it does not allow you to modify the code and just distribute it in binary form without available source code, giving others less freedom than you had when you received the program.

    but that is actually what i am referring too. i cant include GPL software in my program unless i make my program open source. and for me that is restrective because thousands of companies produce propriatery software, i am not in the position in mycompany to release the software as open source, and in fact, being a small company if a larger company did have the code we would be completely sunk. now i cannot use any GPL software in the program but i can use LGPL or BSD or MIT software because then i only need make that specific portion of the program open source.so i still stand that GPL is less free and restrictive, and inface counter productive.

    That is entirely true, but there's also one other important factor: if the GPL did not require that modified code be released, there would be no open source companies like RedHat, Novell, and maybe even Trolltech today, because the code would disappear into corporations that would contribute nothing back to the original project. So I agree that the GPL is less "free", in the sense that it restricts what you can do, but there's no doubt that it has been healthy for open-source projects.
    •  
      CommentAuthorsambarino
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2008
     # 2
    good point. :)

    but there would be nothing stopping companies like that from releasing their software as open source even if the license did not require it of them. i mean, using some software licensed under the LGPL u could still release ur whole software as open source even though the license doesnt state that you have to.

    but thats more of a commentary, i personally agree with your statement fully.
    •  
      CommentAuthorsambarino
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2008
     # 3
    So you wish to use source code for which you were given freedom of
    use by the author, and not pass on the same freedom to other
    users. (It doesn't matter to this whether you do not wish to pass
    on that freedom to other people because of good or bad reasons)

    _You_ wish to _restrict_ the freedom of other people. The GPL does
    not allow that. Which is what I said: The GPL restricts your
    freedom to restrict other people's freedom. The BSD license gives
    you freedom to restrict other people's freedoms.

    In this particular case, you could ask the author of the program
    to relicense it for your use only; it sometimes works, especially
    if accompanied with a small share of the profit. Otherwise,
    providing support for Free software is also quite a good solution
    to make money off it. But I guess this isn't quite the thread to
    talk about whether one can make money with Free software, and how
    :-)


    well, i think restricting my freedom to restrict other peoples freedom is much less free than allowing me to do as i wish provided i do not restrict other peoples freedom to use the software that i was given freedom to use.

    then it is up to me to do what i want with my original work, and still requires me to keep free what i got for free. it's not telling me what i need to do with my original work, and that is true freedom if u ask me.
    • CommentAuthorgiddie
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2008
     # 4
    Posted By: sambarinowell, i think restricting my freedom to restrict other peoples freedom is much less free than allowing me to do as i wish provided i do not restrict other peoples freedom to use the software that i was given freedom to use.
    then it is up to me to do what i want with my original work, and still requires me to keep free what i got for free. it's not telling me what i need to do with my original work, and that is true freedom if u ask me.

    I think that's why the FSF is always careful to state "free as in 'freedom', not as in 'beer'". I think the idea of copyleft is great for ensuring that a project will grow and will never be "embraced, extended, and extinguished", as is the practice of, say, Microsoft. I don't subscribe to the "Free Software" philosophy of the FSF though. I'm on Linus' side when I read these sorts of discussions:
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/9/25/161
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/9/27/191
    • CommentAuthorMohjive
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2008
     # 5
    I agree with sambarino. GPL protects the freedom of the code, while I'm for freedom of people.

    GPL forces users of GPL licensed code to release their code if they want to make their application publically available. My question is, what right have I, as original and copyright holder of the original code, to claim other people's code?

    Posted By: sambarino
    _You_ wish to _restrict_ the freedom of other people. The GPL does not allow that.

    If instead I was a person that took open source code and modified it, but released the result as binary only. Have I restricted someone's freedom in any way? The original code is still freely available, and people are still free to use that, instead of my modified application. I don't restrict users from using the original code, but I should be free to do what I want with my code.
    •  
      CommentAuthorvazub
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2008 edited
     # 6
    I think GPL is evil, because it doesn't allow me, for example, to share the code (extended by myself) under less restrictive license, say MIT. I either have to search for BSD-substitute which is mostly unavailable, or start my project from scratch. So tell me, how does this help OSS movement as a whole? Answer: it doesn't, and it cripples the developers and makes them bow before the whims of FSF, that more and more resembles a kind of religious sect rather than the sane gathering of goodwilled people. This looks like tyranny to me, and I don't like anybody to tell me what is right and wrong.

    _You_ wish to _restrict_ the freedom of other people. The GPL does not allow that.

    This statement seems like a total bull**** to me. I agree with Mohjive on this one - how do I restrict other people's freedom if the original opensourced code IS STILL THERE at their grasp? Please, indulge me.
    • CommentAuthorgiddie
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2008 edited
     # 7
    Vazub, assume the KDE project were under a BSD-like licence. Some large company would come along and make a KDE clone. They'd improve it just enough so that end-users would see the advantage of switching to their system, then they'd break compatibility. Bear in mind here that 99% of computer-users are pragmatic. Non-geeks will go for the better-supported, more popular system. Eventually, the only people left using KDE would be politically-motivated. Fewer bugs would come in, and development would slow down, leaving the proprietary clone further in the lead. It's the classic embrace, extend, extinguish manoeuvre. As it stands under the GPL, KDE is a cutting-edge project, with an increasing number of followers, and it can't be extinguished by anyone.

    Just have a look at the BSD kernels. They're pretty popular as servers I think, but the Linux kernel is way ahead in pretty much every area. It's where the real innovation is taking place. That's because if a company wants to embrace and extend Linux, they have to feed their changes back to the community. With BSD, the community never sees these changes, and they're stuck having to do it themselves.

    Having said that, there are projects like SQLite, which is pretty much in the public domain, I think. That works because the scope of the project is very finite. Plenty of corporations have embraced SQLite, but there's really no room to extend, so extinguishing is very difficult, and there's really no money to be made by trying. SQLite gains much more recognition and respect by being in the public domain. It's become a real standard, and I don't think it would have done so well if it were under GPL.

    So in conclusion, I'd say that the GPL is designed to prevent the embrace, extend, extinguish tactics of large greedy corporations. It's certainly not liberating for the individual. Projects that are not subject to these tactics are probably better suited to BSD or similar, to allow more widespread use.
    •  
      CommentAuthorvazub
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2008 edited
     # 8
    Posted By: giddieVazub, assume the KDE project were under a BSD-like licence. Some large company would come along and make a KDE clone. They'd improve it just enough so that end-users would see the advantage of switching to their system, then they'd break compatibility. Bear in mind here that 99% of computer-users are pragmatic. Non-geeks will go for the better-supported, more popular system. Eventually, the only people left using KDE would be politically-motivated. Fewer bugs would come in, and development would slow down, leaving the proprietary clone further in the lead. It's the classic embrace, extend, extinguish manoeuvre. As it stands under the GPL, KDE is a cutting-edge project, with an increasing number of followers, and it can't be extinguished by anyone.

    To tell you the truth I've heard this FSF-propaganda many times before and I still don't find it convincing. Why? Because Darwin, the system on which Apple's Mac OS X is built, is partly derived from 4.4BSD-Lite2 and FreeBSD. Sure, they went the same way you prescribed in your previous comment, they broke the compatibility and gave almost nothing in return. Yet why is that nobody argues that these OSes have common ancestry and thus many programs can be ported to run on them without too much hassle, in comparison to, for example, Windows? Because it's called "standards expansion". Even if some "greedy corp" doesn't give back to the community what they've extended, everyone still profits from such a "theft" in the long run, especially average users, since there is much better possibility of later software porting to their system because of it's common standards ancestry. And where is this "embrace, extend and extinguish" manoeuvre concerning the original BSD-systems? To your knowledge - they still exist happily today, they are being developed steadily and believe you me - they have more than a flourishing community.
    The same goes for the statement that "...Fewer bugs would come in..." and so on. It's just an assumption that has nothing to do with reality, taking my aforementioned example into consideration. And one more thing - what do you mean by "classic EEE example"? Have there been any real-world examples that you can cite, or are you just retelling Stallman's scary-tales?
    Posted By: giddieJust have a look at the BSD kernels. They're pretty popular as servers I think, but the Linux kernel is way ahead in pretty much every area. It's where the real innovation is taking place.

    I have no other option but to take it for granted that you don't follow, say, FreeBSD development much, otherwise you would undoubtedly understand how far from being true your implication is :)
    Sure, Linux is winning in many areas, especially in what concerns desktop use, but it has nothing to do with the leadership in kernel features or stability - just aggressive marketing hype and subsequent corporate support.
    Posted By: giddieSo in conclusion, I'd say that the GPL is designed to prevent the embrace, extend, extinguish tactics of large greedy corporations.

    I fully understand and accept that GPL was desined with such a purpose. However, the catch is, that the threat was greatly overestimated. And now, with every year on and on, the viral nature of GPL begins to threaten OSS ecosystem as a whole, since it diminishes the possibility for any developer, especially a freelancer, to be truly free and independent of other's will. That's the same "corporativism" that Microsoft seeks to impose in its worldwide domination attempts, since it puts developers into dependency from centralised decision-body. Only this time the culprit is FSF. They just mirror MS with opposite slogans concerning users, but supporting the same ideals concerning developers. It's called slavery, but with a happy smile on your face and brainwashing with illusions of freedom. The commies in the USSR once proclaimed the same goals and enforced everybody to live by them. I know this not by books, but by having witnessed it with my own eyes. Maybe that's why I value true freedom so much nowadays :)
    • CommentAuthorm@cCo
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2008
     # 9
    I agree with Mohjive's and sambarino's thought on this. I also share some of vazub's perplexities about what freedom is and what it is stated to be by each of the many licenses being around nowadays.
    Yet, I also understand giddie's point of view, though I can only find it useful when speaking about very large projects (as the kernel) which know that using some less restrictive license would probably lead them to a quick death, englobed and then dismissed by some evil-corp or something.

    Personally I'd use the LGPL for my code, mainly 'cause I find it a good trade-off between *my* freedom and *other people* freedom. I've never liked extremes.
    • CommentAuthorMichael
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2008 edited
     # 10
    Posted By: MohjiveMy question is, what right have I, as original and copyright holder of the original code, to claim other people's code?
    I really don't care about this discussion, and I think you're all nuts for participating in it, but that's a pretty disingenuous statement (at least as much as anything from the FSF). I think you know that, too.

    Also, you're all deranged. Absolutely out of your trees. But carry on, at least it's not on the list any more.
    • CommentAuthorm@cCo
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2008
     # 11
    Please michael, extend your thought a little more. Saying we're all crazy don't help us understanding too much :D
    • CommentAuthorgiddie
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2008
     # 12
    Vazub, firstly I'd like to point out that I have no interest in the FSF. I'm interested in good technology. Secondly, the FSF does not own GPLed code. Those projects that are part of GNU assign their copyright to the FSF, but that is a completely different thing.

    Some examples of EEE (straight from wikipedia): the classic IE and Netscape, Microsoft's extended Kerberos, denying connections from standard implementations and disallowing third-party implementations of the extended version. There's also OOXML vs ODF, which is clearly an attempt at EEE.

    However, I think you make a very good point when you say that the threat was overestimated. I think most companies nowadays are starting to understand the value of the Open Source model of development. I don't think there's any harm in being cautious though.

    I don't quite understand the issue you raise about code reuse by freelance programmers and suchlike. Most open source libraries are under LGPL, so no problem there. Is there any code you're thinking of specifically?
    •  
      CommentAuthorvazub
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2008
     # 13
    Posted By: giddieVazub, firstly I'd like to point out that I have no interest in the FSF. I'm interested in good technology. Secondly, the FSF does not own GPLed code. Those projects that are part of GNU assign their copyright to the FSF, but that is a completely different thing.

    Frankly, I don't know what made you think that I disagree with this statement. I know that FSF doesn't own GPL-ed code. I deem them as the culprit because of spawning and aggressively evangelizing the GPL-ideology (namely "copyleft") which, IMO, has nothing to do with real freedom, but hypocritically claims to.

    Posted By: m@cCoSome examples of EEE (straight from wikipedia): the classic IE and Netscape, Microsoft's extended Kerberos, denying connections from standard implementations and disallowing third-party implementations of the extended version. There's also OOXML vs ODF, which is clearly an attempt at EEE.

    If you investigate those examples more closely, you'll see that all of them have nothing to do with software as it is (meaning code, and what concerns its openness). Instead, this distasteful yet effective corporate practice is used to undermine standards. The difference, while subtle, is still clearly visible. So here is the question: what good is GPL in this relation? What does it implies to protect? Code or standards? Because these are certainly different spheres of developers' concern.

    Posted By: giddieI don't quite understand the issue you raise about code reuse by freelance programmers and suchlike. Most open source libraries are under LGPL, so no problem there. Is there any code you're thinking of specifically?

    Most, but not all. Personally, I think LGPL is lesser evil of the two, so my concerns in this discussion relate mostly to "strong copyleft" licensing schemes. One of such examples is next. Some time ago my friend was working for a tiny local software company (a gathering of several friends), which was then developing a PC-game. At some point of development the issue arose of which video container to use, with the major criterion for it to be the least cosly one, preferably opensource. And while the Matroska (.mkv) was clearly the best option feature-wise, all of its libraries were licensed under GPL terms (today it's LGPL+BSD), meaning that even the simple embedding of their code into a proprietary product was forbidden, unless the product would go GPL itself, which as you can understand, was clearly not an option. So instead of proliferating the advanced container format and thus helping OSS movement to some extent, the company had to stick with substantially worse but more easily obtainable choice.
    • CommentAuthorgiddie
    • CommentTimeApr 19th 2008
     # 14
    OK, well I'm pleased to have had the opportunity to discuss this. It's a complicated issue, and I think we've probably said all we're going to say constructively. There's a multitude of OS licences out there, and not every one of them will be to everyone's taste. Personally, I'm really torn over the copyleft issue. I'll lean one way one day and the other way the next. Fortunately (in a sense), the decision is removed for projects based on Qt (my toolkit of choice), as it is of course under GPL.

    That leaves me wondering --- if Linux is GPL, surely GLibC should be GPL too?
    • CommentAuthorm@cCo
    • CommentTimeApr 19th 2008
     # 15
    Posted By: giddie
    That leaves me wondering --- if Linux is GPL, surely GLibC should be GPL too?
    Isn't it?
    • CommentAuthorgiddie
    • CommentTimeApr 20th 2008
     # 16
    No it's LPGL. Given that everything in a Linux distro is linked against GLibC, if the latter were under GPL, everything in every Linux distro should be GPL. However, given that GLibC links against Linux headers, which are GPL, I wonder how it can be LGPL?
    • CommentAuthorm@cCo
    • CommentTimeApr 20th 2008
     # 17
    Well, in fact I think Linux headers to be linked against glibc, or am I wrong? What functions provided by the headers does glibc use?
    • CommentAuthorgiddie
    • CommentTimeApr 21st 2008
     # 18
    GLibC provides POSIX, and depends quite heavily on the Linux headers for system calls, such as forking and file access.
    • CommentAuthorMohjive
    • CommentTimeApr 21st 2008 edited
     # 19
    From http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9161119242.html:
    Linux might be considered to have three main licenses, as follows . . .
    <snip>
    * The GPL as clarified by Linus. The Linux kernel is licensed under the GPL, but with this clarification:
    This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls -- this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of 'derived work'.
    .
    • CommentAuthorgiddie
    • CommentTimeApr 21st 2008
     # 20
    OK that's interesting. So I guess there's a kind of explicit exception for the Linux headers that are required to make system calls :)
    • CommentAuthorMichael
    • CommentTimeApr 22nd 2008
     # 21
    Headers are non-copyrightable (there's no creative step). If that's all you're using, it doesn't matter what the license is.

    Linking against operating system libraries is also explicitly allowed by the GPL. The kernel certainly comes under that, as does Glibc
    • CommentAuthorgiddie
    • CommentTimeApr 22nd 2008
     # 22
    Cool, I didn't know either of those things.
    • CommentAuthorMohjive
    • CommentTimeApr 22nd 2008
     # 23
    Posted By: MichaelLinking against operating system libraries is also explicitly allowed by the GPL.

    Does there exist a definition of "operating system libraries"?
    As far as I know Glibc is licensed under LGPL, which makes this exception unnecessary. And I thought that system calls were the magic words (which was how GPL was circumvented for the kernel).
    • CommentAuthorMichael
    • CommentTimeApr 22nd 2008
     # 24
    Yes:
    Section 1, GPL3The “System Libraries” of an executable work include anything, other than the work as a whole, that (a) is included in the normal form of packaging a Major Component, but which is not part of that Major Component, and (b) serves only to enable use of the work with that Major Component, or to implement a Standard Interface for which an implementation is available to the public in source code form. A “Major Component”, in this context, means a major essential component (kernel, window system, and so on) of the specific operating system (if any) on which the executable work runs, or a compiler used to produce the work, or an object code interpreter used to run it.
    GPL2 has a similar section:
    However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.


    Glibc is also under LGPL, so there's no complications at all with it.