Open Source Project Licenses Trending Toward Open Rather than Free 369
bonch writes "An analysis of software licenses shows usage of GPL and other copyleft licenses declining at an accelerating rate. In their place, developers are choosing permissive licenses such as BSD, MIT, and ASL. One theory for the decline is that GPL usage was primarily driven by vendor-led projects, and with the shift to community-led projects, permissive licenses are becoming more common."
black duck (Score:5, Informative)
Surprise, surprise, yet another anti-GPL study from Black Duck software.
Re:Misleading headline (Score:5, Informative)
It's also a misleading summary and article.
The proportion of open source projects using the GPL, LGPL and AGPL is declining, not the absolute number of projects.
*GPL may not actually be in decline at all, the article doesn't say, it just says that it's falling as a proportion. This information is pretty worthless on its own.
Depends where you look (Score:5, Informative)
If you look at the work that Apple supports (clang, etc.), they are using non-GPL licenses. Same goes for code on CodePlex (the Microsoft site for C#/.NET open source projects). If you look at any of the ruby, python, javascript projects on GitHub, they tend to use a non-GPL license.
C/C++ projects make up 11% of the projects on github and these tend to be the languages that use GPL.
I personally use GPL for my projects because I am happy with that license, and use other projects that are GPL. Others may not, so they are free to choose a different language.
And we have heard repeatedly from Brian Proffitt that the GPL is dying/dead, but is still being used for new projects. Oh and this is article dated December 16, 2011, so why is this news now?
Welcome to the FUD machine.
Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
MS-PL? Who on earth has ever heard of that license? Perhaps the fact that the only source of the data is a company that is connected to Microsoft [techrights.org] has something to do with its mention? The fact that the same company has been emitting anti-GPL propaganda since 2008 is also interesting.
Slashdot, please don't propagate astroturfing.
Re:black duck (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My reason (Score:5, Informative)
FUD.
The only time 'users' get involved in legal action is when those 'users' are releasing GPL software as part of a product, and not releasing the source.
If you don't want to get sued over redistributing a piece of software then closed source software must make you piss yourself.
Not just misleading, it's outright incorrect (Score:5, Informative)
Even by the FSF's definition, "copyleft" and "free" are distinct terms. Every license in the summary is considered free by the FSF: BSD [gnu.org] MIT [gnu.org] ASL [gnu.org]
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
Bull. Shit. (Score:1, Informative)
Only copyleft licenses ensure that the development stays open and advances are returned to the community, by giving recipients of derived works access to the source and with it the freedom to change their software as they see fit. The only "freedom" that BSD style licenses add over copyleft licenses is to take all the freedom away from further recipients. The only people who benefit from that are people who value their own freedom over yours.
Re:Misleading headline (Score:5, Informative)
If you're speaking "technically", you're wrong. If I release a project under GPL, I can release it under any other license I like later.
The only time I am tied to GPL is if I choose to incorporate someone else's work into my project, and they don't want to change licenses.
So on a big project with lots of copyright holders, it is nearly impossible to switch to a more permissive license, but that's because it's so hard to get a big group of people to agree, not because the GPL doesn't allow it.
Re:Misleading headline (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
That was the conclusion of Matthew Aslett's analysis of recent data from Black Duck Software
Do we even need to say anything else?
http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Black_Duck [techrights.org]
Re:My reason (Score:5, Informative)
Ooh, just off the top of my head
The Linux kernel
Build process?
# make
# make modules
# make modules_install
# make install
Sounds like you got duped by some devious vendor who wanted to ensure years of future support needs from you
Re:Misleading headline (Score:5, Informative)
FTFY
You can choose to change your license on new code. However the code that is already release will remain GPL and can continue under someone else's leadership.
Re:Misleading headline (Score:5, Informative)
The difference is that any works derived or using GPL type licenses also have to be released on the same license.
Correction: may only be distributed under the same license. Please don't accidentally be Steve Ballmer's mouthpiece by spreading subtly misleading information about the GPL.
Re:GPL is counterproductivenow (Score:4, Informative)
A lot of newer projects are more concerned with getting their source adopted and in use than with making sure users contribute back. And the best way to get better adoption is to use a license that doesn't scare people (and lawyers).
Licenses which aren't the GPL scare me, because I always assume that eventually the critical people will end up working for some company that manages a closed fork.
Re:Freedom is an absolute. You have it, or you don (Score:5, Informative)
If you're telling the end user that they'll be raped by the DMCA if they try to tweak your proprietary product which was based on my open source project, don't you think I'd be kinda pissed?
This is exactly the sort of thing that the GPL prevents. It keeps you from using my code to be a dick.
My open soruce GPL code is mine just as arguably as your proprietary product is yours.
So how is your freedom to lock out your users and competitors any different from my freedom to not let you use my code to do it?
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If you want the freedom to be proprietary, I should also have the freedom not to cooperate.
Re:Misleading headline (Score:5, Informative)
The proportion of GPL is "declining" fast -- from 71% in 2005 to 93% in 2011 (source [itwire.com]). That's if you disregard fart apps and look only at software good enough for someone to package it for Debian. This does discriminate against some Mac/iOS-only stuff, but not by much as anything useful enough and freely licensed will probably have someone port it.
Also, this is the same Apple shill posting the very same data on Slashdot for the third time.
Re:Freedom is an absolute. You have it, or you don (Score:5, Informative)
If someone can monetize your code better than you, that's your problem.
GPL is for people who don't mind if their code is monetized, in fact they may even encourage it, as long as the code (and derivative code) remains open. It isn't about monetizing, it's about staying open.
Re:Freedom is an absolute. You have it, or you don (Score:4, Informative)
Goodness me, your post is almost totally devoid of facts.
BSD is still open source, the original developers still have full access to it.
Apple's modifications are also open and available, also to those developers.
The original developers received no compensation because they chose to release the code under a very permissive licence. They did this on purpose and required no compensation. You're trying to make it look like Apple "stole" something, which is a totally nonsensical position.
The BSD licence was specifically created for this purpose; it's deliberately very permissive. However, taking that code and forking it does *nothing* to "close off the code from the original developers".