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Java Programming

Mike Loukides on Java's Community License 143

Posted by CmdrTaco from the battle-of-the-licenses dept.
jbc writes "Here's an opinion piece from O'Reilly's web site titled The Chameleon and the Virus: More Thoughts on Java's Community License. Gist: The viral, coercive GPL has retarded acceptance of open source software. Java's more flexible license can help bring more people into the movement. "
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Mike Loukides on Java's Community License More

Mike Loukides on Java's Community License

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  • GPL (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Me too. The whole "open source" concept was invented for one main purpose. The suits want to leverage a boatload of zero cost programming staff and sell the resulting product for their own gain.

    It tweaks them that they can't just up and include GPL'ed code into their products. So, to them, the GPL is very, very, evil since they cannot make money by simply stealing the code.

    I do program professionally, and also code under the GPL. When I do professional work, I do my own work and I expect to be compensated for it. When I do GPL work, I will not tolorate someone else simply cashing in without investing any effort of their own. Good programming is hard work. In both cases the work is MINE, and I will license it as I please.

    I do GPL work because that is part of the free software bargin. I use a great deal of GPLed software in my work, and in return, I improve that software when and where I can. Microsoft charges $189 for windows '98, by being free Linux effectively pays me for $189 of work. The people writing Linux deserve a return on that investment, and noone else.

    So called "open source" is a good thing, but cannot be confused with GPL's concept of "free". If you want to donate to Apple, Sun, et. al. you are free to do so. Send a check, money order, cash, or donate endless hours of work. It is your option.

  • I don't want Open Source! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The GPL is the _only_ license that gaurantees that (if license is obeyed - which is another argument) Corporation X won't close your code, call it their own, and profit from your work without returning ANYTHING to you or anyone else.

    Wrong. There are plenty of ways I can take your GPL'ed code and profit from it without returning anything to anyone. GPL only stops one particular method of profiting (keeping my source changes proprietary if I distribute binaries).

    If your concern is others profiting from your work without sharing with you, GPL is not the license you want.

  • I don't want Open Source! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ok, YOUR copy of the code stays open. Anything and everything they add will be closed. You can build them a foundation, and they can add 100 lines to your 15,000, rename the product, pull YOUR name from the changelog, and market it as their own creation. But, YOU will still have YOUR code. Only difference is, now so will piles of other people, and they WON'T KNOW IT'S YOURS and not Company X's.

    GPL all the way.

  • I don't want Open Source! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The more I read, the more I dislike it. Open Source is looking more and more like a half-assed substitute for Free Software, which is what I suppose it's really been from the beginning.

    I just loved the "GPL retarded growth" and "GPL forces one to give up control of their code" FUD. The GPL is the _only_ license that gaurantees that (if license is obeyed - which is another argument) Corporation X won't close your code, call it their own, and profit from your work without returning ANYTHING to you or anyone else. The GPL is the _ONLY_ reason we have free Objective C compiler. Had gcc been under a BSD license, the group (name slips my mind) who added ObjC support to it would have (and tried to) take it proprietary.

    The "chameleon" is a good way to describe the Java license. I'll agree with that much. It's sneaky, allows one to take someone else's code and close it, and gives a false sense of security that your work won't be stolen by someone else.

    Give me the GPL any day. You know, RMS's crowning achievement wasn't anything coded - it was/is/will be the GPL.

  • That's Absurd (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    GPL hasn't retarded anything. Everytime someone releases source code for their software they release a new license along with it and it usually has some clause where they can back out of it. They basically take advantage of the fact that open source is all the rage. They say to themselves 'Hey.. there are a whole lot of geeks out there who could be working for us... for free! And we get good PR simultaneously! How could we -not- lose?'
    The movement gains nothing if it's not GPL. GPL is the real thing. Everything else is just a cheap imitation.

  • This is really very simple (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you're an altruist idealist and want your code to be free for everyone and never used in any profitmaking, use GPL.

    If you just plain don't care who uses your code for what, release it into the public domain.

    If you don't want to do all the things necessary to profit directly from your work, but it irks you to think that some company could swipe it and profit while you don't, use the QPL or JCL or one of the other "chameleon" licenses out there.

    See, that wasn't so hard, was it? GPL is fine if that's what you want, but it bites if you have a different idea of what "free" or "open" mean.
  • It's like O'Reilly has had it out for RMS ever since that "Opensource" conference where he spoke his mind, and not O'Reilly's (and ESR's) prepared statements.

    You may not agree with RMS's views but how "open" is it when one of the major founders of the so-called 'open-source' movement won't be invited back.

    A better name for "open-source" would be "exploit-the-free-software-community-to-further-bu siness-interests source". Maybe just 'F.I.B. Source', Futher the Interests of Buisness. Hey that's what free software is about anyway, isn't it?

  • Open Source is free software (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Free Software is BASED on the ideaology that people SHOULD NOT be able to take another's work, and modify it, close the source, and not give anything back. Free Software mandates returning changes to the community, with NO distinction made between corporation/person, profit/nonprofit. It's the Little Man's license.

    Open Source is BASED on the idea that more eyeballs == less bugs == more profits. Open Source DOES NOT promote the idea of freedom other than it may or may not be a pleasant side effect. For once in his life, Bruce P got it right - Open Source is a sham, a here's-how-to-get-rich fad, and a bastardization of Free Software.

    -The same Coward
  • I could be wrong (I'm certinly no lawyer), but the way I understand the laws is that a person can license their software however they want. I could code something, release it under the GPL, then, if someone offered me a lot of money, grant that person an exclusive copy of my software that is under a propriety license. I believe this has been done quite often in the past (in several forms), and it seems to be mentioned in the GPL. The point of all this is that if you make an app and release it under the GPL, you could probably still use some of the code to make a library under the LGPL, since you possess an unlicensed version.
  • Just to clarify, the Netscape Public License (NPL) is a free software license. It does give Netscape special privileges, which I consider unfortunate. I would much have preferred to have them use the GPL, then adopt an FSF-like copyright assignment policy that gave them the right to distribute a proprietary version in order to get crypto, etc. Nevertheless, the NPL is free.
  • No, the point of GPL is to ensure the freedom of the code author to use derivatives of his own code. If i write a piece of software, and put it under a BSD license, a corporation can modify it, then sell it, and not give away the source code. That way, I can't even get the source code to a derivative work of my own code. If i write and give away software, I sure as hell want to see the modifications and enhancements to my own code. That's what the GPL is intended to do.
  • Posted by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters:

    I have read through the several responses to my post. I do not so much want to respond to a specific one as to some general concepts. So I (hopefully) put this followup under my own original.

    The thing is, I do also endorse the notions of collaboration and freely sharing code; it is just the specific GPL mechanism that I think is limited in some negative ways. My concern is not really with convenience, per se. I know there is a certain faction of FSF-sympaticos-but-not-quite-endorsers who like to think of software purely in terms of capabilities. Under this perspective, GPL software is just one more thing to evaluate on its specific functions. That is not my own attitude.

    The strategy I would endorse would be making things public domain, rather than GPL. I cannot see in the arguments in this thread (or elsewhere), what actual greater freedom comes with the GPL. What DOES come with the GPL is the whole virus thing. Everyone else who derives works from your GPL code becomes committed to the very same procedural un-freedom as you yourself are in writing the code. The particular type of un-freedom associated with GPL is admittedly less egregious than that associated with proprietary, closed-source development. But it is still, unquestionably, a type of un-freedom.

    When you release something as public domain--or in a general way under BSD and X licenses--you do not restrict the freedom of your users. Furthermore, by making YOUR code public domain, you also assure its forever-after availability to whoever wants to use it. The thing you DO NOT do is assure that derived works are similarly free. But the type of freedom I want is the ability to grant free use of *MY* code to others... but that does not mean that I want to *infect* those others.

    The lack of GPL infection may suggest the bogey of greedy commercial companies taking over derived works. Indeed that is a possibility. But the only thing the open source community loses when the commercial company derives work from public domain code is the derivations, not the original code. The open source community is still just as free to go *back* to the revision level that was public domain, and start from there with a truly free project (for that matter, with a GPL one). The cynical will think this cannot work... but the success of BSD, X, Python, TK/TCL and other FREE, OPEN SOURCE projects belies the idea that only the GPL virus can keep projects open.
  • I don't care about freedom in software. I like open source software becuase I can do more with it, it's more useful to me.
  • they're just jealous becasue they didn't think of it first.
    The more I think about this, the more I think you're right. Had Tim O'Reilly invented a license much like the GPL, just as useful, infectious, and widely-accepted, and it sold books, we'd hear monthly how great it is for the entire world.

    Tim O'Reilly and company don't care about your freedom to use software. Tim O'Reilly and company don't care about software at all, any more than it sells books. They deal largely in proprietary information--books you can't share with friends, and have little interest in writing about anything that doesn't rake in cash.

  • When you release something as public domain--or in a general way under BSD and X licenses--you do not restrict the freedom of your users. Furthermore, by making YOUR code public domain, you also assure its forever-after availability to whoever wants to use it. The thing you DO NOT do is assure that derived works are similarly free. But the type of freedom I want is the ability to grant free use of *MY* code to others... but that does not mean that I want to *infect* those others.
    I wish it were that simple. And although the case law does suggest that copyrighted derivative works of public-domain works must specify what is the copyrightable content as distinct from the public-domain content, the practice is that they don't -- and the publishers have deep enough pockets to engage in litigation-terrorism very effectively. this has long been a recurring topic on music newsgroups. A few examples from 18th-century music (which of all things should surely be public domain by now!):
    Novello's edition of Handel's
    Messiah:
    "Copyright 1959 by Novello and Company, Limited.
    No part of this publication may be copied or reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Novello and Company Limited.
    Permission to perform this work in public must be obtained..."
    Oxford University Press's edition of Haydn's
    The Creation:
    "Copyright Oxford University Press 1991
    All rights reserved. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in anyy form or by any means with the prior permission in writing of the Oxford University Press.
    Permission to perform the work should normally be obtained...
    Permission to make a recording must be obtained..."
    Walton's edition of Vivaldi's
    Gloria:
    "Copyright 1961 by Walton Music Corp...All rights reserved."
    To be fair, I should point out that a few publishers, such as Kalmus and Schirmer, do not make such grandiose claims, at least in the editions I checked.

    The upshot is that I trust the Copyright Act and lawyers! a lot less than I did in my more naive days. fwiw.

  • >The only way you can find your code subject to
    >its requirements is by either distributing GPL'd
    >code or by including GPL'd code into your
    >programs.

    If this were the only way, that wouldn't be a problem. I don't believe that anybody objects to either of those. The problematic ways are:

    a) I write software under a freer license. You use it, perhaps modifying it, and slap the GPL on my code as well as yours, taking advantage of my contribution but denying it to others (yes, they can take your changes under the GPL, but not under the free license that created it).

    b) I want to write a free program, and would like to have it link to a GPL package. I must GPL it instead of using a freeer license
  • You are right, but the Java license is not Open Source, and O'Reilly makes a mistake in pushing that Java license in place of the GPL under the banner of Open Source. The OSI should point that out to O'Reilly.
  • The community License is NOT Open Source for all the reasons you state.
    -russ
  • Open Source(tm) is free software. If you disagree, then write a list of characteristics that free software has, and compare it to the Open Source Definition.
    -russ
  • Open Source *is* free software. Make up your own definition for free software, and tell us how it differs from the Open Source Definition. Remember, O'Reilly does not define Open Source.
    -russ
  • You didn't do what I asked. I asked for a list of characteristics of free software which are not present in the Open Source Definition. I wouldn't presume to define free software for you, but I would like you to define it for me.
    -russ
  • But Mike, you're confusing commercial software with proprietary software. Free (gratis) software is not commercial. Free (libre) software is not proprietary. Open Source software can be commercial software. Open Source software cannot prohibit commerce and still be certified as Open Source. That's the reason the Sun Community license is not Open Source.

    Open Source is hostile to proprietary software, not commercial software.
    -russ
  • Well, even if a less restrictive license were to draw more people into the movement, I think it would at the same time decrease the inherent value of the movement. I'd rather keep the ideals, and let everybody else come around in their own sweet time. Forget Open Source software. Long live FREE software!

    Shawn Asmussen
  • First off let me say that I admire Mike Loukides for his coauthorship of "Design Patterns" published by Addison Wesley. It is an invaluable source of subtile OO design ideas applicable to what ever language you program in. Having said that...

    Mike Loukides, you are the one that is retarded! GPL is the single greatest protection for software yet devised. It guarantees the free flow of code and ideas that made the whole free software movement possible. Weaken it and you weaken our movement. If you think that GPL is a virus, fine, don't use the software. Much of corporate America felt this way in the early nineties. But they are sculking back, and hatching plots to weaken GPL. Why? Because you can't ignore this fantastic enabling technology.

    The folks at O'Reilly fill what I see as a temporary void. Documentation quality is not the same as code quality for free software. That will change with time. In the meantime O'Reilly will continue to prosper in an unstable niche.
  • I had posted the following comment to Linux Today [linuxtoday.com] regarding this article [jwz.org] on JWZ's resignation from Mozilla.org. It think it is also relevant here.

    It seems to me that a large part of the motivation for a free software contributor is the license under which the software is released. While Netscape was the first big-name corporation to release the source code to an important product, they were also the first to come up with a non-free open source license. There are still some ties to the corporation that birthed it, so contributors are basically unpaid developers for said corporation. If Netscape used the GPL instead of NPL, they may have attracted more outside developers. Many people enjoy contributing to the public good for free, but few enjoy lining the pockets of the stockholders for free.

    I believe this issue will also haunt all of the other 'open-source' but not quite free software that is being made available on the net. These include Apple's APSL, Sun's CSL, TrollTech's new QT license, etc. Any license that even mentions the corporate donor/supporter will be shunned by free software developers everywhere.

    I agree with many of Z's other conclusions, especially the fact that Netscape did not release the source code to a working, usable product. As a programmer, one definitely likes to see tangible results, not just X more lines of source in version control.

    Finally, while the difficulties of Mozilla.org should not deter other companies from taking similar directions, others should definitely learn from their mistakes. Learn from the pioneers how to avoid the arrows in the back.

    Cheers.

  • It's not just you. O'Reilly's market (Unix books) has been taken over by free software. Free software absolutely must work for business, or O'Reilly's business will fail. Free software developers welcome business, but refuse to discard their principles in order to accomodate business. O'Reilly would much rather we accept business on its own terms rather than ours.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • The GPL protects the free software community by disallowing proprietary interests to co-opt our efforts through incorporating them into closed software.

    Long live the GPL! That's all there is to say.
    --
    Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
  • > Free Software mandates returning
    > changes to the community, with NO
    > distinction made between
    > corporation/person, profit/nonprofit.

    You're confusing two concepts here: free software and copyleft. The BSD, X, GPL, and NPL, for example, are all free software licenses, in particular, satisfying the Debian Free Software Guidelines. OTOH, BSD, X, and NPL are not copyleft, which requires that changes be released back to the community.

    "Free software" refers to the freedom that is guaranteed to the recipient of the source: that he is legally able to redistribute the source and binaries under the given terms. It does not specify precisely what those terms are, though certain guidelines must be followed. See the Debian FSG for more information, or check the FSF's site.

    IMO, software isn't truly "free" unless it is copyleft; otherwise, it can be chained again. This, however, is not the technical definition associated with free software.
    --
    Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
  • Nothing new here. RMS has already written about the consequences of this type of attitude. Says some proprietary house, "Don't restrict my use of the code! Just trust that I'll never restrict *your* use. Give us your code and your labor and you'll be popular and sucessful!!!" Reference the X license debacle from last year when the Open Group attempted to claim commercial ownership of free code in the X distribution. Ultimately they backed down from a PR disaster, but legally nothing could have prevented it!
    Bah. This almost makes me ashamed to have a shelf full of O'Reilly at work and home.
  • Don't worry, public code is still The Answer. Simply because it evolves quickest. There is a slowing and maybe even a stopping of development as every project nears maturity - and for the wider category of computer users, their needs are going to be satisfied in time. Time and the free software movement will eventually limit programming to specialization of existing software to fit a particular set of needs - it's already hard to think of a software project that hasn't been done, or had significant work put into it. It is usually easier to use what's already available for free than to write it yourself, unless you are doing research or learning. In any case, I don't know about you, but all this free power that the Open Source Founders (tm) gave to me leaves me with an overwhelming sense of gratitude, and I fully intend to give back as much as I possibly can, in advocacy and in documentation and coding. There are lots of people like me out there, and as long as that is true, it is ok that a lot of computer users are people like you, because there is plenty of time, and the nature of open source is to only allow positive progression. GPL is a coercive license, but every program that's GPL'd is that way because the guy who put the original work into the program wanted it that way, and it's up to him. If you don't like that, too bad. Write a clone of it your damn self, or go to the store and pay money for an inferior binary-only commercial program.

  • As much as one would hope to think otherwise, I think that this is a large blow to Open Source as whole. Bill Gates must be jumping with glee. It's sad to see something a hopefull as Mozilla suddenly get a black mark like this. In regard to JWZ, I wish him the best of luck wherever he goes. I don't think the Internet could have gotten quite as far as it has without him.

    -=- Leviat -=-
  • i think those whom view free software as a moral issue, feel that restricting information is wrong because it goes against the very nature of information (that it can be used in all places at all times) and because it hurts more people than it helps. imposing scarcity economics on an infinite resource is what they object to.

    I think you have stated things very well and clearly here. I advocate free software because software is more than simply functional. There is more value in software than its utility: there is the Knowledge that is embodied in the source code.

    That a community shares knowledge is a Good Thing, because knowledge begets more knowledge. If I have thought A and share that thought, and you have thought B and share it, a third person may see A and B, and build on them to achieve C. On the other hand, if you and I keep A and B to ourselves, the third person may never achieve C, or at least have a much harder time of it.

    To withhold or release knowledge is a moral choice: do you choose to serve yourself in a (necessarily) short term goal, or to serve the community in the long term, by advancing the pool of common knowledge?
    • It took the GPL to create a critical mass of interesting software for there to be a NEED for two flavor license. For this the GPL should be thanked, not slammed.
    • More important than O'Reilly, ESR, or RMS, will be whether this makes Sun's version of Java on popular distributions.

  • ! (Score:1)

    by cherub ( 9120 )
    viral, coercive GPL indeed.
    i mean, it is, but that's not a -bad- thing.
    *grin*

    they're just jealous becasue they didn't think of it first.
  • I, too, think the GPL ought to be its own license. Interestingly, RMS's eloquent arguments apply against him in this instance.

    If the FSF is concerned about identifying its version, it can still trademark GNU, GPL, and what not, if they haven't already.

  • Which, last time I checked, was a technology largely (well, almost entirely) used to drive book sales...

    Unless O'Reilly lets us photocopy books without pause, I can't see any license pertaining to Java making much of a difference for most people.
  • are you just trying to incite a language war with your unqualified comment?

    Its easy to qualify - Java sells books. Its impact on mainstream programming has been far less significant than O'Reilly, Addison-Wesley, Prentice-Hall and other prublishers would have you believe.

    Publishers love nothing more than a whiz-bang technology that floats almost entirely on hype alone.

    And don't quote me the number of supposed Java programmers out there - the number quoted is typically the number of downloads of the JDK recorded at Sun. You know and I know that number is menaningless.
  • I think that you are confusing convenience with freedom. The freedom that the GPL is about is not based on greater convenience or technical capability. The GPL is specifically designed to ensure that the work of the community is never used against that community, and that the work derived from the community will always go back to the community.

    This is sorta like the various "open source" licenses which are geared toward ensuring that the work derived from the work of the primary author always benefits them. The difference being that with the GPL, the author is the entire user base, the public. The original author gives up his primacy and in return gets to benefit from the work of the entire community, and the community in exchange for their work are garaunteed access to the fruits of their labor.

    And you claim that RMS has a perverse theory of freedom, when it would seem that you are the one with the perverse theory. I am not using perverse in the flame sense, but in it's orginal, as a derivation or misguided and misdirected version of some orginal idea. For RMS freedom is about choice and sharing, and it is the most important issue when choosing a piece of software.

    Now this understanding of freedom is a pretty well established one which you could trace back thru history thru Rousseau and others even earlier. The understanding of freedom you are presenting conflates freedom of choice with convenience and technical capabilities, which is why I said it is a perversion.

    One reason why I agree with RMS and his understanding of freedom, and his emphasis on issues of freedom of choice and sharing being the primary issue in software is that you can always add convenience and technical capability to something that gives you freedom. But you cannot add freedom to something which gives you technical capabilities or convenience (tho the author can).

    I am not willing to give up my freedom of choice when it comes to software, because I want to always control my own usage of the computer. It is an aesthetic as well as practical tool, and even the smallest controls and limitations on how one can use it can have profound effects on ones overall understanding of it.

    GPL and free software do not always deliver the most convenience and technical capability, despite what some Open Source pundits may try and claim. But they do deliver something that proprietary software cannot deliver, and that is freedom of choice, freedom to share.

    The limitation that the GPL places on what one can do with the source code is designed to protect the community, and I think it is a very small price to pay. I as a developer know that my work will always be available to the community and never used against it in a proprietary product.

    This is important to me because in the grand scheme of computer science and human use of computers as thinking tools, the success of a product or product line is nothing, barely a blip. Giving other people the freedom to do whatever they want with my code lets our knowledge of computers be guided by human need and not human greed.

  • Freedom? What is freedom? To me, it's being able to do anything you want without consequences. Free Software should not have a license. I can't do whatever I want with GPL software, namely change the license or encorperate it with non GPL software I have created. To me, that is not freedom.

    Freedom is not the ability to do anything you want without consequences, as that is a pipe dream. There are always consequences for your actions, be they legally enforced or not.

    Some have said that freedom is acceptance of the law while at the same time being assured that you or no-one else is above it; and that there are no other restrictions placed on you. Others have said that freedom is being unbound by any unjustified hierarchy or restrictions.

    Both of these understandings of freedom come to terms with the limits of what one can do without harming others, and they understand that freedom is as much about the community in which the individual lives, as it is about the will of the individual.

    The individual author, or individual contributor to a GPLed project gives up certain individual rights in order to have the community as a whole benefit. They benefit from knowing that their work will never be taken away from them, or used against them (this does not mean that you aren't allowed to build GPLed nuclear missiles hehe). So the rights of the community, the group of people sharing their work, are preserved and protected by the GPL. This is indeed it's intent.

    This does not mean that the GPL is communist or anti-capitalist (except in so far as capitalism tends towards radical individualism which can be disagreeable with such empowerment of communities and volountary restriction of individual rights). Even the founders of the U.S. understood that freedom is as much about the community as it is about the individual.

  • They say to themselves 'Hey.. there are a whole lot of geeks out there who could be working for us... for free! And we get good PR simultaneously! How could we -not- lose?'

    I agree totaly. Those companies who have "open-sourced" their software are not in it for the good of the community. They're in it because it is the latest rage, and they think they can get free work done by geeks.

    But really, we don't need their software anyway. Thanks to the FSF (and no I don't call Linux GNU/Linux ;-) and the multitudes of hackers out there, we have enough (really) free software out there--we don't need that other crap.

  • Freedom? What is freedom? To me, it's being able to do anything you want without consequences.

    This may be your definition of freedom, if you happen to be an anarchist. But personally, I wouldn't consider myself free if anyone who wanted (and was stronger than me, which is most people) could beat me up whenever they wanted without fear of repercussion.

    Freedom is being able to do whatever you want, so long as it doesn't limit other people's freedom. This is a recursive definition, and pretty vague, which is why noone seems to agree on what freedom actually is.

    This is what the GPL deals with. It espresses a sort of mutual definition of freedom, in which you are free to use my code so long as I am free to use your code. This seems eminently reasonable to me.

  • Without GPL/LGPL, projects like Linux, Apache, and GNU would not be where they are today.
    Uh...Apache is where it is today without the GPL. Apache has been under a BSD license all along.

    cjs

  • If quick expansion is your goal, a BSD-style license is probably going to have some advantages over (L)GPL.

    In the long run, however, the BSD-style license is at a disadvantage. Until XFree86, there was virtually no code sharing among developers of X servers. That led to incompatibilities and lots of reinventing the wheel.

    And when OSF took over X11, there was a very serious and real threat that new releases of X11 would revert to becoming proprietary. That would have been enormously disruptive for Linux and BSD users. The only thing that saved X11 was that OSF is largely a non-entity commercially these days and didn't have the clout to market and push through the next proprietary release of X11, so they eventually gave up.

    The fact that "vi" is bundled is largely unrelated to its license. "vi" was bundled even when it was completely unavailable in source form and fell under strict AT&T licenses. In fact, many free versions of UNIX still don't bundle the BSD "vi": the open source alternatives are simply better.

    I have nothing against people making profits. But the fact that the (L)GPL prevents people from making profit off (L)GPL'ed software in some ways is incidental. The main purpose of (L)GPL is to ensure that orderly, long-term community maintenance of open source software is possible. So far, I have not seen another license that achieves that as well.

  • What ways?
  • It's good to know that Cygnus Solutions isn't making any money off of gcc/egcs, which they've largely written and which is GPL'd.
  • It's fairly simple: information is meant to be shared. Knowledge should be universal. Free Software isn't an ends in itself, it's a means to freedom. The idea is that noone can force you into their own paradigm. Software is inherently sticky. Once you start, it's very hard to get out.

    The idea is that with GPL'd software, user's can control their software. They aren't strapped into a car with no steering wheel.

    And more important, when I write some code, what right do you have to take that code, add something to it, then start selling it without the code?

    I don't owe you a damn thing. I wrote XAmixer. I gave it away. To say that I'm taking away someone's freedom by granting them the right to do whatever they want with my code except to give it away to other people with fewer rights than I gave them is absurd. Yes, I'm not giving away full license to something, but you never had any right to XAmixer to begin with. I gave it to you, or I sold it to you. Either way, you are getting something from me that I don't owe you. To say that I'm doing anything but giving you more than you had is absurd.

    And on the other token, if you have a right to my source code, why don't I have a right to yours? If you should be able to take my code and do anything that you want with it, why shouldn't I be able to take your code and do anything that I want with it?

    Btw, if you're really willing to get locked in to Oracle software because it adds some value, that's your business. If you wanted to sell yourself into slavery because you'd have a guaranteed roof over your head, or it was the most convenient way to get rid of your debts, that's your business too. If you're willing to sacrifice your freedom (i.e. the ability to do what you want with that database product) for some gain (i.e. more functionality on that product), that's your business.

    But in general, using proprietary products is viral in nature. As soon as you use one, your entire system is limited. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

    Oh, and people should give out the blueprints to the cars that we buy. It's quite wrong for companies to put in black boxes that only they can fix for whatever fees they choose.
  • There's that word moral again. Please explain to me why free software has ANYTHING to do with morality.
    Put it this way: To withold knowledge from a person/community/socity/country is amoral. It is infact evil because it is a form of oppression. As the saying goes ``knowledge is power''. This is the biggest problem in the world today. Small groups hold knowledge for ransom. Take drug companies for example, they charge extortionist prices for life saving drugs just so they can have a fat belly.

    On the constrast GPL gives liberty. It uses the same laws that drug companies use to ensure that under privileged groups get the same rights as every else.

    If the world was a just place then the GPL would not be needed and infact would be a dumb license to release your code under; Public Domain would be the right choice. Unfortunately the world is not just and people used knowledge to gain power.

    I hope I haven't woffled too much. But I belive in equal rights and as such I naturaly belive proprietary products are amoral because they enslave you to use magic, without knowledge of the magic, so that you will always be enslaved under the magic.

    ---

  • Cassius-

    Java has done more than just sell books
    in the Market. Since you bothered to
    reply to the previous comment, I'll
    assume that you are making a serious
    statement and not just trolling.

    The fact is that Java is a language that
    has gained a lot of support in both the
    commerical and academic software
    communities. Want proof of this? Check
    out how many papers in the ACM are being
    published based around Java as a
    developmental language.

    Its not hard to make a case for languages
    other than Java; Scheme is more elegant,
    C gives more low-level control, and so
    on for Perl, Eiffel, etc. All except
    BASIC, which has no redeeming qualities
    whatsoever. C;)

  • The GPL does not take away any freedom, it only grants it. But it places some restrictions on that grant.

    Under copyright law, the only thing you may not do with a copyrighted work or derived work is redistribute it. GPL, in addition to all the freedoms you automatically get from copyright law, also gives you the freedom to redistribute the original or derived work, even charging a fee if you want. It merely places the limitation on this freedom that you must give others the same freedom.

    It's sort of like the fundamental rights to life, liberty and property - if you don't respect those of others, you forfeit yours.
  • I whole-heartedly agree. With all the hullabaloo surrounding Red Hat and Corel and Distributions X, Y and Z and the Mega-Evil Hypothetical MS-Linux, I sleep soundly at night knowing that no matter what happens today, tomorrow or next week, Linux and I are soundly protected by the GPL. And that's exactly what I want.
  • The person I was responding to said something to the effect that there are many things worse in the world than non-open source. That implies non-open source is wrong. I accepted that implication and stated that that is not an excuse to ignore a wrong.

    I state other reasons why non-open source, at least over long periods of time is ``wrong''. It's ``wrong'' because it delays development of a better product.

  • Sorry, didn't see that you were the same poster. Here I'm defining ``wrong'' as something that impedes the advancement of CS. I don't mean wrong as in evil, just the wrong way to go about things. I probably should have stated that differently in the post.

  • So what you learn in church defines your concept of right and wrong? Do you ever analyze what you have learned to see whether it has a basis or not? Theologians have been arguing for millenia over right and wrong; entire books have been included or not included in religious texts such as the Bible based on what these theologians think. If you just take the churches word for it, you're doing the evolution of your faith a disservice (by my standards at least).


  • ``But the type of freedom I want is the ability to grant free use of *MY* code
    to others... but that does not mean that I want to *infect* those others.''

    You can do this with GPL'd code too, all you have to do is make a note in the license covering your part of the code, that *your particular* code can also be used under a BSD, or what have you, license. Otherwise I agree with most of your statements. The GPL is equal to proprietary software, it's just alot easier to get ahold of than most proprietaries.

  • GPL software is largely self-documenting? If that's the case, then why is RMS so concerned about O'Reilly's "closed-source" books? O'Reilly happens to put out really good documentation on GPL software, something the FSF has never learned to do. If the freely distributable docs were any good, then nobody would buy the O'Reilly books.
  • There's that word moral again. Please explain to me why free software has ANYTHING to do with morality. I agree with all this person said. Software is meant to be useful. The point of our economic system is that we use the things, and thus promote them, that give us the most value. I like open source software because since I have the source, it is more valuable to me. That doesn't mean it's WRONG in any way to use proprietary software. I don't remember the eleventh commandment, thou shald share thy source code. Please leave the morality out of it, it has nothing to do with software. It is no more wrong to not give out source code than it is to not give out recipes to food you serve in a restaurant, blueprints to cars you make, etc...
  • But at least they don't force you to work for them and then shoot you when you try to switch.
  • All that stuff about how free software is good, I completely agree. Yes, it reduces development time, increases product quality, and so on. This is very good, and it is the exact reason I like open source software. But that all has to do with economics. But then in the first line, you mention how it is wrong. Wrong how? Why is proprietary software "wrong"? I believe that it decreases software quality, and it decreases the value of the product, but that's straight capitalism for you. I don't know where this whole wrong thing comes from.
  • No...I'm actually a bit of an anti-institutionalist. I mentioned church because I see the GNU camp as a religion. They say it's wrong to not make your software free. They say you're wrong if you disagree. They've got all the answers and any other thoughts are wrong. Just like the church. I myself am a free software advocate, but for different reasons. I'm growing less and less fond of GNU because of the whole speal about evil proprietary software.
  • Ah, you're not interested in Free Software, you're interested in a free ride.

    Glad you know me so well... I actually love free software, because to me it makes the product more valuable. I can do more with it, I have more control to fix bugs, add features, etc. Economics, plain and simple. What I object to is people telling me it is somehow wrong to have proprietary software. It is not wrong in the least. It may lead to inferior software, longer development times, whatever. But I have the freedom to choose if I wish to do that, and if I do, there's nothing wrong about it. Where is the morality here? I never learned in church that proprietary software was wrong. It's code people, not a religion.

  • Btw, if you're really willing to get locked in to Oracle software because it adds some value, that's your business. If you wanted to sell yourself into slavery because you'd have a guaranteed roof over your head, or it was the most convenient way to get rid of your debts, that's your business too.

    There's a really big difference here. With slavery, you are giving up all of your freedom with no way to get out. With commercial software, you are giving up your freedom to modify and distribute the program, and at any time you are free to switch to another product. Comparing the two is comical.

    And I don't use Oracle, I never have. I use MySQL. Why? I use it because it's worth more to me. The fact that it's cheaper than Oracle, has source code, and it does what I need makes it of more value. If oracle did something that I needed, I would switch. After all, what good is software if it doesn't do what you need it to? Should I really use an inferior product just because it's open source? Maybe some will, but I've got things to get done, and don't have time to sit around and write an open source clone of what I need.

  • I agree with the third point, the first part confuses me. I agree with this, but I don't see how it pertains to the GPL. The GPL has made it illegal to burn itself by not allowing the liscense to be changed. This is what I find ironic, they are limiting our freedom in order to protect it. That's fine with me, but it doesn't fly when you try to make an argument about how all software should be truly "free".

  • GPL (Score:1)

    by dj51d ( 20536 )
    I always kinda liked the GPL, but I'm just a hoybyist, not a professional.
  • The X11 license and BSD license were around before the GNU GPL, and RMS rejected them as being too open. They allowed derivative software to become non-free. For that matter, "public-domain" open source software did the same thing. How is the JCL any different from these? The GPL was partly a response to these overly-open licenses, and less "viral" types of licenses have been concocted after the GPL (e.g., the artistic license). But from cursory glances at sites like freshmeat, it looks like the GPL is the most successful of any of these "free" licenses.

    (Correct me if I'm wrong.)
  • For a group of people who make a living largely because of the GPL, the O'Reilly folks sure seem ungrateful these days.

    When will they freely license their manuals?
  • It's not about proprietary software. It's about open source software being made closed. It's about free software being made proprietary. You attack the GPL because it seeks to defend the code against being used in proprietary software.

    You either have a poor understanding of the dynamics of free software or you are interested in profiting by using someone elses code without paying for it. If it is the latter, then the GPL can be explained as a license that keeps people like you from ripping off people like me.

    You say free software is more useful to you because you can fix the bugs and make modifications to your liking. If you make those changes, and intend to share those changes with the people developing the software and the users in general, the GPL does not hinder you from doing so. So what's the problem, too much Sunday school made you a little sensitive ;-)

    If there had been no GPL, then Linux would not be taking off like it is now, because MS and more likely Sun and others would have taken code from linux and improved their OSs and the community would have contributed to their success but recieved no benefit from it.

    The free software community is it's own greatest resource, not the code. I don't recall the article, but someone said that if all the code disappeared overnight, but the community was still intact, it would rewrite the software in very short order. The GPL actually preserves the community more than it preserves the software itself. If that's religion, then I've never heard of such a religion. That's more like self-preservation.

  • Good point.

    Let's say somebody code a "free" software with java. Somebody else takes it and makes it commercial.

    Then Sun makes money, the new company makes money, and the poor soul who did 80% of the work makes nothing...

    Doesn't sound so interesting to me...

  • No... (Score:1)

    by Znork ( 31774 )
    Ah, you're not interested in Free Software, you're interested in a free ride.

    Tell me, why should I care? Why should I do anything for you? You obviously dont want to contribute back, despite the hard work done by others.

    If you havent figured it out yet, the GPL is not about *your* freedom. It is about the freedom of the *code*. Code placed under GPL is guaranteed to be free. It is *not* for you to proprietarize.
  • You essentially misunderstand the GPL. It is *not* about *your* freedom to do whatever you want.

    The GPL ensures the continued freedom of the code. I want any software I contribute to continue being free. You are free to use it as long as you do not compromize that freedom. The GPL ensures that proprietary software developers cannot take my code and 'embrace and extend' it to their proprietary advantage for free.

    If you want something you can make proprietary applications with, please get in touch and I'm sure we can work something out. For a significant amount of money. This isnt a free ride. Either you share and respect everyones equal freedom and right to the contributed source and it's evolution and pull your weight or you pay. It's as simple as that.

    RMS is probably right in the longer perspective about using free software too. Buying Oracle now may mean that you avoid having to buy more hardware, or save 1000 hours of programming time. But, will you feel the same way when you've paid for Oracle again? And again? And again? And again? And again? Eventually the money you save now would have been better spent improving the free software available. Proprietary software companies dont survive just by selling you their software once. Think in terms of decades rather than the next three months. Because those timescales are what is important to Free Software.
  • Well, in that case you should have no problem with the GPL. It allows you to have control, fix bugs and add features. You may even refrain from sharing those additions and keep it for yourself. However, you may not in any way distribute those additions without complying with the GPL. For an end-user that is no problem. For someone who would profit from making free source proprietary it is, hence the 'free ride'.

    As far as telling you it's wrong to have proprietary software, I wont do that (one of the points where I disagree with RMS). It will (in my opinion) suck by it's very nature, much due to the proprietary development process, but there is no moral wrong about it.

    There are secondary unethical points that seem to go along with proprietary software tho. I'd consider willfully making it more difficult to switch products immoral. I'd consider forcing people to pay for products they do not want by way of exclustionary contracts immoral. Yes, you can argue these points, but in the end, a lot of people are forced to pay a premium if they want to use an alternative product.

    Making free software proprietary is also another matter. That's why I use the GPL on my free source, to avoid it being subjected to what I'd consider unethical practices.
  • The LGPL gives you the *option* to convert that copy to GPL, should you so wish. It does not automatically convert, you have to change the license to the GPL.

    As you say, "...distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License...". Notice the word 'whole' amd the word 'terms' there. When you distribute the parts together, the work must be distributable under the 'terms' of the GPL. As long as the other licenses included in the 'whole' allow distribution under those terms, it is distributable under the GPL. Neither the LGPL or the BSD-without-advertizing have clauses that conflict with the GPL. But once you split the 'whole' up into it's parts, the original licenses apply again. Once you remove the GPL code from such a distribution it does not enforce any terms on the other parts.
  • You misunderstand the GPL. The *combined* work has to be *distributable* under the terms of the GPL. The LGPL library does not change into GPL, any more than a BSD or otherwise licensed library would. The otherwisely licensed components retain their license. The combined licenses of any and all components must merely be no more restrictive than the GPL. You are free to split up the distribution once you have recieved it and the old licenses of the components will remain in place.
  • a) If you write software under a freer license (ie; BSD or MIT X) anyone can take advantage of your contribution and deny it to others. If you write under a freer license, that is what you want. So why would you complain that someone does place it under GPL (or other license)? If you dont want people to deny others the ability to take advantage of your contribution, GPL it.

    b) Again, you're 'including' GPL code voluntarily. But you dont *have* to GPL that code. You just have to make sure you fulfill the terms of the GPL. You can BSD the code, but the combination of the licenses have to be compatible, so the BSD code cannot be proprietarized, which pretty much makes the BSD license on your code of limited importance.
  • In case you had not noticed... the proprietary software developers do anything and everything in their power to make sure you cannot switch to a competing product.

    Sure you can switch to Word Perfect after having used Word. If you feel like spending a lot of time converting all your existent documents...
  • First, where is the evidence supporting any such conclusion? With the abounding 'community' licensing shemes, I have yet to see a single such licensed software product recieve any significant amount of outside corporate or volunteer contributions. On the other hand, there are many examples, like gcc, (X)Emacs, Linux, FreeBSD, etc that have recieved significant corporate contributions.

    Second, most licenses are in their nature viral. There are only a few that arent, like the BSD without advertizing clause and the MIT X license. Sun's Java license is in no way different in virulence from the GPL. You can obtain commercial licensing of GPL software, just as you can with Sun's. Just the same, if Sun went out of buisness, you would be left standing with a virtually unusable license, since there would be nobody left to license it from.

    The GPL is a long term viable license. If the copyright holder(s) cannot be contracted for commercial license it just renders the code entirely free on a level playing field and can be picked up by someone else. With the commercial licenses it is usually very uncertain that the code would survive copyright holder ceasing development.

    In the end, there are no fundamental differences. And the differences that exist are just in favour of the GPL.
  • Some of your concerns are adressed.

    It is a derivative if you cut'n'paste into your own code.

    It is a derivative if you read the GPL code while implementing similar features to an extent. This is a fine line to walk. Reading, for example, header files would probably be ok, but looking at an algorithm and duplicating it would not be ok.

    Linking a GPL library is a derivative (there are various rationales for this, rather complicated in some cases). That's why you should use LGPL libraries if you wish to make a proprietary product. (IIRC, Lesstif is under LGPL so you wouldnt have a problem. However, your problem could appear. In that case, I think that if you could make a reasonable claim that the original was aimed at using Motif and not the GPL library, it would just be a user error that caused the license problems :) (further, the GPL just requires you to fulfill the terms if you *distribute*, ie, distributing a proprietary product with GPL libraries would be a violation, but if it used Motif then you wouldnt distribute either library with your app).

    Using a socket falls under 'use' of the program rather than inclusion of the code. Much like compiling a program with GCC or writing in Emacs. The licenses do not affect what you do with the program.

    The *really* hairy and as yet unsolved problems appear when you mix CORBA and loadable modules into it. This far, it appears that CORBA is ok, and proprietary loadable modules are ok if, and only if, they use the exact specified public hooks available in the GPL software. If you must modify the hooks, then you're not allowed to be proprietary. In each of these instances I would certainly ask the copyright holder first tho, because it's a seriously gray area.
  • "Email the author, have him release another version licensed under the LGPL. The GPL does not bind your program to the GPL, it binds that particular release."

    True.

    "If Linux wanted to release kernel version
    2.2.6 under BSD, he could very well do so. "

    Assuming for Linux you meant Linus; no, or at least only if he either :

    (a) got permission from all authors of the software (close to impossible),

    (b) rewrote it, excluding any code for which he didn't have permission from the original author and any code derived from early code for which he didn't have permission from the author.

    The rights of all authors of GPLd code are equally protected, no special rights for a project leader (of course if people want to otherwise license a project leader to use their code further then they just have to give him permission either when they originally contribute or when he suggests the change, so setting up a project with this possibility is possible under GPL, but Linux is not an example of this).
  • "It doesn't 'take away any freedom' but it 'places some restrictions'? My, what a Brave New World you open-sourcers live in. The out-and-out pirates are more honest."

    Initially you have no access to the code and no rights over it, then the author chooses to issue it under GPL. This gives you rights over it of the form 'you can do anything you like with this code except...'. This does not remove any rights that you would otherwise have.

    There is no compulsion to acquire, use, look at or have anything to do with the code.

    Seriously, how do you feel that that is taking away your freedom?
  • "If you're an altruist idealist and want your code to be free for everyone and never used in any profitmaking, use GPL."

    GPLd code can of course be used in profitmaking in all manner of ways, including distribution fees, modification fees, support fees, and just using the code in running the business. If you want your code to be "never used in any profitmaking" then GPL would not be a good choice, that's just not what it's for.
  • Try to imagine what would happen if GNU/Linux were under the JCL (Java Community License). Goodbye Red Hat, SuSE, Caldera, etc. These companies could not exist because in order to sell cd's, they would have to negotiate a proprietary license agreement with Linus, the Free Software Foundation, the Apache group, any another other entity that had JCL licensed code in there. Even if each of these people wanted only 50 cents per copy per program that would add up fast. I doubt we would be where we are today with free operating systems if the JCL approach to licensing was taken.

    To call the GPL coercive and viral is very inaccurate. Viruses are micro-organisms that invade your body and cause illness, usually in ways that you are not aware of and cannot stop. The GPL on the other hand never "infects" you in this manner. The only way you can find your code subject to its requirements is by either distributing GPL'd code or by including GPL'd code into your programs. Both of these are completely voluntary decisions. No one forces you to do either one.

    As for being coercive, it is true that the GPL forces you do to certain things and keeps you from doing others. If you take my GPL'd code, I am preventing you from making a proprietary version of it. I won't let you start a company to sell an improved version without sources. In other words, I won't let you hurt me or other users. Keeping someone from hurting you is hardly restricting their freedom. Criminal laws against stealing, assault, etc. restrict freedom in some manner, but few people object to these. Hurting users by making proprietary versions of software may not be as bad as assault (I don't want it to be a crime), but it is still not a good thing and I don't think preventing it counts as restricting freedom in the sense that other people do.
  • Posted by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters:

    The more I read about various opinions in the Open Source community, the less confidence I have in the GPL terms. This recent article on the Java license terms makes, I think, a good argument for a particular different strategy that that license uses.

    But more than anything else, it is RMS himself that pushes me away from liking the GPL. I was just so struck by the RMS interview recently linked by slashdot about how muddled and objuscatory the RMS arguments are. Re-reading the GPL and LGPL carefully in the last couple days also just reinforces this impression.

    The main deceit, to my mind, is the catchy saying "free speech not free beer". It has a nice sound. It expresses a noble sentiment about cooperation in ideas. But in the end, it both covers over real (important) complexities, and even misrepresents the GPL itself.

    In the recent interview, as in others, RMS has emphasized over and over how important it is to use software that gives you freedom. But the GPL does not do this. The GPL is one of the most restrictive software licenses I have ever seen. Every paragraph starkly limits your freedom to do various things with the code you are licensing. Really, the ONLY reason I would ever consent to such extreme limitations on FREEDOM are because of the free PRICE of GPL software. If I were paying money, I would never give up that much freedom. Not all--not even most, by far--of the commercial software I use comes with source. But that that does (which tends to be that that matters, i.e. libraries), never restricts so much what I can do with the source once I have paid for it as the GPL does.

    The truth is, that money is already inherently a limitation on freedom. By putting a price on something, you restrict people from using it. This is true equally of material objects as of software. The nature of money is to provide a structure for the limitation of freedoms. Now some of the particular restrictions that money/price can enforce are a lot more just and fair than others. But everything money does is to limit freedom. Free beer is beer that you have FREEDOM in drinking. The stuff that costs money also restricts your freedom in proportion to its price. These two aspects are not nearly as seperable as RMS and others claim.

    In association with this somewhat crude ideology of freedom, RMS winds up making what are just plain perverse claims. For example, in the same recent interview, RMS is critical of people considering using Oracle software (on their Linux systems, specifically). He accurately points out that this is proprietary and restricted software; and concludes that open source alternatives are automatically better.

    But for me, and really for every rational person I know, software exists to DO SOMETHING for you.... it is not an end in itself. If it turns out that Oracle processes my transacations faster, or provides other features, it is a bit crazy to think that avoiding the proprietary software is worth giving up (part of) my original goal in using the software to start with. I do not want a flawed solution (even if just slower) just to gain "freedom".

    The reason is not because I do not value freedom, but rather because I DO value freedom. If buying Oracle means that I do not have to spend, or commit, an extra 1000 hours of programming time, or buy extra server hardware, that gives my back a lot of freedom. In the form of money I can spend on something else. In terms of my own time. In terms of having control over my own options. I realize the Oracle choice restricts how much I can give back to the programming community in a way that those free solutions do not... but I may well be able to give much more back using those 1000 hours, or those $10,000 that I would have spent on hardware.
  • Don't forget that the X and BSD licenses were developed for government-sponsored code (although X also had some consortium funding). You'd already paid for the code with your taxes (if you lived in the U.S.) and thus it made sense to give you the right to take the code private or anything else you wanted to do.

    This just doesn't apply to code that we write, unless we're working for someplace like CNRI. It makes more sense for me to use the GPL and LGPL on my own work, so that the code I wanted to give to the public won't be taken private by someone who does not share my goals.

    Email to me is down due to a broken DSL. Please call 510-526-1165 (my office phone) if you want to chat.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • My DSL line has been down since 9AM Tuesday. This has made it difficult for me to participate in online discussion. All I have linking me to the net is a Metricom Ricochet RF modem, which is rather slow where I live. I don't really want to sit here for an entire minute while the slashdot reply form comes up, so I'm working on other stuff.

    I have read Eric Raymond's piece, and the O'Reilly piece, and slashdot over the past two days. O'Reilly isn't really working on the same Open Source as you and me. We are seeing the emergence of one Open Source for corporations, and one for individual programmers, with widely divergent goals. The corporations have embraced our existing code base, but they are balking at the freeness, no surprise.

    Sure, the GPL is coercive. If I write free software, I want it to stay free, not be taken private by someone who doesn't share my goals. I'll continue to use the GPL on my own work, and the LGPL where appropriate.

    Bruce Perens

  • When RMS wrote the GPL he wasn't looking to accelerate acceptance so much as protect his software. A great example is Linux. If Linux were released under a more flexible license, it's extremely possible that a corporation (read: MS) could take the code and develop it under a proprietary licese. Should that version become widely accepted, it could kill the entire movement. Plus, besides practical purposes, the GPL does alot to draw attention to the ideology behind the GNO/Linux movement.
    On the other hand, a company developing the code in a closed source way would be an interesting test between them and open source developers on which model is superior. Interesting, but not necessarily good for the community.

    Erik

  • No... (Score:2)

    by Azul ( 12241 )
    I don't care about freedom in software. I like open source software because I can do more with it, it's more useful to me.

    Yes, one should care about software because it is useful. The great advantages of Open Source (ie. stability, speed, features) are merely a consequence of the freedom. In the end, Open Source Software (according to the Open Source Definition) is just another name for Free Software. The problem is that the important thing, Freedom, is getting ignored by many.

    The freedom. When you donate free (GPL) software, anyone can use it in anyway they want (except to restrict other people's freedom). They can even modify your product or incorpore it in their own programs. They have no restrictions on what they can do with that free software (except the one I mentioned) and there is now no incentive to reimplement things but to improve the existing (free) software. The feeling of contributing free software is great. Everyone has a new piece of software, the whole humanity advances. You may say I'm exagerating, but there are thousands of hackers writing free software nowadays and I believe this to be a real motivation.

    I think there are a lot more important areas in society where we should focus on freedom and morality than software. Who cares? It's just code.

    I just wanted to say I strongly agree with this feeling.

    Perhaps the whole society is changing in special ways towards freedom and the individual (as opposed to the mass) is gaining power. Perhaps the changes are becoming evident in the software (and music) world because they are very related with the thing that made the change possible (the internet). Or perhaps I'm talking to much. :)

    Alejo.
  • In the end, Open Source (according to the Open Source Definition) is Free Software. But the point of the Open Source movement was not to scare people off with the ideas of freedom and give them something else they will be more likely to accept. So, in definition, the Open Source Software is Free Software, but in many person's minds it is a different thing. The Open Source movement has managed people to go "open source", but the cost is that it, as I said in my other message, has hidden the Important Thing from many persons. Open Source is Free Software according to its definition, but that's not in many persons minds.

    Read The Technie/Hacker's Case for Open Source [opensource.org]:

    The real reason for the re-labeling [of Free Software] is a marketing one. We're trying to pitch our concept to the corporate world now. We have a winning product, but our positioning, in the past, has been awful. The term ``free software'' has a load of fatal baggage; to a businessperson, it's too redolent of fanaticism and flakiness and strident anti-commercialism.

    [...] In marketing appearance is reality. The appearance that we're willing to climb down off the barricades and work with the corporate world counts for as much as the reality of our behavior, our convictions, and our software.

    The reason is marketing. Lets hide the freedom from them. That's not good.

    Alejo.

  • GPL (Score:2)

    by Azul ( 12241 )
    With all due respect to RMS, I think it's clear that the GPL significantly retarded acceptance of Open Source software.

    With all due respect to O'Reilly, I think its clear that the GPL has significantly contributed to the acceptance of Free Software, while the Open Source movement has hidden the important things (Freedom) from many persons' eyes.

    We don't want Open Source software, we want free software.

    I *hate* to see someone who hasn't donated a single line of code criticize the GPL.

    The Good Thing of the GPL is it lets you do anything with the software except limit other people's freedom. You are saying that's a bad thing because it scares people off, but if they are just developing propietary software, no one cares.

    Instead of criticizing the GPL, people should start to develope their own nonGPLish code and try to outcome us. Developers are free to do whatever they want and choose whatever license they like. Users who complain and whine should be ignored.

    Typical O'Reilly anti-GNU stuff. Anyone else getting tired of them?

    Alejo.
  • You know, RMS's crowning achievement wasn't anything coded - it was/is/will be the GPL.

    Damn right. He's one of the greatest hackers on the face of earth yet his crowning achievement isn't ... well, you said it. GPL and the free software movement. :)

    Alejo.
  • It's regrettable how little Loukides understands and appreciates the value that GPL and LGPL have had for free software and open source software in a corporate framework.

    Corporations don't make decisions as a coherent whole, and their decision making is not necessarily consistent in time either.

    If corporate developers go to corporate legal staff and say "we want to release our bug fixes to [package X] to the world at large", the answer is going to be a predictable "no way". I know: I have been there.

    But if the same developers can say "we decided (in consultation with our legal department) to go with a GPL/LGPL package at the beginning of the project and now we are bound by the licenses to release our fixes", that's something everybody can live with. I know: I have been there, too.

    It is the developers inside companies that are driving the move to open source, and GPL/LGPL give them the tools to establish corporate commitment (by having the legal department initially approving the use of GPL/LGPL programs) and enforce follow-through.

    Or, to put it more concisely: the GPL and LGPL establish a simple contract: you can use this software if you help improve it. That is crucial for making free software work.

    Note that GPL and LGPL are licenses for software that is both "free" (in the GNU sense) and "open source". While all free software is open source, the reverse isn't true. I want to be clear that I think there are many other useful open source models. For example, I have no problem with Sun's Java community license, and I think for Java, it is actually the right license at this point.

    However, Loukides claims that GPL/LGPL has been detrimental in general, and I strongly disagree. Without GPL/LGPL, projects like Linux, Apache, and GNU would not be where they are today.

    I believe that Loukides's careless and uninformed criticism of GPL/LGPL is doing a grave disservice to the free software and open source community. I think it (and other recent statements from O'Reilly employees) also suggest to me that O'Reilly's vision for open source and free software isn't compatible with mine.

  • Mike Loukides approaches clarity when stating that the Java license provides developers with more options. I'm without complete comprehension of every Java license detail, but that initially seems the sanest legal jargon to date.

    But I think Mike has forgotten a crucial point. If you want to go 'closed-source' Sun charges you some money. If the GPL were a 'chameleon' license, who would the money go to, and what would it buy a developer? If I wanted to pay for a commercial license for the [INSERT NAME] source, would a portion of the fee I pay go to each and every developer that has ever contributed code? If not, I think that would counter-act the usual incentive to contribute to open source projects, I know I would be hesitant to knowingly increase someone's salary in my free time.

    I'm in agreement with him on companies making money on support, etc.; but I think Mike has over-simplified. He argues that the GPL has hampered acceptance by the business community, however, I believe that the Java license would have hampered acceptance by the developer community.

    --Voytek
  • ``Who cares? It's just code.''

    That there are other things wrong with the world should not be used as an excuse to ignore something else that's wrong. It may just be code to you, but that code is increasingly more important to the way the world functions. Proprietary development of software can make tremendous leaps in a short amount of time, but so can open-source software. If the proprietary code / algorithm isn't folded back into the community, it means a slower rate of growth in the quality of the proprietary product, and the open product. A certain amount of redundancy is definitely a good thing, but the different bases should be able to see what the other bases are doing, in order to increase the quality, useability, and functionality of all software.

    If software had remained open, or at the very least had gone open after the proprietary hot-shots had had a few years to make money, we would be years ahead of where we are now, both in software and hardware. If patents and copyrights expired after a few years for the software (possibly hardware) sectors, the incentive to bring better and better products would excellerate. The license wouldn't matter in this case. Since this is not so, I believe the GPL is the best license so far. It is identical in concept to proprietary licenses, while giving people automatic NDA's, and charging them any source code changes they wish to distribute outside of their organization as a license fee.

  • Yet Another Open Source License. Oh boy!

    I have to take exception with parts of Mr. Loukides article. He seems somewhat inconsistent in his ethics when he declares, "...the GPL is fundamentally coercive, and was intended to be so. Morality aside, that just plain hurt the cause. ... The net effect was to implse a potential penalty on developers who used GPL software: if you incorporated it into your code, you lost control of your code's use." It also forces me to reach the conclusion that he just plain misses the point.

    First, the implication that the GPL is immoral is absurd, given that the GPL only limits the restrictions you can put on the use of the code. What is immoral about requiring that you grant the users of your derivitave work the same rights as you yourself were granted.

    To use an analogy, suppose that you have a slave called Mike, toiling away in a salt mine. Along comes Richard who coughs up his own money to buy Mike. Richard offers Mike his freedom, and some money to get started. All Mike has to do is agree never to enslave another human being or to use the money to buy another slave, unless that purchase is for the sole purpose of freeing that third person. Would we call this immoral?

    Aside from that, when Mr. Loukides asserts that you lose control of your code's use, he is being ethically inconsistent in that he wants to take control of the use of other people's code. He is saying that he wants to be free to use the code, AND to impose further restrictions on the use that other people make of his derivative work. Say what you want about RMS' abrasive manner, or about his level of maturity when it comes to what we call Linux. At least his ethics are consistent.

    Finally, I have to mention that Mr. Loukides misses the point when he says, "The right way to popularize free software...". I don't think that the point of GNU or the GPL was to /popularize/ free software. The point was to /create/ free software. With a less aggressive license than the GPL, the software could become shackled. Rather, the software could become a tool with which to shackle the user.
  • Typical O'Reilly anti-GNU stuff. Anyone else getting tired of them?

    No... That article made a lot of sense. I've never understood the issue of freedom with software, and I think that whole morality issue of free software is what scares a lot of people, including myself. I don't care about freedom in software. I like open source software becuase I can do more with it, it's more useful to me.

    Freedom? What is freedom? To me, it's being able to do anything you want without consequences. Free Software should not have a license. I can't do whatever I want with GPL software, namely change the license or encorperate it with non GPL software I have created. To me, that is not freedom. Besides, I think there are a lot more important areas in society where we should focus on freedom and morality than software. Who cares? It's just code.

  • I personally disagree. Those who have released their code under GPL have given a gift to the world. The GPL keeps the code free. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

    If you want to take advantage of free software, use it in your product, but value add with your own proprietary software. If you're in a vertical market, the open software community shouldn't mind. If you keep your medical, banking, or whatever application code proprietary, but feed back enhancements to the generic portion, you are helping to build the communal base.

    This makes sense from a business perspective too. The code which is not a part of your core competence goes back to be maintained by the open source community, and you get to keep the stuff that gives you a business advantage. You can release a product which has a fully functional platform under it without paying royaltees, yet your competitors don't get your business software for free.

    The problem with Sun's license is that you have to pay royaltee's to use it. Sun has a right to charge for SW (legal, not moral), but we can choose whether or not to use it. Personally, I'd rather have a GPLed version from GNU. I think RMS has done the world a great service (though I wish he'd get over the Linux name thing).
  • ... it looks like the GPL is the most successful of any of these "free" licenses.

    BSD is the most successful of the free/open licenses. The BSD is so successful, and the BSD tools so ubiquitous, that we tend to forget about them. Not all UNIX vendors bundle emacs, but they do all bundle vi.

    Similarly, the X Window System, with a similarly unrestrictive license, has become the unquesitoned standard in the UNIX world. (This despite not being the technically best solution, nor even the best free solution. I remember someone at Bell Labs -- Dennis Ritchie maybe? -- saying at the time, "I've never seen anything fill a vacuum so fast, and still suck.")

    If you can't abide anyone making a profit, GPL is definitely the way to go. But if your goal is widespread adoption ("world domination"?) then BSD/X has a much better track record, and still allows everyone to play with the source.

  • Hi folks,

    My DSL is broken since Tuesday morning, email won't work, all I have left is this really slow radio modem. Call me at my office phone 510-526-1165 if you want to talk.

    O'Reilly's interested in what I guess we should call Corporate Source. Semi-proprietary applications that individuals can contribute to if they want, without a fair quid-pro-quo for secondary contributors. In this case the Chamelion license does not meet the OSD and should not be referred to as Open Source all. I guess ORA figures that Corporate Source will sell more books. For me as an individual developer, it does not offer a fair quid-pro-quo and I will continue to work on GPL and LGPL projects.

    I was really glad to get the GTK+ book (Developing Linux Applications) from New Riders this week. It's nice that the world's largest publishing group is giving O'Reilly a run for their money. Laurie Petricki, their managing editor and a really nice person, is doing a good job of helping free software while O'Reilly deprecates it. Go New Riders!

    Thanks

    Bruce Perens

  • Good Luck JWZ (Score:3)

    by doomy ( 7461 ) on Friday April 02, 1999 @08:10AM (#1952171) Homepage Journal

    Since it's the 2nd of April, I'm assuming that this is not yet another april fool's day slashdot news item

    I've participated in a few opensource projects and helped code a few functional utlities that still helps a lot of people all around the world. When Netscape announced the release of Mozilla code, I was one of many to logon to their site and download the tar ball, but alas, it was too hard to decypher. I went through the code for 1 week (a lot longer than most people did). I couldnt figure out 75% of the things in there. So I gave up. (And I guess that is what happend to all the others out there)

    Initially when netscape announced the release of mozilla, there were dozens of web sites, hundreds of mailing lists, just devoated to the discussion of what should be in mozilla. Over the past year, these web sites and lists just died away one by one. I guess what most people did not release was, that what mozilla needed was not new functionally, but... stablility, at a good speed. It did not need be a front end to your kitchen skin (should see some of the suggestions made on wishlists) it just needed to fetch a web page and display complying with most statndard as possible.

    Then there are those who bitched about mozilla, from the start to the end (i guess when jwz leaves, it might as well be the end). I don't think bitching about the code would have helped making it more stable and fast. Helping the coders, coding it your self and replacing those netscape coders should have been the first thing we should have done. As jwz stated, most people thought netscape still owned mozilla and had full control over mozilla (this was inforced by the inital netscape/mozilla licence,) on that.. i belive mozilla would have been better accepted if it was released as BSD or GPL/LGPL.. most coders were weary of this and stayed away from mozilla just cause of that fact alone... and then there were those who, like me, waited for others to go ahead and do something to the code, test it, pinch it.. see if it bites.. (would a dead beast bite?)

    Best jwz quote : I must say, though, that it feels good to be resigning from AOL instead of resigning from Netscape
    --

  • GPL terms (Score:3)

    by Todd Knarr ( 15451 ) on Friday April 02, 1999 @08:13AM (#1952172) Homepage

    As a counterpoint, the GPL was coercive for a reason. Look at the CDDB flap recently. The GPL's terms were coercive precisely to make it impossible for the equivalent to happen to GPLd software. That has a cost, but considering corporate attitudes it might not be as paranoid as all that after all. The Community license is more friendly towards commercial software, but it also allows for someone to benefit from openly-developed software without letting anyone else benefit from the results. There's a cost there just as there is with the GPL. The question is which is greater: the cost to the commercial develpers of the GPL, or the cost to the community of taking work derived from open-source code and making it proprietary.

  • GPL Question (Score:3)

    by tomk ( 20364 ) on Friday April 02, 1999 @11:37PM (#1952173)
    My question is, what constitutes a "derivative"?

    Is it only a derivative if I cut & paste the source from a GPL program into my own? This would seem silly since I could just compile the GPL code into a library and call the functions from my proprietary code.

    Therefore, it seems to be a derivative if I am linking against a library with GPL'd code. If so, what if I just take the code that I want and compile it into a binary which listens on a socket for instructions from my proprietary code, and responds? I could re-release my modified "listener" under the GPL but still have a proprietary program reaping the benefits.

    Therefore, it seems that it might even be a derivative if I use the functionality of the GPL'd code, without using the code itself.. In which case, if an OS was distributed under the GPL, wouldn't a program be considered a derivative even if it uses system calls? All of a sudden, the whole system must be distributed under the GPL.

    Lets make things more complicated: assume I have two libraries which perform identically from an executable's point of view (i.e. Motif & LessTif), of which one is distributed under a proprietary license and the other under the GPL. I write a proprietary program and link it to Motif. I sell it to you. You don't have Motif, so you link it to LessTif and find it works flawlessly. Is my program now a "derivative" of LessTif? Does it now fall under the GPL? Can the user distribute the program under the GPL?

    One thing to note: I don't know exactly how the GPL works - it might address these concerns. But even the fact that I don't know the answers to these questions (and probably few others do either) makes the GPL a very unattractive thing to get tangled up in.

  • Chameleon Flag Protectors (Score:4)

    by dgenr8 ( 9462 ) on Friday April 02, 1999 @09:05AM (#1952174) Journal

    The O'Reilly stance reminds me of Americans who think it should be illegal to burn the flag, failing to see that, because the flag itself symbolizes the freedom to burn it, enacting such a law would actually destroy what it was meant to protect.

    To say the GPL is coercive, and ought to be superceded, is to say that open source is so important that we have to sacrifice a little bit of its essence in order to ensure its continued existence. It is to say, wrongly, that freedom is so important we must restrict ourselves from burning the flag.

    I do agree with Loukides on one point, though. We should be using a carrot and not a stick. The hot rhetoric in the preamble to the GPL belies the fact that, by releasing GPLed software, you are doing something really nice. Why the FSF has chosen to characterize it in the opposite way -- that by NOT using the GPL you are somehow oppressing people -- is beyond me.

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