Comment by douche
9 years ago
Thanks for putting words in my mouth. How many people would have used jQuery, if it was GPL? Full-on GPL taints your software, such that you have to be extremely careful not to use any libraries that are GPL'd if you want to release it under any other sort of license. Sure, you can get exemptions, but can you imagine the clusterfuck if, say, the NPM community defaulted to using GPL? Trying to trace back and make arrangements with the owners of thousands of tiny libraries would be insane.
You are taking an incredibly harsh (and coming across as almost vengeful) position on the GPL advocating a position that misses the point of the GPL.
Software that chooses a copyleft license like the GPL cares for freedom more than broad adoption of their software. I would never want you to help you create non-free software---that's antithetical to everything I stand for. Many feel that way.
You say "trace back and make arrangements with the owners of thousands"---why should you? Why would we want you to do that? Why would we have used the GPL to begin with? I would consider that to be an incredible situation! All these tiny libraries on NPM under the GPL that make it virtually impossible to develop proprietary software because of the infeasibility of working out deals with all the authors---some of which will never agree? That is freedom at its finest! That would be a huge success!
It's great that software like jQuery has had the success that it has. It shares a different philosophy. I don't call that philosophy a "cancer", even though it results in what I consider the worst possible outcome: proprietary software, and often SaaSS at that, which robs freedoms even more.
Please be respectful of others' philosophies. The GPL is the embodiment of ideals and the free software movement---it's more than a license.
I'm really not trying to shit on the GPL and free software, or pooh-pooh any philosophy. You just can't touch anything that's GPL if you build closed-source commercial software. That's kind of my job, and I have to be pragmatic and practical about it.
I'm glad Microsoft is cognizant of the fact that they have legions of partners, vendors, and independent developers that have built their businesses on top of Microsoft libraries and technologies and has chosen appropriate licensing to reflect that.
>> You just can't touch anything that's GPL if you build closed-source commercial software.
That is not true at all and this reflects basically a willful ignorance of what the GPL actually says.
>> That's kind of my job, and I have to be pragmatic and practical about it.
Then you are bad at your job, because you do not know what the GPL means in practice.
How can it be that most of the most valuable technology companies in the world--Google, Facebook, Amazon, just to name a few--are built from the core-up on open source software?
Microsoft has chosen a proper license for their audience, yes.
> You just can't touch anything that's GPL if you build closed-source commercial software. That's kind of my job, and I have to be pragmatic and practical about it.
What's the moral difference between writing closed-source commercial software and being a slave trader?
> Full-on GPL taints your software, such that you have to be extremely careful not to use any libraries that are GPL'd if you want to release it under any other sort of license.
Why would you want to release under any other sort of license? Why do you wish to restrict your users' right to use, modify & share code?
> can you imagine the clusterfuck if, say, the NPM community defaulted to using GPL
That sounds wonderful: an entire ecosystem of free software.
> Why do you wish to restrict your users' right to use, modify & share code?
Not everyone agrees that this is a right.
Possession is nine tenths of the law. You have no right to tell people what to do with their own computers.
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Except, I work on GPL v2 systems, and we can't link to GPL v3 libraries. No other license I've worked with has this incompatiblity problem.
> Except, I work on GPL v2 systems, and we can't link to GPL v3 libraries.
The standard way to use GPL v2 is to use this verbiage:
If someone doesn't do that, I don't know what to say.
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If you're a lone developer or small team and you're releasing your code under anything other than a strong copyleft license, you're leaving yourself open to the Joyents of the world to abscond with what you've made and build their business with nothing more than an attaboy to you. I would much rather nobody made money off of my code than somebody else while I still struggle. At least the Mozillas and Googles of the world have the decent politeness to just completely ignore your open source project, no matter how long its been out and how new they are to that particular field, to boulder through and make their own thing.
Nobody can "abscond" with what you've made. It's always yours, it's always accessible to you, and you can always make it better.
Yes, if someone else comes and extends your work and eclipses your production, they're able to decide what to do with it as they want. That's the key point of being open: Letting people do what they want with it.
If anything, I'd contest the claim that copyleft can be considered open source any more than a license that lets you look at the source but doesn't let you modify it. Copyleft controls the source and forces your views on people who want to use it.
Perhaps you could form a community of like-minded developers. Everyone pools their resources together, contributing to the pool according to his ability, and each person shares those resources according to his need. That way, nobody will be able to make money while you struggle and go without.