Comment by mikegerwitz
9 years ago
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?