Comment by daveguy
9 years ago
Well, to be fair, he was trying to refer to the fact that GPL is viral (turning other licenses into its own). That is a valid critique of GPL (it reduces developer freedom) and that is why it has been in steady decline compared to more liberal licenses (as a percent of FOSS licenses).
No he wasn't. He was trying to disparage and insult a perceived threat. "Cancer" is an inflammatory and negative thing to call something no matter how you spin it.
Ballmer wasn't stupid he could have been nuanced and precise if he wanted, he certainly knew the difference between a kernel and a license. He wanted to convince people to not use a given technology stack because he was invested in another. If that is not convincing enough at the time there was already a more accurate but still negative sounding phrase "The GPL is Viral", but that wasn't offensive enough and didn't attack the perceived enemy OS.
It's in decline because it's based on an absolutist philosophy, rather than being another tool in the toolbox.
And it's an invaluable tool. For the indie dev that can't hire a team of lawyers copyleft can be a powerful legal strategy as relates to their IP. It has built entire communities.
The GPL reduces developer freedom
Does it?
> The GPL reduces developer freedom. Does it?
The GPL increases the user's freedom by forcing developers to contribute back, ie limiting the developer's freedom (to close code down).
Likewise, BSD and MIT type licences increase developer freedom at the cost of end users.
You have got to keep these two roles clearly separated when thinking about licences, even though in lots of cases the actual users will be developers (but of other products).
If you do, there's nothing controversial about that statement.
> The GPL increases the user's freedom by forcing developers to contribute back, ie limiting the developer's freedom (to close code down).
That begs the question of whether or not one has the right to limit one's users' freedom to use, modify & share code. I don't think that one does.
> Likewise, BSD and MIT type licences increase developer freedom at the cost of end users.
They certainly increase developer power, but power is not freedom; might does not make right.
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> limiting the developer's freedom (to close code down)
Even with a more permissive license (MIT/BSD) the developer as a user never has the freedom to close down the original source code. Integrating that code into a proprietary offering does not close down the original code base. If there was only one copy of the code, then yes, integrating into proprietary software would close down that code. The original code can be copied indefinitely.
There is certainly a tradeoff. I prefer BSD/MIT to give developers the same freedom as users to use the software as they wish. If I was going to try to make money off the miscellaneous tools I open source I would prefer one that limits unfair competition (coopt and close). At the very least one that requires improvements to the direct code base to be given back (those licenses exist without full copyleft). That said, my go-to is MIT.
I also like license clauses that prevent use in a patented product. That way, regardless of how the code is used (even proprietary) the functionality can be reverse engineered and offered as a free product. Edit: Although embrace, extend, extinguish can be very effective with protocols because of the difficulty of reverse engineering edge cases.
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> The GPL increases the user's freedom
No, it doesn't. The GPL reduces the probability of the user being offered a non-Free derivative in addition to the original Free software and any Free derivatives, but does not increase the user's freedom.
Yes, it restricts you from integrating with proprietary software (and some others). Here is a breakdown of license compatibility:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/License_compatibility
Note that more permissive licenses (MIT/BSD) allow more freedom for the developer.
The GPL doesn't restrict integration with proprietary code. It requires any code you choose to integrate it with to be similarly licensed. That is the same choice you have every time you create code.
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while gpl does spread. It also protect the owner. With a more permissive license a bigger player can steal your work, user base and make it proparitary closed source. Why do u think M chose MIT instead of GPL ?