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GPL vs. BSD (Developers)

posted by marcov, 21.06.2009, 14:30

> > I don't think this has anything to do with NIH. It's simply that GPL is
> a
> > very restrictive license rooted in some ideology.
>
> Well, I haven't counted the universe yet (heh), but GPL seemingly
> outnumbers BSD a billion times to one.

Proving what? Dirt outnumbers diamonds too, but I rather have a few diamonds that a ton of dirt.

> But having sources is always desirable, esp. when you have to fork
> something due to no maintainer or broken main build.
Or join it with some existing project and venture. And that is exactly why GPL is such a pain. Not only in the hard requirements, but also because of the multiple levels in a corporation you have to convince even in the rare case it is perfectly fine to use.

A lot of the GPL pain comes from the exclusiveness and the need for every party to agree (which essentially means BSD/PD or (L)GPL, excluding all hundreds of thousands of other licenses, even some as benign as MPL)

You might go through such trajectory to be able to use a Linux distro on some server, but you don't go through it for a 500 piece of code.

> > If you don't believe in that ideology to the fullest it is insane to
> > make the requested sacrifice.
>
> It's not that insane. The only halfway insane part is using copyright law
> to enforce it. Share and share alike. You like our code? You must share
> yours too if you use it publicly.
I must share it according to guidelines other people enforce on me. I don't set the requirements for my own sharing, but FSF does.

> > Sooner or later you want to use some code for some minor product, and
> find
> > yourself effectively excluded.
>
> Not really, you can commercially use it, you just can't do it based upon
> closed sources.
Which makes is equivalent to pretty much useless for programming in the commercial world. Contrary to e.g. for an OS kernel where it is survivable.

> I imagine they are trying to prevent companies from
> dropping support on a whim or charging for simple bugfixes.
More or less. But they did that in a very draconical and ideologically radical way, possibly to largely avoid any dispute. But that draconical way is the main problem.

The same way with the much laxer LGPL. FSF forces people to adopt *their* views on updating componentized systems as *they* think they should look like. Which is e.g. why FPC is distributed under LGPL-with-linking exception to defang that dangerous clause

> P.S. I have nothing against anyone using either license. (I think licenses
> are overrated anyways, attempt too much control over people, esp. EULAs.)
> However, I do wish it wasn't such a hostile "us vs. them" mentality.
By choosing LGPL/GPL, you are no different from them, and you essentially polarize the situation, and force your views on software restrictions upon others.

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