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GPL vs. BSD (Developers)

posted by marcov, 22.06.2009, 16:07

(skipped analogy, msgs getting long enough already without bickering over analogies)

> > 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.
>
> Corporations not cooperating is nothing new, and I don't blame FSF / GNU
> for that.

Well, one can obviously question if FSF is to blame at all. But I primarily place the blame by people and groups that randomly select GPL, rather than the ones that only created it.

> Sure, lots of incompatible licenses hurts everybody, but that's
> not GPL's fault either.

Well, since GPL is the one that is typically incompatible, it is not unfair to put a large part of the blame there.

> And sorry if I'm not more sympathetic to big
> business who is every bit as flaky in support as the average consumer is
> in wants. (Two sides of the same coin.)
Well, it is just business, not necessarily big. So there is no need to spout anti-globulist nonsense. The problems applies to anything that has more than a single management layers.

> > 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)
>
> The real problem is that nobody attributes changes very well (e.g.
> XEmacs), so if that worries you, you should keep track from the beginning.
If you think that people don't follow licenses, there is even less reason to use GPL.

> > > 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.
>
> I heard today that GPL requires keeping sources available for three years.
No. There is some relative small jurisprudence in *some* territories that might change at any point. I wouldn't put blind faith in those things you "hear".

> The GPL is all
> about the user. Isn't that what software should be?
Where did you get that delusional idea? It is all about the author, otherwise it wouldn't burden the user with so many duties and pretty heavy restrictions.

> > 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'm not involved in any commercial software aspects, so I have little
> knowledge, experience, interest (or frankly, sympathy) for them. Rampant
> commercialism left unchecked is probably a bad thing.
Again, please no anti-globalist oriented vague propaganda. The average situation is about normal programmers (or even non professional programms) recycling a few XML routines, which could be for the inventory system of the butcher next door. Not about a X-Files like plot created by a megalomaniac to create software that exploit patents to sell baby's abroard while clubbing a few baby seals along the way.

> > 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.
>
> You know how it is, build a better mouse trap, but the mouse always finds
> a way. E-mail? Great idea, but it got exploited by spam. Computers? Fouled
> up by viruses. Browsers? Phishing. It's always something. You can't win. As
> if we don't have enough laws and rules anyways. It's too much, I agree, but
> some people keep fighting. I'm sure you and I agree that when it hurts more
> than it helps that it's gone too far.

I agree there.

> So far GPL still has advantages.
And even here. But only for a few select strategic projects, not for the bulk of open source software, where it is only a burden and barrier.

> Too confusing for me, I don't understand most of that legal crap. I don't
> idealize any of it, but I do think "shared source" (with patent protection
> and free use) is a good thing. In short, there are a lot of crappy licenses
> out there, and the GPL is far from the worst.
This sounds awfully ambigiuous to me. It sounds like somebody is saying that weaponry is a necessarily evil, but he hates it and he doesn't even fully understand how a knife works because it is so complicated, but at the same time he prefers to have a launch ready nuclear rocket in his backyard to play with.

> Anyways, as mentioned, the *BSD camps use GCC (<= 4.2.1, i.e. older
> GPLv2), so it's obviously not that bad. I wish I know a concrete
> example of where/when/why GPLv3 was bad for *BSD, that part makes no sense
> to me. (Also the whole optional "v2" instead of "v2 or later" variant seems
> a bit senseless to my eyes, which is what the Linux kernel uses.)
For the kernel, that is a big thing, due to firmware blobs. But even then that can be remedied easily by only accepting code that is license v2+ (so no V3 only code). I can't see how it matters for gcc, in a normal BSD usage. But I can do see it when you want to integrate it, e.g. in an environment to generate code for microcontrollers.

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