6 ms·

> Crucially, a user of GPL software is allowed to do whatever they want. Except develop the software however they want.

cyphar 11y ago
> > Crucially, a user of GPL software is allowed to do whatever they want. > Except develop the software however they want. I don't know where you got that idea from. You can develop the software however you like. That's a technical question. The only requirement is that people you distribute your software to must also get the source code. The GPL's job is to protect user's freedom. The developers don't get any special treatment.
- pg_is_a_butt 11y ago
  i don't know where you live that you never got the tivoization lawsuit articles. you're an idiot.
- git-pull 11y ago
  > > Except develop the software however they want. > I don't know where you got that idea from. Many employers won't allow GPL codebase. The license isn't backwards compatible. I can't simply pull GPL code into my BSD licensed project. Even a snippet You can't, say, simply copy and paste a struct out of git or even libgit2. > You can develop the software however you like. Heh, its notorious for causing roadblocks in development. Look up the stories on LLVM/Clang, ZFS in Linux.
  - cyphar 11y ago
    >>> Except develop the software however they want. >> I don't know where you got that idea from. > Many employers won't allow GPL codebase. Explain it to your employer better then. Or find a better employer. Not to mention they are almost certainly using GPL code /somewhere/. > The license isn't backwards compatible. GPLvX or later makes them pseudo-compatible (you can release a combination under a newer license). That works fine for most people. > I can't simply pull GPL code into my BSD licensed project. Even a snippet. You can't, say, simply copy and paste a struct out of git or even libgit2. 1) Yes you can, it'll just become GPL licensed as a whole. 2) I don't think anyone would consider copying a structure as being a "significant portion" of the code. In fact, in C, structures aren't code at all, they're an API (the `struct` keyword generates no code). And I think we all agree as a community that APIs are not copyrightable (or else Linux and GNU would be the largest copyright violations on the planet). >> You can develop the software however you like. > Heh, its notorious for causing roadblocks in development. Look up the stories on LLVM/Clang, ZFS in Linux. ZFS on Linux / Dtrace are FUD. Given that Oracle already distributes DTrace with their Linux distribution, it's clearly dual-GPL licensed DTrace to their customers. If you agree that ZFS being included with Linux would be a GPL violation (I don't, because the spirit of the GPL is applied, and the binary itself is not a violation because CDDL allows sublicensing of the resulting binary), then distributing it as source that is compiled on the users' machine (DKMS) is fine. Not to mention that Oracle will not have standing to sue (their license has not been violated in the case of distributing CDDL code with the GPL -- the only people you can argue have their copyright violated are the the Linux kernel guys and I don't see why they would sue people for the dubious license under which the source code is distributed -- nobody seriously believes their whole work will be under the CDDL, only code that was ported directly from illumos's ZFS). The LLVM/Clang thing was caused by technical decisions in GCC, where they believed that making something like LLVM's IR would allow people to make proprietary compilers based on their technology (which is a valid grievance if you care about preserving software freedom). The point is that it was a technical decision. The only requirement you have if you use the GPL is to accompany your binaries with the source (or the other two provisions in the license which aren't as well-used as others).
fungos 11y ago
It blows my mind to see how people are still misinformed. Is this result of some old FUD from 90s or what? I really don't know what causes this stigma to persist.
- pyre 11y ago
  It's the idea that it's "forcing" the developer of proprietary software to make all of their software GPL if they are including GPL code in it. The thing that people fail to realize is that nobody is forcing said developer to use the GPL code instead of writing it themselves. They are not owed complete, unfettered access to relicense the code as they see fit just because it exists and the developer wants to use it.
  - mystikal 11y ago
    I think the restrictions on linking are the primary objection people have, and I guess also the patent stuff in v3. I would like to see a license that is weaker than LGPL (static linking allowed) and stronger than BSD. (For example, some projects are licensed as GPL+linking exception.) Basically, I'd like a license that said distributed modifications to the source code for this project must be open, but everything else is a free-for-all.
    - drdaeman 11y ago
      Possibly, LGPL or MPL? You can link it with whatever proprietary code you want, but keep the LGPL library free. As long as you don't want to link LGPL-licensed library statically, it's quite simple to comply with license terms. There's also MPL (v2), that's weaker than LGPL, roughly operates on file-level (rather than LGPL's library-level).
      - mystikal 11y ago
        I'm fine with static linking, it's even fine if you want to #include my source code. I never paid much attention to the MPL, will see, thanks.
      - 11y ago
davidw 11y ago
You can actually even make proprietary modifications to GPL code within your organization - as long as you don't redistribute.
- drdaeman 11y ago
  Edit: seems that I'm wrong. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalDistribution http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalDistributio... IGNORE WHAT'S BELOW. IT'S INCORRECT. Well, IANAL, but, I believe, technically, such modifications still have to be under GPL-compatible license (or organization is violating original authors' rights). I.e. anyone within the organization, who had used the software, must be granted all the freedoms GPL requires to be granted. Whenever organization members actually exercise those rights are up to them, of course. I don't think it's a bad thing. It's only fair - if your business relies on proprietary sauce that you really want to keep secret - some may still consider helping you (and they use BSD, MIT or LGPL) while some may not want it this way (and use GPL or AGPL).
  - mystikal 11y ago
    I think this is wrong, distributing within an organization is not considered distribution under the GPL.
    - drdaeman 11y ago
      Yes, seems that you're right. At least GPL FAQ from FSF says so. I've updated the comment.
    - pnt12 11y ago
      I'm not sure if you can restrict your employees from distributing the code, though. I can see 2 situations: 1. Employee executes GPL binary on company's computer. I'd consider this binary to belong to owner of the computer - the company. So employee may not have the right to ask for the code. 2. Employee gets GPL binary from company, executes it in his computer. Is he forbidden to get access and distribute the source code? Can a company make restrictions around the GPL to its workers?

> > Crucially, a user of GPL software is allowed to do whatever they want. > Except develop the software however they want. I don't know where you got that idea from. You can develop the software however you like. That's a technical question. The only requirement is that people you distribute your software to must also get the source code. The GPL's job is to protect user's freedom. The developers don't get any special treatment.

pg_is_a_butt 11y ago
i don't know where you live that you never got the tivoization lawsuit articles. you're an idiot.
git-pull 11y ago
> > Except develop the software however they want. > I don't know where you got that idea from. Many employers won't allow GPL codebase. The license isn't backwards compatible. I can't simply pull GPL code into my BSD licensed project. Even a snippet You can't, say, simply copy and paste a struct out of git or even libgit2. > You can develop the software however you like. Heh, its notorious for causing roadblocks in development. Look up the stories on LLVM/Clang, ZFS in Linux.
- cyphar 11y ago
  >>> Except develop the software however they want. >> I don't know where you got that idea from. > Many employers won't allow GPL codebase. Explain it to your employer better then. Or find a better employer. Not to mention they are almost certainly using GPL code /somewhere/. > The license isn't backwards compatible. GPLvX or later makes them pseudo-compatible (you can release a combination under a newer license). That works fine for most people. > I can't simply pull GPL code into my BSD licensed project. Even a snippet. You can't, say, simply copy and paste a struct out of git or even libgit2. 1) Yes you can, it'll just become GPL licensed as a whole. 2) I don't think anyone would consider copying a structure as being a "significant portion" of the code. In fact, in C, structures aren't code at all, they're an API (the `struct` keyword generates no code). And I think we all agree as a community that APIs are not copyrightable (or else Linux and GNU would be the largest copyright violations on the planet). >> You can develop the software however you like. > Heh, its notorious for causing roadblocks in development. Look up the stories on LLVM/Clang, ZFS in Linux. ZFS on Linux / Dtrace are FUD. Given that Oracle already distributes DTrace with their Linux distribution, it's clearly dual-GPL licensed DTrace to their customers. If you agree that ZFS being included with Linux would be a GPL violation (I don't, because the spirit of the GPL is applied, and the binary itself is not a violation because CDDL allows sublicensing of the resulting binary), then distributing it as source that is compiled on the users' machine (DKMS) is fine. Not to mention that Oracle will not have standing to sue (their license has not been violated in the case of distributing CDDL code with the GPL -- the only people you can argue have their copyright violated are the the Linux kernel guys and I don't see why they would sue people for the dubious license under which the source code is distributed -- nobody seriously believes their whole work will be under the CDDL, only code that was ported directly from illumos's ZFS). The LLVM/Clang thing was caused by technical decisions in GCC, where they believed that making something like LLVM's IR would allow people to make proprietary compilers based on their technology (which is a valid grievance if you care about preserving software freedom). The point is that it was a technical decision. The only requirement you have if you use the GPL is to accompany your binaries with the source (or the other two provisions in the license which aren't as well-used as others).

fungos 11y ago

It blows my mind to see how people are still misinformed. Is this result of some old FUD from 90s or what? I really don't know what causes this stigma to persist.

pyre 11y ago
It's the idea that it's "forcing" the developer of proprietary software to make all of their software GPL if they are including GPL code in it. The thing that people fail to realize is that nobody is forcing said developer to use the GPL code instead of writing it themselves. They are not owed complete, unfettered access to relicense the code as they see fit just because it exists and the developer wants to use it.
- mystikal 11y ago
  I think the restrictions on linking are the primary objection people have, and I guess also the patent stuff in v3. I would like to see a license that is weaker than LGPL (static linking allowed) and stronger than BSD. (For example, some projects are licensed as GPL+linking exception.) Basically, I'd like a license that said distributed modifications to the source code for this project must be open, but everything else is a free-for-all.
  - drdaeman 11y ago
    Possibly, LGPL or MPL? You can link it with whatever proprietary code you want, but keep the LGPL library free. As long as you don't want to link LGPL-licensed library statically, it's quite simple to comply with license terms. There's also MPL (v2), that's weaker than LGPL, roughly operates on file-level (rather than LGPL's library-level).
    - mystikal 11y ago
      I'm fine with static linking, it's even fine if you want to #include my source code. I never paid much attention to the MPL, will see, thanks.
    - 11y ago

davidw 11y ago

You can actually even make proprietary modifications to GPL code within your organization - as long as you don't redistribute.

drdaeman 11y ago
Edit: seems that I'm wrong. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalDistribution http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalDistributio... IGNORE WHAT'S BELOW. IT'S INCORRECT. Well, IANAL, but, I believe, technically, such modifications still have to be under GPL-compatible license (or organization is violating original authors' rights). I.e. anyone within the organization, who had used the software, must be granted all the freedoms GPL requires to be granted. Whenever organization members actually exercise those rights are up to them, of course. I don't think it's a bad thing. It's only fair - if your business relies on proprietary sauce that you really want to keep secret - some may still consider helping you (and they use BSD, MIT or LGPL) while some may not want it this way (and use GPL or AGPL).
- mystikal 11y ago
  I think this is wrong, distributing within an organization is not considered distribution under the GPL.
  - drdaeman 11y ago
    Yes, seems that you're right. At least GPL FAQ from FSF says so. I've updated the comment.
  - pnt12 11y ago
    I'm not sure if you can restrict your employees from distributing the code, though. I can see 2 situations: 1. Employee executes GPL binary on company's computer. I'd consider this binary to belong to owner of the computer - the company. So employee may not have the right to ask for the code. 2. Employee gets GPL binary from company, executes it in his computer. Is he forbidden to get access and distribute the source code? Can a company make restrictions around the GPL to its workers?