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On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:21:04 -0500, Warp wrote:
> nemesis <nam### [at] gmail com> wrote:
>> It's just that through that license
>> you promote and allow your licensed work to be used and modified by
>> others, as long as they don't try to pull a smarty and deny others that
>> same right.
>
> GPL goes beyond that. It prohibits you from using GPL'd code in a
> program
> under some other license, even if that other license would be as free as
> (or even more free than) GPL. Just because it's *not* GPL is enough for
> it to be inadmissible, regardless of what kind of license it would be.
>
> This makes GPL incompatible with all other licenses. This is rather
> restricting.
But protective of the rights of the original author, which is the
underlying goal.
Jim
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Darren New escreveu:
> Tim Cook wrote:
>> "nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>>> Those "DRM-like measures" don't take away the freedoms of anyone
>>> anymore than current GPL: people wanting it for proprietary projects
>>> without source code sharing are still out, as they've always been.
>>
>> Any additional condition on something takes away more freedom.
>
> It's taking away *your* freedom to give more freedom to someone else.
> Just like every freedom does.
The GPL is not there to take away freedom to use and modify the software
from anyone. It's stated like it is exactly *to ensure* no one is
allowed to take away such freedom. It does that by requiring you to
share the source for the modifications and put it under the GPL as well
if you release the modified software. So yes, it is a viral license in
this sense. But it's not like an HIV virus, more like a retrovirus
carrying vaccines into an ill organism... :)
If you want a completely permissive and unrestricted license where
anyone can use the code for any purpose, even bettering upon it and not
disclosing the modifications and releasing it under some big hype
machine until the original open-source project/code looses all interest
to most people, then BSD or public domain is the way to go.
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nemesis wrote:
> The GPL is not there to take away freedom to use and modify the software
> from anyone.
I didn't say it did.
> It's stated like it is exactly *to ensure* no one is
> allowed to take away such freedom.
I didn't say it wasn't.
I said it takes freedoms away from one person to give more freedoms to other
people, just like every freedom does. Your freedom to not be punched in the
nose restricts my freedom to punch you in the nose.
Then what freedom does it add to the author to force his plug-in to be open
source and licensed under the GPL? How does that benefit anyone who wants
to use the plug-in without modification?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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Jim Henderson wrote:
>> This makes GPL incompatible with all other licenses. This is rather
>> restricting.
>
> But protective of the rights of the original author, which is the
> underlying goal.
Which original author? The one giving away the code with more restrictions,
or the one giving away the code with fewer restrictions?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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Warp escreveu:
> nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> Except freedoms are preserved rather than taken away. You're still free to use
>> it in *any way* you want. And if you want to modify it for yourself or your
>> organization. You just have to comply to the GPL way if you later want to ship
>> that modified work, in which case the GPL is enforced so that you don't deny
>> others the same rights the GPL offered you.
>
> There's a contradiction in there.
>
> If you *have to* comply to something before you can distribute, that
> nullifies the claim that you are free to use it in *any way* you want.
True. But I stated my claims in 3 ways: first about usage (you can use
GPLed software in anyway you see fit), second about private
modifications (no need to release modified souce code under GPL) and
third about released modified GPLed work. No contradiction when in context.
> GPL is, in fact, rather restrictive. For example, if I make a project
> under, let's say, the MIT license, I have to make extra sure that I don't
> include *any* GPL'd code in it because that would be againt the GPL license.
True.
> Just the fact that you can include MIT-licensed code in a GPL-licensed
> program but not the other way around tells a lot about which license is
> more "free".
The MIT/BSD license does nothing to protect such freedom.
If a MIT open-source project stales and dies out and all hosts of the
original code die out and only survivor of said original code is a
heavily modified closed software that led that project to die out by
providing proper marketing and more developers to make it a much better
product, then you are... well, screwed?
And if you were one of the contributors of code and patches to that
software and later realizes Microsoft or Adobe using it in their closed
products without any acknowledgement (let alone royalties) and pissing
and laughing on your grave, you are screwed too.
The GPL protects the code from gettting trapped into a closed product
and also the rights of the original developers to it.
It's more restrictive because it must make sure code remains free to use
and modify. I take it over any permissive license anyday.
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Warp escreveu:
> This makes GPL incompatible with all other licenses. This is rather
> restricting.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
Apache and Boost are among them.
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Darren New escreveu:
> Except we're talking about plug-ins here, which by their very definition
> are an independent part of the program.
Yes, see my answer to Nicolas above.
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Darren New escreveu:
> Your freedom to not be
> punched in the nose restricts my freedom to punch you in the nose.
I feel that freedom is in risk right now. ;)
> Then what freedom does it add to the author to force his plug-in to be
> open source and licensed under the GPL?
The freedom to use the gcc infrastructure for the benefit of his plugin.
> How does that benefit anyone
> who wants to use the plug-in without modification?
The GPL allows for unrestricted *use*, for any means.
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nemesis wrote:
> If a MIT open-source project stales and dies out and all hosts of the
> original code die out and only survivor of said original code is a
> heavily modified closed software that led that project to die out by
> providing proper marketing and more developers to make it a much better
> product, then you are... well, screwed?
No. You're using the much better product. Or you have a copy of the source
of an unimproved program. Why would all copies of an MIT-licensed source be
more likely to disappear than all copies of a GPL-licensed source?
All you're saying is that the GPL prevents anyone from dedicating enough
resources to make it worth paying money for? ;-)
> And if you were one of the contributors of code and patches to that
> software and later realizes Microsoft or Adobe using it in their closed
> products without any acknowledgement (let alone royalties) and pissing
> and laughing on your grave, you are screwed too.
Unless that's what you want. Unless you're more interested in giving the
world good software than getting strokes from your peeps.
> The GPL protects the code from gettting trapped into a closed product
> and also the rights of the original developers to it.
The MIT license doesn't prevent you from having an open project no matter
what someone else may do to it. Did FreeBSD disappear when MS used the TCP
stack from it?
> It's more restrictive because it must make sure code remains free to use
> and modify.
So does the MIT license. The difference is the GPL makes sure someone
*else's* code remains free to use and modify.
If I put my own original code under the GPL, it's free to use and modify.
If I put my own original code under the MIT, it's free to use and modify.
If I put my own original code under the GPL, you can modify that, but you
can't hide *your* modifications.
If I put my own original code under the MIT, you can modify that, but you
can hide *your* modifications.
So the GPL does nothing to ensure that open code remains open. All it does
is ensure that if I feel like giving away my code, you can't make a profit
on your own work if it's related to mine. It also ensures that someone who
needs to make a profit on their software to ensure they can provide the
necessary improvements will be unable to do so.
And the new stuff about forcing even plug-in authors to GPL-license their
code when it isn't a modification of the GPL'ed code is clearly not even
trying to keep you from "taking advantage" of my free code.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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nemesis wrote:
> Darren New escreveu:
>> Except we're talking about plug-ins here, which by their very
>> definition are an independent part of the program.
>
> Yes, see my answer to Nicolas above.
If they need source code from the compiler, then they've copied bits of the
compiler, and they can be GPLed without technological barriers to keeping
them from running based on their license.
Device drivers link into the kernel in Windows, but they're not part of
Windows, either. As soon as you make a well-defined API for plug-ins, you've
specifically separated plug-ins from main line code. Programs that run on
Linux make use of Linux data structures too (see ioctl() for example). That
doesn't mean everything that calls ioctl is GPLed.
While firefox plug-ins might use less of firefox's internals than one might
think, firefox extensions are intimately related to firefox internals
through a well-defined API. I'm not sure why you would think a plug-in
naturally falls under the GPL for GCC and extensions for Firefox don't.
If I can create a plug-in without copying any code supplied by GCC, then the
plug-in doesn't fall under the GPL. If the only technological way to create
a plug-in is to use code that is supplied with GCC, then the plug-in doesn't
fall under the GPL. (For example, in the USA, if the only way to reset a
floppy disk controller is to poke a certain sequence of bytes to its I/O
port, you can't copyright that sequence of bytes.) If the GPL is viral to
plug-ins, there's no need to add barriers to making non-GPLed plug-ins, is
there? At least, no more than making technological barriers to modifying
GCC itself.
And where's my freedom to distribute a version of GCC that doesn't check for
a license string in the plug-in?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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