Open-source Licensing: BSD or GPL? 631
BSDForums.org writes "Mark Brewer of Covalent Technologies argues BSD is better for the enterprise. As open source licensing models, both the Berkeley Software Distribution license and the General Public License have advantages and disadvantages. But in the end, the BSD offers more benefits to enterprise customers. Matt Asay of Novell makes the case for GPL. He says, no one open source license is ideal in every circumstance. Different licenses serve different ends. Berkeley Software Distribution-style licenses have been used to govern the development of exceptional open source projects such as Apache. Clearly, BSD has its strengths. However, all things being equal, he prefers the General Public License (GPL ). The GPL is one of the most exciting, innovative capitalist tools ever created. The GPL breaks down walls between vendors and customers while enabling strong competitive differentiation.
Which is a better licensing model for open-source applications: BSD or GPL? What do you think?"
Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:3, Insightful)
Buzz word overload! Take cover! Buzzword overload! Take cover! Buzz...
* Robot's head EXPLODES in a shower of sparks!
Would it kill people to speak in normal sentences instead of Market Speak(TM)? This entire article is just silly. Of course businesses prefer the BSD license. It places fewer restrictions on them, and allows them true ownership of derivitive works. That gives them something to later sell or use as a barganing chip.
Of course many OSS authors prefer the GPL. It forces companies and other users to help pay for development by giving back. The benefit to OSS authors is very clear. The benefit to businesses, however, is still questionable in many circumstances.
In the end it comes down to the usefulness of the software. If a business can't build upon BSD licensed software, they'll go with GPLed software. But if they can help it, they'll just go for the public domain stuff.
And he is right too. (Score:5, Insightful)
The BSD license is perfect for everybody else.
What a retarded question. (Score:2, Insightful)
If corporate consumers of free SW prefer BSD licensing, then they're free to choose from the tiny subset of free sw that's licensed under BSD. Their demand is NOT going to motivate the creation of significant additional BSD software.
Wow, that is pointless. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh dear Lord... (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyways, as an encore, I think the next posting should be "VI vs. Emacs: Which is the best text editor for your needs?"
I vote BSD style (but LGPL's ok)... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is not logical to expect (IMO) that a company contracting another company is always going to want (or be willing to accept) a GPL style license, so GPL'ing something limits its use in corporate sectors (again IMO).
Now many times if you go and ask the library authors' they'll grant special permission especially in a case like this, but it's a hastle to work with. And you can argue that you should fight for free software all over, but it doesn't make business sense in every case, especially when your company is not in the business of providing support.
Also the LGPL solves this sort of issue to some extent, but I'd say the LGPL is more BSD then GPL, but that's a bit of an overstatement...
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:5, Insightful)
Where the BSD license really shines is in areas like the Apache project. Businesses donate to the project so that they don't have to reinvent the wheel every other day. They are then free to take the resulting work and bury it deeply inside the code where they don't worry about it any longer.
In the case of GPLed code, a business must make an up front decision to accept the change in business procedures that the GPL requires. This is good for GPL developers because they see a return on their work other than money. It's bad for a business because it may invalidate their business model. (i.e. How they make money.)
As with all things, everyone has to meet in the middle on this stuff.
Depends on where you are (Score:4, Insightful)
The BSD license offers more advantages to companies looking to sell software derived from existing software. They can take BSD-licensed code, do what they wish with it and treat the results as their own proprietary code.
The GPL license offers advantages to end-users long-term. Anyone wanting to take advantage of the starting point GPL'd software offers has to return the favor in the form of their code. Essentially it makes developers let other people take advantage of their work in the same way they took advantage of others' work. It also guarantees that, as an end-user, you're never in a position where you can't get fixes and modifications to the software.
Which one is better for you as the author of the software who has to decide on the license to release it under depends on your goals for the software.
Re:What a retarded question. (Score:2, Insightful)
It may be a retarded question, but not for the reasons you describe.
I've seen GPL projects that die because they target a commercial audience that won't touch a GPL. The GPL, in and of itself, is not going to spur development. And neither is the BSD.
BTW: theres a lot of non-GPL OSS out there to choose from these days. I, for one, try to avoid using GPL'd source as much as possible, simply to limit my exposure to its potential "virulent" impact. I develop truly free OSS (usually under a Common Public License, or an Artistic License), as well as proprietary solutions.
I think the ultimate difference is the notion of truly free software, vs. the appearance of freedom. If you develop open source with the notion that a license is somehow going to cause your project to succeed by forcing those that want to use your code to keep the derivatives open, I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken. The scrupulous are likely to take a pass (there are usually nonGPL'd solutions to most problems these days), while the unscrupulous don't care what license you use.
Tyranny, regardless whether monarchy, oligarchy, or communist dictatorship, is still tyranny. Bottom line: if you want control, keep it closed, and don't call if "free". If you genuinely want to make a contribution, use some other license to eliminate liability, and learn to just let go.
Re:And he is right too. (Score:3, Insightful)
The GPL license is perfect for developers.
The BSD license is perfect for everybody else.
As a software consumer who never ever wants to be forced to agree to a EULA just to get better performance from my software I have to favor the GPL. Screw those who want to screw others, if you want to charge me for something then make it yourself from scratch.
WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Use the GPL if you're going to get upset if someone uses your code commercially without paying you. GPL won't quite prohibit that kind of thing, but it will make most business models involving it impractical.
Use the GPL if you have strong philosophical objections to the basic idea of intellectual property. If, eventually, a sufficiently large portion of code is GPLed, then it might become prohibitively difficult for anyone to make non-GPLed code without re-inventing the wheel. Dream on.
Use the BSD license if you just want your code to be useful to as many people as possible.
BSD good for selfish companies only (Score:3, Insightful)
For a company that *consumes* open-source software - and by this - I don't mean using Linux on the desktop but say taking open-source software and using it in their own programs or repackaging it, BSD is obviously superior as they can take as much as they like for free, profit from it and not give anything back.
Personally I think if BSD was the predominant open-source license you won't be seeing nearly as many companies releasing their work as open-source. For for-profit companies, BSD gives all the benefits to the selfish companies and penalises the generous companies. GPL is more fair from a for-profit perspective.
Re:I vote BSD style (but LGPL's ok)... (Score:5, Insightful)
My goal in life is not to be your free development resource. My goal is to produce software to help my fellow man. If your company can benefit too, thats a bonus. But if you aren't willing to do the same thing, then you can pay for my work to replicated on your own dollar. You can't have it both ways. Pay me in code, or pay me (or other developers) to do it in cash. But you will pay for the use of it in another project.
Re:And he is right too. (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead, they contribute usable products sooner and having jumped through far fewer legal hoops, which, if the consumer decides to, they can add to their library of tools, thus enabling them in some manner.
An important benefit here is that the costs of the product drop because lawyers are cut out to a considerably greater degree by BSD as opposed to GPL. BSD is a "no-worry" license, insomuch as such a thing is possible these days. That decrease in costs can be passed back to the consumer, or turned internally to fund more development or sooner development. Or not. But there are benefits to be had that can accrue to the "community", whatever that might mean to you and yours.
Certainly not all "giving back" has to be in the form of code to OS developers. The market is more than happy OS developers, you know. It may be that in some cases, the OS developers end up using the closed-source tool that has their work in it.
I've written a lot of code and given it out; I always did it as PD, because I'm not in the least interested in "getting a return" on that code. Of any kind. Write it, kick it out the door, and forget about it. I don't even sign it. Zero ongoing cost and annoyance are nice perks. Not everyone uses a "gimme-gimme-gimme" model for everything they do, and for that reason alone, the GPL gets kicked to the curb by many people who contribute to the community.
Re:The GPL good when ownership is well-defined. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently there are some mods who only read half of the comments.
So I suppose the Apache Foundation should just give up the work they've done? I suppose name-recognition for a popular BSD project isn't enough for you?
If anything, licensing under BSD instead of the GPL is the most selfless act a software developer can make. It means they are coding for the love of coding, not because of a political or philosophical agenda. Is there something wrong with that?
Likewise, is there something wrong with working for Habitat for Humanity, the Peace Corps, and The Hunger Project?
Re:FSF's stance on linking (Score:3, Insightful)
On a side note, I recently asked one of the XviD developers about including the XviD codec with a LGPL application I had written. I don't directly use the XviD codec; I use the standard Win32 VFW API to load video clips and play them back. I wanted to include XviD in the installer so that my users would have a quality codec ready to go without having to pay any license fees. The developer stated that because XviD is GPL, all of my code (and any scripts my users wrote, as well) had to be GPL, otherwise I would be violating the GPL. Because of this, I ended up having to include a commercial codec with a less insane license instead.
Re:And he is right too. (Score:4, Insightful)
The salient point . . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
. . . . is of the subset of companies willing to consider opensourcing their software, very, very few would be willing to BSD license their code, as opposed to GPL licensing it.
At least with the GPL, they 'feel' like no competitor will 'abuse' their property (i.e. take it and not contribute it back).
That should tell you something about why most companies prefer the BSD license. It have very, *very* little to do with code they themselves are releasing.
This doesn't mean that John Q. programmer shouldn't ever use the BSD. But think carefully about what it means when someone says most companies prefer the BSD license.
Microsoft has said they prefer the BSD license. How many BSD licensed Microsoft packages are there?
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is one reason I am personally fond of the LGPL. It says, in essence, "MY code is Free and must stay that way. Do what you want with you parts." It also has the side-effect of encouraging good, modular, component-based design. That's a win-win for everyone. Why people keep forgetting the LGPL in these flamewars I don't know, as it is a perfectly reasonable compromise between the "do anything" BSD and the "hand of Midas" GPL. I am particularly fond of it for libraries, frameworks, APIs, etc.
That said, can we mod this entire story flamebait? I mean really, is the next Slashdot story going to be "Vi or Emacs, what does Slashdot think?"
What "free" means (Score:1, Insightful)
The BSDL: The developers are Free to do what they like. The code may not always remain Free.
See? See why we have so many arguments? GPL zealots apply their definition of Free to the BSD and scream "The BSDL isn't Free!". The BSDL zealots apply their definition of Free to the GPL and scream "The GPL isn't Free!"
The GPL & BSDL just have different focuses for their Freedom, that's all.
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just as valid to debate the above.
It's not a question of which is being better, but what you are trying to achieve by your choice of license. Just as apples and oranges have different uses, the two licenses suit different purposes, so aren't really worth comparing.
Debate the merits of each purpose if you will (and get into an argument where 'right' depends your point of view), but neither of the two licenses is 'better'.
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:3, Insightful)
This whole debate is only applicable to the
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:4, Insightful)
GPL is the worst of both worlds (Score:5, Insightful)
Because:
1) It offers *zero* real protection, *especially* for *small developers* with no legal team to back them up.
2) For people that *are* honest, it causes a hell of a lot of interworking problems.
These are quite simply the facts, regardless of all the religious beliefs that are continously being flaunted above by misguided GPL zealots.
END TROLL
I marked this as a troll because that is how most people will percieve it. Nevertheless it's the truth.
Re:FSF's stance on linking (Score:2, Insightful)
So, in your mind, what is so hard to understand about, "don't link with GPL libraries if you don't want to GPL your code?" Static or dynamic, it don't make a whit of difference.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen a bunch of projects that chose to go with the BSD style licence and it's bit them in the ass. People are using their code left and right, but hardly anyone is contributing back since they don't have to. [...] As long as there are human beings involved, there's going to be people taking advantage of you.
I don't get this. Surely he wanted everyone to use his code, without any further obligations? Since that's exactly the point of the license he used? How can you call that "biting him in the ass", or "taking advantage of"?
BSD is clearly too loose, if you don't want people to keep their changes for themselves. But well, duh, don't use that license then. Most people in the BSD projects are perfectly happy if there code is used somewhere, regardless of ever seeing anything back (or so I've heard - I'm a Linux weenie).
Anyway, in between GPL and BSD license, there's always the LGPL.
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Use the GPL if you have strong philosophical objections to the basic idea of intellectual property.
I don't get this. Without intellectual property (read: without copyright law), it would be like everything was BSD licensed. The GPL relies entirely on copyright law to do its trick.
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
The GPL doesn't cover the use of software, only distribution. The GPL doesn't prevent making money, it only prevents making software non-free.
Re:FSF's stance on linking (Score:4, Insightful)
The FSF doesn't define derived work, that's a legal term from copyright law. Most lawyers are of the opinion that the FSF is being far to liberal and that much more stuff would constitute derived than even they believe (stuff that most programmers would consider "mere aggregation".
Re:FSF's stance on linking (Score:1, Insightful)
The GPL says that this is in violation of the license if the developer's distribution isn't GPL compatible. This prohibits the developer from distributing the dynamic library (since he does not own the copyrights to that) BUT that's all it does.
The GPL can't control the manner of distribution of the developer's code since he owns the copyrights to that code, and it can't be considered a derivative work. If you don't agree, then you are saying that copyright extends to interfaces! That might make SCO happy but probably very few others...
Of course, I was labeled a troll instead of being rebutted when I proposed a scenario such as this on Groklaw...
Re:FSF's stance on linking (Score:2, Insightful)
The intent of the license is completely irrelevent, if you have not agreed to the license. The intent of copyright law is what matters. If dynamic linking causes something to be a derivative work of a library, then you start worrying about the library's license. If dynamic linking does not cause something to be a derivative work, then it doesn't matter if the library is GPLed or LGPLed or Microsoft Windows EULA or anything else, because you're not licensing the library. The terms of the license do not matter.
A license, regardless of its intent of copyright law. It cannot define the conditions under which the license's terms must be obeyed -- it assumes that those conditions have already happened. If that assumption is violated, then the license is irrelevant and its terms do not apply.
Re:What a retarded question. (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you subscribe to the loony definition of "derivative code" that RMS does, the GPL encompasses a hell of a lot more than "derivatives of their code".
Re:FSF's stance on linking (Score:2, Insightful)
Why do people insist on trying to find technical workarounds to ethical and legal problems. The technical details of how your code interfaces to GPLed code does not matter when it comes to determining whether it is a derivative work.
Re:All depends on what you want. (Score:3, Insightful)
The GPL is about making GPL'd software better. GPL'd code is not useful to developers using any of the other FOSS licenses, only to people using the GPL.
As far as the GPL is concerned, The Apache Group and Microsoft are both disqualified for cooperation.
The GPL exists to encourage the use of the GPL. The BSDL exists to encourage the creation of quality software, regardless of license.
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:2, Insightful)
These aren't some small changes to standard software that give a "small edge". These are HUGE, mission-critical systems hand-tailored to fit the company's business processes. They may incorporate some standard software such as app servers, but that's really the smallest part; what's important is the stuff that runs ON the app server.
And giving away this code, via GPL or otherwise, would be no loss to the company or gain to its competitors whatsoever, since the whole point is that the systems are customized to fit that particular company's needs, and would be pretty useless to any other company without modifications so big that you might as well start from scratch.
Big consulting companies like Accenture (what used to be Anderson Consulting) may be able to profit from this by developing internal frameworks and reusable components, but that's a whole lot different than "duping" the clients, especially since this "R&D" accumulates over time and is unlikely to form aubstantially in one particular project.
Earlier clients may pay more this way, but they still have the benefit of having their systems up and running earlier as well.
Re:GPL is the worst of both worlds (Score:2, Insightful)
It may be the truth, but it's still misleading.
Yes, it's true. The GPL offers no protection. That's because it's copyright that offers the protection. The GPL merely grants exceptions.
And the BSD license works in exactly the same way.
Yes, it's true, you need lawyers to enforce your rights when you use the GPL. And the BSD license works in exactly the same way. In fact, every license under the sun works in the same way.
They may be "quite simply the facts", but that doesn't mean you aren't trolling with a dishonest argument.
Re:And he is right too. (Score:2, Insightful)
The GNU GPL is perfect for Users.
The BSD license is for Developers.
GPL means everyone has to share and code will always be free.
Developers may not always want their code to be "free." Whether RMS likes it or not, there ARE companies that survive by selling their software. Granted, most of those are niche markets that wouldn't see mass development the way that something like an OS kernel would, but revenue-generating software is how they make their way in this world. These companies can incorporate software under a BSD-style or MIT-style license and still keep their source closed. This is not the case with the GPL; if they incorporate a GPL'ed library, then their code is GPL'ed as well - - and that usually isn't the desired outcome.
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't put your code out under the BSD licence with the hidden hope that someone will raise you up on their shoulders via their wealth.
People shouldn't complain about licences when it was their own choice initially.
If you're seeking an alterior motive when putting code out under a BSD licence then you deserve to bit "bitten in the arse".
Apples and Oranges (Score:2, Insightful)
If you are implementing something like a networking protocol or file format reference implementation, then your most important goal is widespread adoption, and in that case you need to go with a BSD-style license (or just plain public domain). This allows vendors to roll your implementation into their proprietary products.
For an end-user application, such as a music player, that concern is less important, and so other considerations become relevant. At that point you ask yourself, "Am I comfortable with allowing FooCorp to incorporate my music player into FooMedia Center and distribute it under a proprietary license?" If you are comfortable with that, you can go with a BSD-style license, but if not, you will want to opt for a more restrictive license, such as the GPL (or LGPL, if you want to allow non-GPLed code to link against yours).
Ask yourself: if Microsoft or Apple incorporates your code into some portion of their operating system, do you rejoice because it's seeing widespread adoption, or do you get angry because they're stealing your work? In the former case, you want the BSD license, or something very like it; in the latter case, the GPL is more your cup of tea.
Also for a smaller project you may ask yourself this: if other people contribute patches, and then you go get a new job, do you want to ensure that you have the freedom to roll this code (that is mostly yours but contains others' patches) into one of your new employer's proprietary products? If you want to leave yourself that option, you consider the BSD license; if you would prefer, OTOH, that the code you've worked on *not* be rolled into a future employer's proprietary products, you would probably be happier with the GPL or perhaps LGPL (again, depending on how you feel about linking).
License doesn't matter in most cases (Score:3, Insightful)
For these companies the license doesn't matter. Both licenses are equally free on the end-user. The licenses differ in what developers have to do if they distribute their works outside of a corporation.
For a corporation that does distribute software, wanting to build a standard the GPL would seem better to me. Under BSD a competitor can take your work, add to it and distribute it without releasing code -- competitive advantage to the competitor. Under GPL any changes must be available, they can't keep secret their modifications. Level playing field.
Re:Clearly BSD is better (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And he is right too. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you aren't. I guess people are having a hard time understanding what licensing means. You're probably right in this specific example, because I doubt Debian makes all contributors hand over the copyrights. But in general, software being licensed under the GPL gives you no extra rights than if it was under BSD. That's because licenses only apply to people taking the software, not the people writing it. Licenses exist to restrict rights, not grant them.
For example, say I write version 1 of a neat nicknack and license it as GPL. The GPL doesn't apply to me, it applies to everyone else that wants to use it. I can do anything I want, because I'm the original author. Sure, version 1 is already out there and anyone can use it. But if I upgrade it to version 2, I don't have to license that as GPL. I can license it any way that I want. So you don't have "guaranteed unlimited access to the software and upgrades" simply because the software is GPL'd.
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:3, Insightful)
One of those goals doesn't sound very much like freedom. If we're going to champion freedom for software, including a convenient pair of shackles in every project looks a little suspicious.
The problem with the GPL is that it doesn't work on anyone except a developer. It says "if you want to use this code to complete your project, you must release the source to that project". The alternative is to develop your own code, which takes a lot of time, and the developer doesn't want to spend that time on something that has already been done.
From a commercial perspective, that license also says "this code has commercial value; if you develop your own code, you can sell it". So the natural business response is to identify the value of the code to the average project, multiply by the number of projects expected to need this code, and subtract the expected cost of developing a commercial replacement to give an anticipate revenue stream:
V * P - C = R
Then you compare this to using the GPL code. The business benefit comes when the value is greater than the anticipated revenue, or:
V > V * P - C
Reducing and simplifying:
C > V * (P - 1)
In other words, for the commercial interest to release its code, the cost of development must exceed the value of the code to all other projects that might use it. But the open source community uses roughly the same metric to decide what code to write, so this is virtually never true.
The end result is that useful GPL code is most often used in the business world to identify a new market niche, not to contribute to the community. The BSD license may allow commercial interests to use and not contribute, but it *doesn't* inspire the commercial sector to directly compete with the open source code, and it *doesn't* encourage commercial users to seek commercial alternatives.
Sure, people will get bitten. But the demand that people contribute back NOW is short-sighted, every bit as much so as building a commercial project instead of an open source project. The best long-term benefits are realised with a truly free license, not a semi-free backscratching arrangement. The BSD license allows the benefits of open source to speak for themselves, and they are very convincing in the long run.
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:3, Insightful)
(BTW: has MS contributed anything back to the BSD community?)
With Kerberos, they made incompatible changes and didn't want to feed their changes back to the OS community.
The BSD community seems to expect that big companies that take their code will somehow just want to feed changes back to them -- so they're a bit put out when companies like SUN use their code, but refuse to even give them specs on their hardware much less hardware to develop more code on. ... but.... sheee!"
"Yeah, it's their right under the BSD license, but
Part of the problem with BSD-licensed code is that companies that use it, even if they want to contribute their changes back have to presume that their competition will take the contributed changes and close-source them. It's a zero-sum game. In other words, BSD interacts with human greed in a way that discourages code feedback. The GPL, on the other hand, requires code feedback, so companies often feel safer contributing their changes back into the loop.
Name Your Freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
The BSD licence focuses on freedom for the developer. Do what you want with it -- change it, sell it, close source it.. Whatever. Once you have the source code, (if it's still free) you can do whatever you want with it.
The GPL focuses on freedom for the source code. Do whatever you want -- change it, use it sell it, whatever -- as long as people continue to have access to the source.
The problem with the GPL is that some companies may be unwilling to use GPL code in a product if it meant that they have to make their changes publicly available.
The problem with the BSD license is that, for any company that faces real competition, releasing code changes is potentially a zero-sum game. If your competition takes your BSD code, improves it and closes off the changes, they gain from your work, and you lose.
In other word, each license has a potential cost for businesses. For GPL, the cost comes when you choose to use it. For BSD, the cost comes when you look at releasing your changes back to the community.
Given these associated costs, I'm not at all surprised to see that companies like SUN are willing to use BSD code all over their own products, but unwilling to contribute back to the community -- Contribution is where BSD costs a company. Of course, this refusal to contribute back has a cost for companies, as well. It places an intrinsic limit on the vibrancy of the community that created the product that you're so happy to use. The BSD license feeds into the environment of greed, and suffers from the costs of that approach.. The irony is that it depends on a commitment to contribution for the BSD codebase to continue growing.
This is where I see that companies like IBM prefer the GPL. Using the GPL means that you can contribute back to the community that gave you your product without having to worry about your changes being hijacked by your competition. Any changes that your competition make are required to be returned to you. The GPL enforces a share-alike attitude among it's redistributors and thus allows a company to justify contributing code back into the community. This creates an environment where the code, if it is of any use to the commercial community, it is highly likely to increase in an almost viral pattern anybody who likes it enough to use it tends to contribute to it's growth (either directly or indirectly).
This, for me, is why I'm willing to contribute to BSD code, but prefer GPL licenses. The BSD license needs a culture of contribution, but the GPL creates a culture of contribution.
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:3, Insightful)
GPL's authorship: give credit where credit is due. (Score:3, Insightful)
I understand that some of you may only have heard of the open source movement. I'm grateful that you would consider using the GPL for your projects. However, the GNU General Public License (or GPL) predates the open source movement by many years by the founder of a movement with different goals than the open source movement. Therefore it is not fair or accurate to credit the GPL as an "open source license" merely because the Open Source Initiative (which started the open source movement) placed it on a list of approved licenses.
The GPL was written by Richard Stallman, most notably. Version 1 of the GPL was released in January 1989, and version 2 (the current version) in 1991. So, two major releases of what has come to be the most important and popular free software license were released well before the Open Source Initiative was founded in February 1998. The OSI has yet to write a license that compares with the popularity or strength of the GPL.
The GPL speaks repeatedly about software freedom, not "open" anything, and for very good reasons. First, the term "open source" didn't exist when the two revisions of the GPL were written. But even if the OSI existed, the open source movement doesn't want to frame any issue in terms of software freedom because it gets in the way of addressing businesses, their chief audience. Talking about software freedom means talking about something beneficial to users, not addressing more efficient means of connecting cheap programming labor with businesses. Philosophically and historically, the FSF and OSI are not the same, nor are the free software and open source movements. Stallman and Eben Moglen, chief counsel for the FSF, confirm this in every speech they give and virtually every essay they write. The Free Software Foundation has published an essay describing the differences between the two movements [gnu.org] and why they see the free software movement as better. To this list of differences I'd add that free software guarantees private derivatives, unlike the open source definition.
The upcoming GPL (version 3) in this regard because it will be the first version of the GPL where anyone from the OSI may have editorial say in. The final word (and framing of the issues surrounding the GPLv3 [fsf.org]) still comes down to Stallman and Eben Moglen.
Thus, with all of this history, I think it is fair to call the GPL a free software license, not an open source license. The GPL existed well before and independantly of anything to do with the open source movement and does not embody the values of the open source movement. I encourage you all to stop misleading people into giving the OSI and the open source movement an undeserved primacy.
Re:The GPL good when ownership is well-defined. (Score:3, Insightful)
No one is compelling you to do anything. If you chose to build on a GPLed work, you have chosen to provide people your code upon request when you distribute it (quite selfless). GPL doesn't force anyone to make that choice.
Re:GPL is capitalistic ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Any social system have a form of property, if i think in socialism i also think in colective property, like GNU and GPL software.
But how is GPL software "collective property"? There's nothing "collective" about the ownership rights involved in the GPL. If I write a piece of software, and license it to Al under the GPL, I still own it; meanwhile, Al owns it *too*. We don't own it "jointly" or "collectively", we *each* own it, and we can *each* do what we want with it.
FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
That's exactly why the LGPL exists.
You shouldn't be copying from the headers anyways. You should be #include-ing them.
It's really not that big of a deal to make most programs dynamically linked... it's standard industry practice.
That the user can replace some libraries is actually a good thing... for example, the SDL shipped with Neverwinter Nights does not work with some recent versions of nvidia-glx, but newer versions of SDL do, so I just replaced the SDL in NWN with a symlink to my more recent SDL library. If I couldn't do this, I wouldn't be able to run the program, and I wouldn't have bought the expansion packs.
Re:Danger Will Robinson, Danger! (Score:3, Insightful)
With BSD, Apache and many other licenses, programmers are allowed to release closed-source software including BSD/etc. code/libraries or even forking then changing license with the only requirements being:
1) acknowledgement of the components' AS-IS disclaimer
2) not claim the components as their own original work and often
3) many ask for a simple mention of the component in the credits list
With GPL: once GPL, always GPL. With BSD: free-for-all, you can even fork then change the license.
IMO, GPLing libraries effectively ruin them. The LGPL at least allows dynamic linking.
Re:Trolltech's stance is worse (Score:3, Insightful)