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GNU is Not Unix IT

Why I Love The GPL 488

Posted by michael from the when-you-care-enough-to-send-the-very-best dept.
Roblimo writes "'There are a lot of good reasons to like the GPL: the GNU Public License. For one thing, it's a David and Goliath kind of thing. It's the little guy standing up to the corporate behemoths that run rough-shod over our daily lives by virtue of their influence, legal and otherwise, on government. For another, it's virtuous.' These are the opening words to a NewsForge article praising the GPL by Joe Barr. Now and then we forget how much of the software we use and love is made possible by the General Public License. Thanks for reminding us, Joe. (NewsForge and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.)"
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Why I Love The GPL More

Why I Love The GPL

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  • Here's why I love it: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:35PM (#11515188) Homepage Journal
    Literally hundreds or thousands of programmers that used to charge for their services now work for free.

    Definitely an improvement over the old days where you had to buy every little utility.

    • Re:Here's why I love it: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Coneasfast ( 690509 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:43PM (#11515251)
      little guy standing up to the corporate behemoths
      some points:
      - why do all companies have to be evil.
      - does GPL really protect against commerical companies taking the code over other open source licenses? in theory, it should. but many companies probably take GPL code and use it illegally, sometimes it's just hard to know (i know this isn't an argument against the GPL, just something that everyone should be aware of).

      personally i like the BSD license, and don't mind if they take my code, heck they'll probably charge a bomb for a crappier product.

      i'm not trolling against GPL here, just saying the other licenses should get more attention.

      • Re:Here's why I love it: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        i'm not trolling against GPL here, just saying the other licenses should get more attention.


        Other licenses get TONS of attention. The Mozilla license, Sun's CDDL, IBM's Public License, BSD, Artistic, etc. People talk about those licenses ad nauseum and noone attacks those who choose them personally, but just MENTION the GPL and you are immediately inundated with accusations of being a communist and against America.

        • This is similar to be accused of
          being unpatriotic if you just dare to
          criticize the government.

          Is there still democracy around,
          or the seals are taking care of it?

        • Re:Here's why I love it: (Score:4, Insightful)

          by smittyoneeach ( 243267 ) * on Saturday January 29, 2005 @05:18PM (#11515500) Homepage Journal
          I never hear the conversation cast in simple econominc terms, like buyer, seller, and market.
          I think there is a licensing spectrum, whose effect is to increase market size and lower costs all around.
          It's really all good. Put the religious fervor into your choice of house of worship.
          • Its often put in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroeconomics [slashdot.org] terms not microeconomic terms. In other words its put in terms of the effect of a collection of products on the entire system rather than considered in terms of a single product within the system. That's economics not religion.
            • Right. The point that I'm making is that the bulk of the discussion (across the internet) thus far has seemed horomone-drenched. While I like the GPL, I can't warm to the 'ethical' argument track, and a broader economic analysis might just show that a variety of licensing choices in all software product categories helps everone, at the micro- and macroeconomic level.

      • Re:Here's why I love it: (Score:5, Informative)

        by rongten ( 756490 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @05:03PM (#11515382)
        I seem to recall that the FSF did quite a
        lot of actions against some companies,
        like one that was producing routers in
        violation of the GPL.

        And each time stupid people were crying out loud that the FSF was "enforcing" the GPL and that
        they were communist, viral GPL, blah, blah, but that is beside the point.

        So, yes, you can force people and companies
        to abide to GPL, but not by yourself.

        That's why if you are concerned about
        company stealing the work of who
        benefit as all, there is an easy way to
        help :http://member.fsf.org/join [fsf.org].

        Time to actually do something about this,
        ladies and gentlemen.

        • "Communist" (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Stephen Samuel ( 106962 ) <samuel@NOsPaM.bcgreen.com> on Saturday January 29, 2005 @08:28PM (#11516718) Homepage Journal
          People run around screaming "Communist!" like it's a threat to democracy. It's really not. Soviet Russia suffered under Stalinism. True communism is really not much different than Capitalism, except for the fact that the profits are more evenly distributed to the workers and management gets minimum perks from their position (at least in theory).

          Fact of the matter is that that's really the way that capitalism was meant to work under Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations [bcgreen.com] (considered by many to be the godfather of modern capitalism. Under his view, big multinational corporations were (are) no different than big government -- both result in centralized decision making which warps local economies.

          What the GPL does is it forces decision-making back down to the local levels and prevents a big company from controlling the entire market by force. This is actually far closer to real capitalism than either Microsoft's market-warping monopoly. And also far closer to closer to capitalism than it it is to Stalin's market-warping communism.

          It's also far more intrinsically democratic than either.

          So, the next time Gates & company starts screaming 'communist', respond

          It's not communism. It's financial democracy

          • Re:"Communist" (Score:3, Insightful)

            by spencerogden ( 49254 )
            I appreciate your point about communism not being Soviet Russia's problem. Although whether communism can exist on a large scale with out causing a situation similar to Russia is another valid debate.

            However, Adam Smith's capitalism does not work without the 'invisible hand' which is created by rewarding people for their actions. Communism is usually based on "From each according to his ability, to each based on his need". This doesn't leave much room for rewarding people (giving management minumum perks a

      • Re:Here's why I love it: (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 29, 2005 @05:17PM (#11515493)
        Not all companies are evil, but they revolve around a profit motive, aka the bottom line, which does not make their actions in your best interests most of the time. A great non-academic introduction to this is The Corporation [thecorporation.tv].

        The way I see it, a program controls what the user can and cannot do, it is in effect law. The "code is law" (lessig and others) and "computer programmers are the unacknowledged legislators of cyberspace" lead you to the statement:

        Even if they aren't all evil, do you want corporations writing your laws for you?

        And on the second count, the GPL might not be perfect (as patents escape the scope of "copyright") but it's the best thing we have right now for this purpose. The BSD licence you prefer does not protect this purpose at all, and that's ok. But if you value these things, then the GPL is your best bet.

        I respect the BSD it's a good form of altruism and open source design philosophy is good re: engineering. But the GPL goes beyond open source or free binaries to get to *free software* which embodies the freedoms outlined in TFA, and it is in this that it's true strength lies.

        And on Stallman, like or dislike, you have to admit the man is not only programmer, but has managed to put the work he does into the context of society and start a movement to make the world a better place. That's not something I will ever diss out. Shelly (the poet) once said: 'Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world', and by this he meant that the language which we use in the *everyday* is shaped by the poet and therefore what we are able to do with it is made possible by the poet [1]. I think Stallman has made the modern counterpart to this philosophy that it's in the *everyday* things we do that freedom resides. No need to turn people into saints and ignore their faults, but credit where credit is due I think.

        I don't have anything against the BSD licence, but I do have something against a minority of BSD trolls who attempt to spread FUD about linux and how "it's for n00bs". FreeBSD for example is a great OS with parts better than many linux distros, but many linux distros also have far superior technologies than BSD. These points aren't at issue for a GPL-lover like me, because it is the *social* "technology" embedded in the legal document which is by far and away a more important thing.

        Hope to see you on the GPL-side sometime.

        [1] - And modern studies of the influence of people like chaucer or shakespeare on our modern language confirm this through and through. What we are able to say is shaped by them, further, and perhaps people might not agree here - what we are able to think. I suggest reading up on semiotics and wittgenstien for some trully mind blowing stuff.

      • why do all companies have to be evil?.

        Because they all do very evil things! Underpaid employees, exportation of jobs yet posting record profits, they clearly do not care about peoples lives, unfair end user liscenses, they lobby the government to leverage monopolistic advantages, they buy and sell each other then fire entire work forces just to get ownership of a property or to simply get rid of competition, they make nike sneakers for 3 dollars a month and sell them for $100 dollars in the US, they prof

        • By your list of evil deeds, it would seem that everyone, everywhere is evil.

        • Yep. They have no soul, they have no conscience, no moral or ethical values, no sympathy, and no regrets. They're money machines which would kill people if it were in the best interest of their shareholders.

          Yeah they take direction from groups of humans, but the mechanisms of the corporation can dispose of humans which get in the way of those shareholders.

      • (( Hmm, TFA seems like an expansion of my groklaw post [groklaw.net].))

        The GPL license provides freedom for the code. The freedom for the code provides future freedom for programmers (including the originator of the code). The BSD licens provides a little bit of extra freedom for the programmer (or more to the point for the company who hired the programmer) in the form of the freedom to 'enslave' the code (make it proprietary).

        In the case of a large market beomoth like Microsoft, this means that they can now tak

        • Totally clueless (Score:4, Insightful)

          by ulib ( 816651 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @06:20PM (#11515921) Homepage
          If you like the ego bost of having a company like Microsoft take your code, close it off to you and make big money charging you (among other people) for access to your own code under their onerous EULAs, -- and if that ego boost is way more important than having your code free and useful to the entire community that uses it (and able to come back to you), then the BSD license is for you.

          This is so wrong and clueless that it's actually funny.

          Look: I'm *glad* that Microsoft monopoly is coming to an end. Not because I hate Microsoft or Bill Gates (I happen not to be an envious person..) but simply because *monopoly is bad* for everybody. So, the sooner it ends, the better. And GPL, notwithstanding the communistic principles that are behind it, is surely helping that moment to come a bit sooner: good.

          But, I'll list here all the nonsense contained in the ridiculous sentence (it's just one sentence!) I quoted.
          1) Microsoft can't "take your code". They can *use* it, if they give you proper credits by distributing your BSD license along with *any* software that contains your code. They *must* do it.
          2) Microsoft can't "close it off". Your code of course remains free (truly free, IMHO, since it's BSD-licensed). The only thing that they can close off is their own modifications (i.e. *their own* code).
          3) Microsoft can't "charge you for access to your own code". They can charge you for their modified versions. And of course, the market laws apply: if their modifications aren't *worth* the price they're charging, nobody's gonna buy their crap.

          Get a clue. Please.

          --
          Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.
      • - why do all companies have to be evil.

        Not all companies have to be evil, but public companies are generally responsible to their shareholders and the management and directors will often be pushed by those same shareholders to produce maximum profit without regard to how. If that means doing evil stuff, some shareholders (especially bigger ones) often feel insulated from that effect.

        It's the kind of process that allowed things like the holocaust... The people at the bottom claimed that they were only

      • Fine. You may be thinking, "I can do that already with software that's in the public domain, or covered by other open source licenses, like the BSD-style license." You're right, you can. But software in the public domain, and software covered by a BSD-style license, is not afforded any protection whatsoever to ensure those same freedoms exist for the next user, or the next, or the one after her.

        This is just plain wrong. Microsoft took from BSD software and brought us Windows. Then Apple took from BSD a

        • but with an "all your contributed changes belong to us" condition

          dodge the supposedly "bulletproof" protections of the GPL

          Umm.. that's a little misleading. The condition is on MySQL accepting patches from the public, not on the GPL (since that's not allowed). If you want MySQL to accept your patches, you have to give them copyright (that's the only way they can dual-license).

          You're still free to fork the code and apply your own patches to the fork, which MySQL cannot touch and relicence, since your patc

    • Re:Here's why I love it: (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:46PM (#11515275) Homepage
      You aren't joking. I have a powerbook (duh, see sig) and whilst OS X is pretty tolerable the thing that makes it useless to me is the fact that you have to buy every little damn thing for it. $20 for focus follows mouse, $15 for a decent trackpd driver, $10 for that, $25 for something else. It's a never ending trail of money.

      After a long time using Linux it's amazing to go back into the commerical world. You get so used to being able to get so much amazing quality software in return for being part of the community that anything else seems just odd.

      The biggest advantage is of course the time saved - want a app to do Y? apt-get Y-app. No hunting around, deciding f you trust them with your credit card details, or even having to walk to a store. You can try different apps - all for free and not crippled. You can add and remove at will, upgrade at will and you never have to worry about losing your license. That level of flexibility and freedom is only possible on a non-commercial platform and it's just an amazing argument for it.
      • So just go download Fink and be done with it, then. You'll be able to get all of your favorite bits of open source software.

        I write shareware for the Mac in my spare time, and I'm asked occasionally why I don't GPL the thing and give it away. The reason why I refuse to do this is because I've invested a lot of my time and energy into this software and I want just compensation for my time. I do not feel that ESR's notion of "egoboo" [catb.org] would be a worthwhile payment for the sweat equity I've put into my softwar

        • Just took a look at the page in your sig.

          I don't need anything like that (plenty alternatives available, plus I could code my own), but most importantly, I'd never buy anything that lists "Lots of bug fixes" as a feature. There's hardly anything I hate more about commercial software than that. And I say that as a software developer.

      • I have a powerbook (duh, see sig) and whilst OS X is pretty tolerable the thing that makes it useless to me is the fact that you have to buy every little damn thing for it. $20 for focus follows mouse, $15 for a decent trackpd driver, $10 for that, $25 for something else. It's a never ending trail of money.

        Don't you go to grocery store every week and buy tomatoes, eggs, cereal for total price of several software utilities you mentioned? Then what is exactly is your problem with buying software? Eventually

    • Re:Here's why I love it: (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Noksagt ( 69097 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @05:01PM (#11515370) Homepage
      I know this is a joke, but I've actually gotten into the habit of paying for open source. [northwestern.edu]

      You do often get a tax deduction, but the real reason to do it is that it is such a pleasure to pay for something that is free. The developers appreciate it (or, at least, I have when people have given me a token). The money and equipment I have given has usually cost less than what it would take to buy comparable commercial software, but I feel like I've gotten much more in return.
    • > Literally hundreds or thousands of programmers that used
      > to charge for their services now work for free. Definitely
      > an improvement over the old days where you had to buy every little utility.

      Yeah, an improvement for everyone except the programmers... Although, it's not like you could sell "any little utility" in the old days either.

  • Here's something else OSTG provides.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:36PM (#11515196)
    http://www.vasoftware.com/gateway/offshoreontrack. php [vasoftware.com]

  • GPL (Score:5, Informative)

    by northcat ( 827059 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:36PM (#11515198) Journal
    It's the GNU General Public License, not GNU Public License.

  • Big on you. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:37PM (#11515214)
    "Thanks for reminding us, Joe. (NewsForge and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.)""

    Nope. No corporate behemoths here.
  • Exhibit A: Microsoft, for example, took the BSD-licensed TCP/IP stack from the public and swallowed it up in its proprietary product line. Then sold back to the public what it had taken from them. Legally, of course.

    Exhibit B: Once again, it was piracy of public software. Stolen in order to increase Bill Gates' personal fortune. But it was legal theft. The MIT license covering Kerberos provided no protection against that sort of thing.

    In both cases, the guy manages to be a communist idiot and fail to no

    • He isn't accusing MS of stealing the TCP/IP protocol, he's accusing them of stealing the acutal BSD TCP/IP stack code.

      • Re:Why i love his anti-MS rhetorics (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        how do you steal something that anyone is free to use ?
      • Anyone see a problem with this? You cant 'steal' an MP3 or a movie, but MS can 'steal' BSD licensed code? MS didnt steal, take or deprive anyone of any code or product. The origional is still there, in its pristine state, MS using the code under the license given in no way detracted from the origional code.
    • if MS had not embraced these protocols,

      Okay, so explain, why does now M$ require a multimillion fine and court rulings to "share" protocol specs with others ? On the other hand, no, please don't.

  • from the when-you-blah-blah-blah? (Score:5, Funny)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:38PM (#11515220) Homepage Journal
    from the when-you-have-nothing-new-to-say-but-like-to-hear- yourself-talk-anyway dept.

  • GPL (Score:3, Funny)

    by spike42 ( 795924 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:38PM (#11515222)
    The GPL is great for the obvious reasons, but there is also the culture change that came with it. IMHO, the area the GPL influence most was the culture, enabling free software to truly be free.

  • My passion for the GPL (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:42PM (#11515240)
    I like it because when Bruce Perens created the GPL back in the late 70s for Sun, he was considering the average home user who may have needed to compile his latest application.

    Back then applications were published in computer magazines such as Omni, Compute and of course Scientic American. These were usually in hundreds lines of code in length and principally written in Assembler.

    There's not a week that goes by when I think of Mr Perens and his contributions with the GPL and the neural networks which lead to the discovery of the Internet.

    Which is nice.

  • Bullshit and baloney. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jay Maynard ( 54798 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:46PM (#11515266) Homepage
    But software in the public domain, and software covered by a BSD-style license, is not afforded any protection whatsoever to ensure those same freedoms exist for the next user, or the next, or the one after her.
    Joe's article perpetuates the falsehood that non-GPLed software can, somehow, be taken away from the public and locked away.

    Bullshit.

    He even goes so far as to cite the cases of the BSD networking stack (used by M$ in current versions of Windows) and Kerberos, despite the fact that absolutely nobody has been harmed and despite the fact that both software suites are still freely available.

    If M$ could lock Kerberos away from the rest of us, don't you think they would have? Instead, they're just sticking their own users with gratuoitous incompatibilities, while the rest of us can use the real thing.

    This is even more true in the case of the Windows IP stack. All M$ did by "stealing" the BSD networking stack is keep the rest of us from having to work around their bugs. This is a win for everyone.

    Any Open Source Definition-compliant license guarantees that the covered code will, always and forever, be freely available for all to use, modify, and redistribute. The GPL is not required to achieve this goal.

    The only goal the GPL works toward beyond those of other OSD-compliant licenses is the perpetuation of the FSF utopia, which calls for nothing less than the destruction of the software industry as we know it. It claims to work toward freedom, while it actually works to deny freedom to those who do not share its goals.
    • which calls for nothing less than the destruction of the software industry as we know it

      Well, maybe there are more than one opinions on how a software industry should be like. And maybe not all of them are the ultimate solution. And maybe there need to happen some real paradigm shifts from time to time to keep up good evolution and innovation. And, maybe, that "destruction" doesn't mean disappearance, but change.

    • Re:Bullshit and baloney. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jbolden ( 176878 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @05:35PM (#11515615) Homepage
      Then you explain to me what happened to X. Why was it that a (essentially BSD) licensed product quickly forked into a bunch of commercial products which worked on Unixes and a free version that didn't work anywhere. Why was it that the XFree86 project was started? Why was it that it took about a decade for the free X servers to "catch back up" with the commercial products which (openly) were based on the free product.

      Why is that today everyone uses GDI and not X? You give your version of the history that doesn't involve X becoming in practice a propietery piece of software open only to those large corporations that were part of "open systems" movement.

      The goal of the GPL is that users of sorftware have freedom. Not just the first generation users but future generations as well. Nothing like what happened to X can ever happen to the Linux kernel, GCC, KDE, etc...
      • If they could have taken X proprietary, there would be neither XF86 nor X.org. Users have the freedom to choose commercial implementations, supported by folks who actually get paid for the software, or freely available implementations, supported by unpaid volunteers, based on their own needs, not some zealot's utopian politics.

        This is the ultimate freedom.

        The FSF would remove people's freedom to choose commercial implementations, and claim that they're fighting for freedom. This is the same kind of logica
        • Prior to the last year X.org was a standards organizations serving both commercial and free software. XFree86 was created specificlaly to combat the fact that X was commercial.

          You still haven't given me your version of history where a free product (X) didn't end up in a situation where something like XFree86 was needed.
        • Where to begin.

          First of all, IMO a much better solution has been used by Trolltech--make the thing GPL, and license it out to people who want to make commercial products. To me, if they're going to resell your code, then they should buy it first.

          Secondly, your logic is wrong. The GPL is concerned primarily with the freedoms of the user, not the developer. Therefore, the ongoing assurance of software freedom trumps the third party developer's freedom to sell the code without releasing the source. If yo

    • Re:Bullshit and baloney. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @06:34PM (#11515986) Journal

      The only goal the GPL works toward beyond those of other OSD-compliant licenses is the perpetuation of the FSF utopia, which calls for nothing less than the destruction of the software industry as we know it.

      No no no no no. No.

      No.

      Many people and companies write software on a contract basis, for which no license is necessary. The part of the software industry that would be affected is proprietary software.

      The end to this sector of software development would mean a rise in other areas of IT--namely, support and deployment.

      Besides, OSD-compliant software is similarly "destroying" the software industry. Sure, proprietary shops can take code from BSD-esqe licensed software, but if their product is in demand, then there tends to be a healthy supply of hobbyists developing a decent alternative.

      Ardour [ardour.org] is a good example of a Free Software project reaching the quality of proprietary counterparts. It isn't quite there yet, but it's progressing very nicely. And guess what? A lot of people have donated money to the main developer over the years.

      It claims to work toward freedom, while it actually works to deny freedom to those who do not share its goals.

      Well, if your goal is specifically to deny, or perpetuate the denial of, those freedoms that the FSF is fighting for, it is only logical that they would seek to deny you that "freedom," since said freedom is precisely what the FSF is fighting against.

  • GPL can be dangerous if people don't get it. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:46PM (#11515272)
    The GPL is pretty nice ... but only for people who understand it ...

    There are a lot of people who put their work under GPL but don't want others to use the Software for own projects.

    Recently I wanted to use some GPL'ed work offered by someone for my very own projects and he accused me to be a pirate and thief and that he will be sueing me for having used parts of his code for my own work which he put under GPL. This has result into a little flamewar on ANN which you can read here [www.ann.lu]. So using GPL'ed software written by others can indeed be dangerous because when it's offered in a way to the public by someone but not meant to be used like described in the GPL - e.g. misunderstanding.

    Another thing with GPL is that it's basicly a thing where others rip off work written by others without returning anything. The operating system MorphOS for example is one of these things. Their developers are using a lot of parts from the open source world such as ixemul or libnix as well as ports of gcc, binutils and other things without offering the sources. When contacting them and asking them to hand out the code they usually reply that the code has been lost or they redirect you to older ports of the software with codesnipplets that doesn't work anymore. Most pirating of GPL'ed work done by others are done within the Amiga community as well as many other communities.

    I don't say that GPL is a bad thing but I say that it's a matter of being ripped off and abused for what one has done if someone else takes everything and not caring for the work I've done and not returning anything, not even patches or code when asked.
    • Your argument seems to boil down to:
      1. Some people don't seem to understand the GPL
      2. Some people violate the GPL

      In either case, nothing about the GPL itself. The GPL is not "dangerous".

      If some clueless idiot puts his code under the GPL and then squawks when someone copies it, just ignore him.

      If someone copies GPL'ed code into a commercial non-GPL product, it's no different from any other copyright violation. The GPL sets down the terms under which you may copy some code. Remember, by default you cannot do

    • First, I assume YOU were abiding by the GPL, and your derivative code was either in-house (not distributed) or likewise under the GPL.

      So using GPL'ed software written by others can indeed be dangerous because when it's offered in a way to the public by someone but not meant to be used like described in the GPL - e.g. misunderstanding.

      Dangerous? DANGEROUS? I do not think that word means what you think it means.

      Using the GPL is very, very SAFE. If this person didn't understand the license they release

  • Simple (Score:5, Insightful)

    by northcat ( 827059 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:50PM (#11515296) Journal
    It's simple: If you don't like the license, then don't use code from the program in your software. Most developers (on slashdot) who hate the GPL do so because the source code is available and technically they can do everything with it and yet the license restricts them. It's like bringing a cake near your mouth but not letting you have it. But instead if the GPL had made the software closed source, they wouldn't have complained. Developers are pissed because they can't use code developed by someone else in their own software and yet not give the freedoms to others which were given to them by the original developers. They're pissed because they can't have a free ride. If you say that you're using only one line of code from a GPL'ed software, then don't use it at all, code on your own. But if that one line is important enough to be used, then the author has the right to restrict its usage.

    GPL (and similar licenses) is the only license, which, when it says it protects the right, it actually protects the rights of the user. Really. BSD style licenses don't protect the user/people's right completely.

    • Re:Simple (not quite) (Score:4, Insightful)

      by open_source_dweeb ( 789983 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @05:11PM (#11515456) Homepage
      But if that one line is important enough to be used, then the author has the right to restrict its usage.

      On a few occasions at work, I needed some encryption and compression routines that I knew were available in some GPL-licensed libraries. I would have needed to make minor improvements over the existing GPL code for the routines to suite my purposes. However, I could not make use of this opportunity to use and improve the existing code. I think that it is ridiculous that 50 million lines of proprietary code that cost millions of dollars to write should suddenly become available to all just because a 200 line compression routine was used. I would have been more than happy to give back my improvements on the compression routines to the public. Instead, I had to purchase third party software and integrate that into our distribution. It is not the cost of the third party software that's the problem, but that each third party dependency destabilizes our software product and increases maintenance complexity.

      • Re:Simple (not quite) (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Qzukk ( 229616 )
        Instead, I had to purchase third party software and integrate that into our distribution. It is not the cost of the third party software that's the problem, but that each third party dependency destabilizes our software product and increases maintenance complexity.

        Tough. Thats the cost of being a multimillion dollar proprietary software developer: paying for proprietary solutions. Don't like it? Find something else to do or some other way to license your product.
      • There wasn't a single suitable library released under the LGPL? The LGPL exists for precisely that reason, so I find that hard to believe.
      • That 200 line algorithm was probably just written by one or two persons.
        Did you contact them and offer them money for a license to you and promised to release your changes under GPL

      • The LGPL was designed to allow you to do exactly what you want to do. A library writer who choose the GPL over the LGPL for his license is simply not interested in non-free software using his library. He is "refusing" to sell it to you.

        BTW you could just contact the author and ask for a commercial version (perhaps in exchange for money).

      • Re:Simple (not quite) (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ctid ( 449118 )

        I think that it is ridiculous that 50 million lines of proprietary code that cost millions of dollars to write should suddenly become available to all just because a 200 line compression routine was used.

        For fuck's sake, it's not your routine! You don't get to say what is ridiculous about it! It's as meaningless as saying that it's ridiculous that your customers should all have to buy Microsoft Windows (or whatever OS your software runs on) to run your 50 million lines of code.

    • Re:Simple (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Brandybuck ( 704397 )
      t's like bringing a cake near your mouth but not letting you have it.

      No, it's more like putting up a sign saying "free" in the middle of the park, then putting a sign on the enclosing fence saying "members only". If you're going to make the software free, then make it free. Don't go claiming it's free and then restrict its use.

      GPL applications don't piss me off. As a user and non-contributor any Free Software license is sufficient. But GPL libraries do piss me off, because then their license restricts me

  • Remember, folks... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:56PM (#11515343)
    It's the little guy standing up to the corporate behemoths that run rough-shod over our daily lives by virtue of their influence, legal and otherwise, on government.

    We would do well to remember that Microsoft used to be the 'little guy' standing up to the corporate behemoth of IBM and the like.

    • No. Microsoft is and always was a company. It's only aim is and was to earn money -- like every company in the world. It's aim was not to stand up against anyone and it didn't do it. And this applies to all companies -- IBM, Redhat, Google -- all companies. The only people who stand up against anyone are... well... people. Oh, and BTW, you've got your facts wrong. That's not how it was.
  • I don't see anything that hasn't been said before. Is this anything more than a call for BSD vs. GPL (or corp. vs. free software) flamewar?
    • Yes, I see zero content here also. This is a fanboy's open call for a pointless flamewar. Stories like this are pathetic. And you can really see the resentment for the ideologically-minded fanboy clique around here. An unusual number of derisive AC posts calling michael a communist, etc.

      But Michael is no communist. He is just an insecure geek who seeks to bolster his street cred among the other nerds by adopting a faddish software ideology that happens to be in style at the moment. But insisting that all s
      • But Michael is no communist. He is just an insecure geek who seeks to bolster his street cred among the other nerds by adopting a faddish software ideology that happens to be in style at the moment.

        Let me get this straight: you are saying that GPLed software is "faddish"?
  • there are developers and coders at those big companies who are making a living. GPL may be your favorite and it may be very agreeable to you. that's great. but that doesn't mean you can denounce people (remember, companies are made up of real people...) who do not embrace GPL the way you do.

    do people who work at non-profit have some claim to superior morality over those who do not because the company they work at are not pursuing profit? i don't think so.

  • Because... (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by gustgr ( 695173 )
    ... Richard Stallman is hot?

  • Why I Don't Love the GPL (Score:4, Insightful)

    by voice of unreason ( 231784 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @04:58PM (#11515357)
    This'll probably get me flamed, but oh well.

    The problem with the GPL mindset is that it looks at the world as if there are two different groups: big companies and "the people". The problem is that this model ignores, and in fact, discourages the small businesses that are already getting crushed by big business. Here's an example: Let's say I'm making a game, and I want to use some standard but rather complicated file format for my models. Now let's assume that there's a premade library that will allow me to easily support the format. Oh joy! Except it uses GPL. Now, I don't want to have to release my code, there's enough theft of ideas in indie gaming as it is. So, I can't really use the library. Neither can a big studio like EA games. Now, who gets hurt more? It's not a problem for EA; they just have one of their coders stay late(er) and the job is done. Or they can pay a third party. But a small developer is probably stretched as it is, and now has to spend even more time reinventing the wheel.

    For my money, I like the LGPL. Freedom meets being able to do what you want to do. It doesn't mean being able to do whatever somebody else thinks you should be doing. Maybe someone will abuse the privilege. That's part of what it means to give someone freedom: Allowing them to do things you don't approve of.

    • Negotiate with the copyright holders (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jesterzog ( 189797 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @05:27PM (#11515559) Journal

      Now let's assume that there's a premade library that will allow me to easily support the format. Oh joy! Except it uses GPL. Now, I don't want to have to release my code, there's enough theft of ideas in indie gaming as it is. So, I can't really use the library.

      Well I'm not going to flame you, but I do think you've missed some of the useful points of the GPL. For one thing, I believe that you actually can use existingly GPL'd code if you negotiate an alternative license with the copyright holder(s) of the code. Admittedly this may sometimes be difficult if there are lots of authors, but given the relatively low number of developers in many projects, I'm not sure if it would be that common. Depending on specifically what part of the code you're interested in, you may not have to contact everyone in a particular GPL'd project.

      People tend to release under the GPL because they want to make their work available for use by others, but don't want others to make lots of money from it without giving back. The alternative is that the code may not be available at all.

      When I've released some software under the GPL, I've effectively lifted some (but not all) copyright restrictions for anyone who wishes to use it. In doing so, though, I certainly haven't given up my right to choose to lift even more restrictions on my code for certain people. The GPL licence begins with the traditionally restrictive copyright system, and then lifts some restrictions that specifically allow the software to be distributed openly under certain conditions, still protected by copyright law on behalf of the author(s).

      There's nowhere in the GPL, however, where it says that copyright holders can't choose to release their code under a different license to a different party if they so choose. Many authors of many projects do exactly this, and I think you'd find that many other authors would consider making their code available for closed source projects if they realised it could be useful and were paid suitable royalties.

      My opinion is that the GPL is good because it encourages many people to release their code in situations where it might not otherwise have been made available at all. I don't see how that's a bad thing -- people who want it under closed source conditions can always ask for it and negotiate an alternative agreement. If the authors agree with your small business cause, they might even choose to give it to you for free.

    • Now let's assume that there's a premade library that will allow me to easily support the format. Oh joy! Except it uses GPL. Now, I don't want to have to release my code, there's enough theft of ideas in indie gaming as it is. So, I can't really use the library. Neither can a big studio like EA games. Now, who gets hurt more? It's not a problem for EA; they just have one of their coders stay late(er) and the job is done. Or they can pay a third party. But a small developer is probably stretched as it is,

    • First off, companies are about people, it is colsed licenses that seperate companies from people. If I am in a business and I run Linux, I can share it everywhere, at home, at work, with friends, try doing that with a closed sorce product. The GPL unites business and people, and that is one reason why it has been so successfull in the marketplace.

      Second off, right now, this very day - I can open a business and roll my own operating system for a few $1000 dollars of work. It can be a ksiok, it can be a p

  • Bah. (Score:2)

    by tm2b ( 42473 )
    Here's where I wish that editors and submitters could be moderated as Trolls.

    Does anybody really think that anybody else is going to have something new to say about this, on either side, and generate even a little bit more light than heat?
  • It's the General Public License, not GNU Public License.

  • ideological lingo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jonastullus ( 530101 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @05:15PM (#11515482) Homepage
    alltogether quite a nice article. nothing most slashdotters didn't know yet, but still rather good.
    but for some reason he had to put those nasty exagerations in there, and that's just again an example of partisan and ideological marketing!

    the linux kernel is [...] the impossible notion that a bunch of kids on the Internet could create the most successful operating system in history come true.

    it wasn't exactly kids and the term "most successful OS" might be swaying a BIT far from the truth!

    Once again, it was piracy of public software. Stolen in order to increase Bill Gates' personal fortune. But it was legal theft.

    come on, watch your language. don't throw the ridiculous piracy concept back at bill gates and what the hell is "legal theft" supposed to be? this language is no better than the whole "viral license" propaganda!

    But Linux is immune to most of the kneecap-busting, air-supply cutting, baby-knifing techniques that Microsoft is so fond of.

    i am no fan of microsoft, but i still find this rather harsh. if the article were meant to be journalistic, this would SO not qualify for an objective perspective!

    well, all in all i totally agree with the author. but maybe he should cut back on the ideological and radical lingo!

    jethr0

  • even I can help (Score:5, Interesting)

    by meza ( 414214 ) on Saturday January 29, 2005 @05:28PM (#11515561)
    I have never programmed professionally. I've been playing around with c and some other languages for some years though. And I have been using gnu software for about as long. But it wasn't until this christmas that I really realized it's power. I've always been thinking that "sure, open source is a good thing, because then the others who know things can make changes".

    But just before christmas I was playing a bit with the new transparency that xorg har brought us, and I was annoyed about the lack of functions in "transset". So I decided to take a look at its code. It turned out the program was very simple and within some hours, without any previous knowladge of Xlib and X-programming, I managed to change its behavoiur the way I wanted. (http://forchheimer.se/transset-df/ [forchheimer.se])

    Then I suddenly understood that you don't have to be a super guru who understands all the systems sourcecode to gain from open source. One day there will be some little thing that is bothering you that you actually CAN do something about.

  • why *I* like the GPL ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by timothy ( 36799 ) * on Saturday January 29, 2005 @05:33PM (#11515593) Journal
    (a subset, at least)

    - I don't like it when my favorite apps go away. Until I have grey hair and fake kidneys I will miss the ultra-fast, ultra-simple WriteNow word processor, which was my high-school-and-college favorite, and which ran fast even on what are now pitifully slow machines. Open source apps may go away, too, but generally there are better, sleeker replacements which (kicker) open the same file formats, because the Unix philosophy and GNU have the same good things about Unix-type things in mind, including saving to plainish formats. (Often possible, rarely the default, with proprietary software).

    - I like frequent upgrades and bug fixes. And while it's not the simplest thing to balance, I mostly prefer some instability (as in, trying new versions of Mozilla, especially the versions of 5 years ago, say) with the attendant improvements in the next versions than sticking with, say, Netscape. [insert your own favorite stable-but-moribund application.]

    - It's nice to be able to give to friends [F/f]ree software, and to make (however minor) suggestions to developers. Some open source developers are as rude and unaccomodating as typical proprietary software makers are impersonal and stand-offish (and some proprietary makers are downright friendly!), but I've seen small text improvements made in some cases an hour or so after pointing out a spelling or grammar problem on a project web site. That's responsive in a way that giant software makers don't really have the capability to be.

    - Related to that last point: I believe that developers have the right to control their invented software. I don't want to use software *against* the wishes of its creators.(1) If you want to write some software to control Whooznit Manufacturing Units (or process words), with secret source, proprietary storage formats, and a very large pricetag, then Fine. I just don't have to use it. GPL- (and BSD-, and many other licenses) licensed software is explicitly free to use and give away. No developer *has* to use such licenses -- they have a range of moral choices open to them -- but I don't want illegally install one copy of Windows on several machines, even if I find it a moral non-issue if I'm the only one using them, and they're only being used one at a time. Easier and saner to use software that is more flexible; I can have Mepis, Knoppix and Red Hat on any / all of several machines,(2) with the full consent of the makers. It's nicer to visit at a friend's place than evade an angry landowner while sleeping in his guest bedroom, especially when he doesn't have a guest bedroom.

    timothy

    (1) Are there edge cases, and finer points? Yes. For instance, I own DVDs which some aspect of their "creator" -- the DVDCCA that is -- wants me to be unable to watch on a Linux box. Too bad for them, their case doesn't win my mind, so unlike the case of using (for instance) a non-legit copy of Windows, I feel not bad at all about watching movies with Mplayer or Xine. Also, using software illegally is in some cases about as horrifying to me as taking the occasional shortcut through private property. You can believe in the primacy of private property without denying all shades of grey in the world.

    (2) Mac OS X is a near exception here; since it's included with (nearly) all the hardware that will happily run it -- as things stand, at least! -- there is no dilemma of trying to put it on my other machines (besides my iBook, that is) without permission. And I wouldn't feel at all bad about the experimentation of running it in a virtual machine on a Linux box, and I suspect no one at Apple would either.
  • Allot of people like to think that if you create an environment that is conducive to business and commerce, then freedom and prosperity will follow.

    I think just the opposite, I think when you create an environmet that is conducive to freedom and liberty (in this case, not coercively limit what people can copy using the force of government) Then that will create prosperity on it's own and lead to new markets and new opportunities that could never be gained before.
  • There's the quote we all know about capitalism that says "it is not perfect, but it is the least flawed system we know". For open source software, this is exactly what a lot of people (myself included) think of the GPL. [ My apologies for paraphrasing and the lack of proper attribution ]

    At the same time, a lot of people dislike or even hate the GPL. In my view, their opinions usually come down to the fact that there really is no general example of how to make a business of open source software develop
  • I spent roughly 80 hours a week for 2 years of the prime of my life developing an application. I rewrote virtually 80% of the 150,000 line C++ codebase. In short, it was forked by very hostile and childish people who continually kry [sic] "Leave us alone" at my program's site, lol.

    The hostile fork started when I was personally targeted by the MPAA for my development efforts on 23 August, 2003 [slashdot.org]

    The GPL provides *zero* possibilities for overcoming hostile forks. If they want to copy your CVS (and keep the

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