Users will be free to comment on the upcoming complex and technical draft versions of the GNU General Public License 3.0 in an easy way, according to Eben Moglen, general counsel for the Free Software Foundation. However, Moglen said Wednesday, speaking at the Open Source Business Conference here, the rewrite of the GPL is not an election and there will be no voting on its clauses.
the power of open source!
Open Source is about making something useful, not about voting on what other people should do. Go write clauses for GPL, or else don’t expect to be heard.
comunism was never democratic
Well, lucky us… GPL has nothing to do with communism
right, gpl was all about community input and working together and kumbaya shit. i like how they alwasy call for openness but when it is something they control the first thing we are told is that it is not a democract. nice.
Cool,
Where again did you say your law degree was from? Just as I thought, this stuff is too important too have every 13 year old screwing with. (censored version of reply)
Ever read animal farm? LOL Some animals are more equal than others
Software/OS preference is much like religion. It’s a know fact, that mixing religion and politics never did anybody any good.
Really? I seem to recall a certain U.S. president doing exactly that.
How much good came of that action?
I think that’s a good thing, I mean, just imagine if people could vote on its clauses…Everybody would vote for the clause that fits himself best and not what the FSF or the GPL in general are meant to be.
No one is forced to use the GPL, the GPL3 should be what the FSF and its lawyers make it and not what some (more or less random) people expect from it. The possibility to raise your voice to mention flaws etc. is enough – if the concern is valid in FSF principles they’ll likely modify the clause – it’s that easy.
“No one is forced to use the GPL,”
you’re joink right? the gpl itself forces people to use it. That is the whole point. The gpl would be useless if it didn’t infect code and force people to use the GPL
Don’t use GPL code, and you won’t be forced to GPL your own creations. Write your own code or take BSD licenced one. It’s that simple, buddy.
Nobody is forcing you to use GPL’ed code! You know, there was a time, back when other people didn’t write code for you to use for free. Back then, you had to pay for the most insignificant libraries. Now, they are free, and you’re quibbling about the terms under which they are made available to you? Don’t like the GPL? Fine, don’t use it. If you want to make money off your code, you might as well write all of the damn code yourself!
“You know, there was a time, back when other people didn’t write code for you to use for free. Back then, you had to pay for the most insignificant libraries. ”
Obviously written by someone with very limited time in computers. Free and open software (they are not the same) predate commercial software.
It’s funny how GPL users feel like they are defending freedom, when the GPL forces them to keep their software free. On the other hand, there’s nothing in BSD licensing that prohibits a developer from releasing their software, and a lot of them do (entire operating systems, no less). Take away the GPL requirement to publish on-internal-only code and Linux disappears…
No, GPL users are simply defending their right to restrict the way in which the general release of their source can be used by other parties.
It’s as simple as that.
People who release software under the BSD license seem to have a slightly different set of priorities. More power to them. The presence of both kinds of open source licenses makes the software world a lot more interesting, in my opinion, and both licensing approaches are valid.
“No, GPL users are simply defending their right to restrict the way in which the general release of their source can be used by other parties.”
Then don’t call it “Free software.” Call it what it really is – “Enforced open source software.” EOSS. New acronym.
There’s “Free software,” which may or may not be open source. Then there’s “open source software,” which under BSD is free to be used as the user sees fit but may not be free from economic compensation under all licenses, and then there’s “enforced open source software,” as software under GPL is and by definition becomes “free,” as in “has no inherent economic value.”
I’m completely aware of the fact that there was free code before the GPL. However, the phenomenon of there being a large amount of free code available in many different problem domains is relatively recent (1980’s onward), and is contemporary with the GPL. My point was that if you were working on, for example, Software Defined Radio software (or whatever constituted a high-tech radio in the 70’s), you’d likely have to write your own code. These days, there is even GPL’ed code available for something that specialized. Heck, let’s consider the roots of the GPL itself. There was a time when you actually had to pay for a license for a commercial UNIX. The code to BSD was available, but it was not unfettered until the early 1990s. The idea of a free UNIX may seem boring now that they are a dime a dozen, but when the GPL was created, it was rather novel.
internal-only?
The GPL has no restriction on what you do with GPL code you do not redistribute.
The GPL only affects how you redistribute GPL code. How you use it internally is your own business.
I asked RMS about this a few years ago, and he freely said it then:
http://steve-parker.org/articles/lego/rms1.shtml
ME: I modify GPL code – eg a CGI library – to suit my own needs for
use on a publicly-available web server. This code is being run, by the
general public, on my web server. Should I, in this case, make the code
available? Under the GPL, must I?
RMS: The GPL does not require it. But is not very good for the community
when people do this, so I am looking at a way that GPL 3 could
require publication in this case.
“You know, there was a time, back when other people didn’t write code for you to use for free.”
Actually there wasn’t. Public Domain code has been around almost as long as code has been around.
Someone commented before that GPL is more if a religion then anything else. I agree with that in more ways then one.
Yes, public domain code has been around forever. However, the phenomenon of people writing utilitarian applications and libraries, with the sort of volume you’re seeing now, that’s relatively recent. These days, no matter what type of application you’re writing, there is a good chance there is some open source code you can use to at least help out. That is not something that has been around forever.
The concept of GPL as a religion is silly. The GPL is more like the bylaws of an organization. It’s a set of statements that says, “if you want the privelege of being a part of this organization, these are the rules you have to follow”. If you don’t want to join the GPL community, nobody is forcing you. You don’t get the benefits of being able to use GPL’ed code, but that’s true of any organization! Last I checked, our local rec center didn’t allow you to use the community swimming pool without being a member and adhering to the membership rules. If the GPL is a religion, is our rec center at least a minor cult?
“These days, no matter what type of application you’re writing, there is a good chance there is some open source code you can use to at least help out. That is not something that has been around forever.”
True, but GPL code is only part of that. BSD/Apache is the other. You speak as if GPL is the bringer of the phenomenom, which I disagree with. All open source, freeware, and public domain code has contributed to the phenomenom.
“if you want the privelege of being a part of this organization, these are the rules you have to follow”
Feels like religion to me. Sorry, but it does.
“Last I checked, our local rec center didn’t allow you to use the community swimming pool without being a member and adhering to the membership rules.”
Last I checked I could just walk up to my local park with my little sister and just play. No membership needed!
Actually, someone commented that “Software/OS choice is like a religion”. So I think your biased affected your reading skills, unless you were referring to another thread.
The GPL has nothing to do with religion. It’s a software license. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. Arguing against it is basically saying that developers should not be free to choose how their software is distributed.
Dear Anonymous,
I’m sending you my code under separate cover. Its GPL’d. Use it or I’ll send my pall Guido over to introduce you to his brass knuckles.
Regards,
GPL Thug
in a country where money equals power, its amazing that open source has made it this far. i guess theres a lil hippy in all of us still.
The democratic process comes into effect when people adopt it or don’t adopt it. The clause in the gpl for adoption gives you a choice on future versions…
If you don’t like it:
//This code licensed under gpl version 2, only.
I’d be more worried about forking. Basically GPL3 code only, and then GPL2 everything else.
“Users will be free to comment on the upcoming complex and technical draft versions of the GNU General Public License 3.0 in an easy way, according to Eben Moglen, general counsel for the Free Software Foundation.”
Well let’s prove that the community has a firm understanding of the law (as demonstrated at a certain forum who’s name will not be mentioned *wink*) by Wikifying the whole process.
“in a country where money equals power, its amazing that open source has made it this far. i guess theres a lil hippy in all of us still.”
Other things equal power, too. People often think that GPL software flourishes because it’s adopters are zealots or ignorant or both. The fact is that there is great value in GPL software, value that proprietary software cannot by definition even try to compete against. There is nothing magical or hippy or communistic about FOSS software, just like there is nothing magical or hippy or communistic about a bunch of people donating land to build a park that everyone can enjoy. They see value in that direction that cannot be achieved by any other means.
A view of free market as being all about money is very limited, and very wrong. There are many more things that create value, many more things that motivate people, and many more things that drive innovation and competition. A market is, at any given moment, a social experiment. You can’t map it out just by following how much money people have in their wallets, and who they give it to.
” The fact is that there is great value in GPL software, value that proprietary software cannot by definition even try to compete against.”
Not really. GPL forces developers into either working for service companies or becoming a service company themselves. GPL prohibits developers from building equity in their software code base. Not too long ago a survey was released that showed that 90% of the top Linux developers worked for around ten or fifteen companies. That should say a lot about GPL – the developers are not getting rich, but the company stock holders and executives are.
The companies are doing end-runs around GPL anyways. Look at Red Hat Linux. Sure, you can get the source code, _if_ you buy their service contract. Oh, another word for “Service contract” is “recurring cost to the customer.”
“Not really. GPL forces developers into either working for service companies or becoming a service company themselves. GPL prohibits developers from building equity in their software code base.”
And by design (source code availability), even that’s tenuous. Do it yourself, or hire the people who originally wrote the code. Plus there’s dilution when everyone has the potential to provide the same service.
I’m certain there are going to be posts following pointing out all the benefits, and that’s fine. Just don’t pretend that there aren’t ‘negative’ consequences to the IT market from GPL (just like Globalization has ‘negative’ consequences on an economy).
I’m certain there are going to be posts following pointing out all the benefits, and that’s fine. Just don’t pretend that there aren’t ‘negative’ consequences to the IT market from GPL (just like Globalization has ‘negative’ consequences on an economy).
GPL is a force. With every force there is change. Whether that change is ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ is entirely up to you.
“GPL is a force. With every force there is change. Whether that change is ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ is entirely up to you.”
That’s very Zen of you, but in this case “positive” and “negative” are different people. The point is that while everyone wants to put the best face on their ideology. The GPL ripples (like a stone thrown in a pond) have negative consequences for some (the degrees of positive or negative are presently uncertain). Pretending that it’s going to be a win-win if you only adopt my ideology borders on zealotry.
The companies are doing end-runs around GPL anyways. Look at Red Hat Linux. Sure, you can get the source code, _if_ you buy their service contract. Oh, another word for “Service contract” is “recurring cost to the customer.”
You know… I had just posted a link to the Red Hat sources a few articles ago, here: http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=12479
Looks like I need to re-post that, just to refute that blatent falsehood you posted.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/4/en/
Absolutely free to everybody, whether you use Red Hat or not.
EDIT: Man, I just don’t have enough mod points for all the blatent trolling in this article!
Edited 2005-11-03 17:40
“Looks like I need to re-post that, just to refute that blatent falsehood you posted.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/4/en/
Absolutely free to everybody, whether you use Red Hat or not.”
They certainly don’t go out of their way to publicize this. The first link on http://www.redhat.com for downloading is
https://www.redhat.com/apps/download/
and on that page it says:
“Red Hat Enterprise Linux
The Linux standard. For businesses, governments, or other users looking for stable, supported, and certified Linux. Available for immediate download starting at $179.”
I didn’t see a link to an ftp site on their front page.
I didn’t see a link to an ftp site on their front page.
Now a complaint because there isn’t a link on the Red Hat front page?!?!?
Funny, but a google for “rhel download” shows the first hit as a binary download “eval” RHEL right from Red Hat, and the second hit is a site that tells you how to build it from the ftp downloads I pointed to earlier. The third hit is a mirror of RHEL3. There are also first-page hits on that same google search for RHEL4 mirrors and another one from linuxquestions.org that answers the question of “what is RHEL and where to download and more questions..
” by pointing out the Red Hat ftp, plus code clones of CentOS and WhiteBox.
Just seems strange to complain about Red hat not making it a front-page feature…
“Just seems strange to complain about Red hat not making it a front-page feature…”
All of the freely available BSD OSes have links on their front page to the source code. That’s the difference between how BSD-license developers lead by example while GPL’ers crusade.
“All of the freely available BSD OSes have links on their front page to the source code. That’s the difference between how BSD-license developers lead by example while GPL’ers crusade.”
WHAT!? You mean none of that code is “Locked up”?
‘”All of the freely available BSD OSes have links on their front page to the source code. That’s the difference between how BSD-license developers lead by example while GPL’ers crusade.”‘
“WHAT!? You mean none of that code is ‘Locked up’?”
That’s correct. There may be commercial BSD OSes (such as the old Wind River) that have proprietary code that they don’t publish, but {Free|Open|Net|Dragonfly}BSD all publish all of the source code for their OSes and take great pride in doing so. Those commercial BSDs, just like anyone else using BSD licensed code, are free to keep their code private, they are free to publish it, and they are free to charge for their OS, even if the overwhelming majority of it was written by other parties (since the code is BSD licensed). That’s the real definition of “freedom.”
Those commercial BSDs, just like anyone else using BSD licensed code, are free to keep their code private, they are free to publish it, and they are free to charge for their OS, even if the overwhelming majority of it was written by other parties (since the code is BSD licensed). That’s the real definition of “freedom.”
1. Freedom to keep code private. (check)
2. Freedom to publish code. (check)
3. Freedom to sell code. (check)
If that’s the real definition of “freedom” the GPL protects it. What was your point again?
Oh, that the BSD license allows you to do #1 and #3 at the same time while the GPL does not. Please be more specific.
By not allowing #1 and #3 (at the same time) you force these businesses into competition. Competition, some would say, is a good thing.
Would you say you are anti-competitive? Or would you say you are pro-monopoly?
There is no shelf life for GPL2. Just because GPL3 is out, does not mean you have to use the license.
It is likely that Linux will remain GPL2.
Linus has made it clear that linux will remain under a modified GPL2 license. The modification is to make sure that user-space applications are allowed to be any license, to avoid any confusion.
There is also no section in it that says “GPL 2 or higher“
GPL 3.0; thinly veiled socialism redistribution of intellectual property. I can never understand the thought process that ideas and the sweat that goes into creating something great from said idea should be freely traded. The software elitist manifesto gets an update.
GPL 3.0; thinly veiled socialism redistribution of intellectual property. I can never understand the thought process that ideas and the sweat that goes into creating something great from said idea should be freely traded. The software elitist manifesto gets an update.
Programmers of the world unite! Throw of the shackles of your capitalist overlords and burn your cubicles to the ground !
Seriously though, you could make a good case for GPL being a worthy socialist cause. After all it is taking the means of production for programmers out of the hands of corporations run by fat-cats and putting it back in the hands of the IT workers.
The means of production here being among others operating systems and compilers, both necessary tools of the trade for programmers and now free in both senses of the word.
How anyone could view this as a bad thing is beyond me. Must be all the years of anti-socialist propaganda.
BTW nothing is REdistributed here, noone is taking non-gpl software and magically turning it into GPL.
“After all it is taking the means of production for programmers out of the hands of corporations run by fat-cats and putting it back in the hands of the IT workers. The means of production here being among others operating systems and compilers, both necessary tools of the trade for programmers and now free in both senses of the word.”
I wouldn’t say that.
1) Not all corporations are “fat-cats”.
2) Programmers have always been able to write compilers and other pieces of code before there was the GPL. As someone else pointed out earlier Public Domain was their first.
1) Not all corporations are “fat-cats”.
2) Programmers have always been able to write compilers and other pieces of code before there was the GPL. As someone else pointed out earlier Public Domain was their first.
Where’s my public domain Windows compatible OS and compilers and libraries for every language? Public Domain was there first, so they must have had a head start. Did they forget it was a race?
Competition brings out the best of us. The GPL simply enforces competition.
You’re not anti-competitive, are you?
BSD was there before Linux
Quote: “1) Not all corporations are “fat-cats”.”
I would strongly disagree with that comment.
Quote: “2) Programmers have always been able to write compilers and other pieces of code before there was the GPL. As someone else pointed out earlier Public Domain was their first.”
Show me a public domain compiler then please that can compile c, c++, .net, c#, ruby, perl, python, fortran, assembly and so on.
Let’s have an example. Remove the GPL from GNU GCC equation (say, make it BSD licensed). Let some company modify it, add patented code to it and release it under a proprietary “business” license. Advertise, sell it, make a profit, advertise some more, start to act in a monopolistic and anti competitive way to the original GNU GCC developers, take away their market share bit by bit, until the original GNU GCC compiler has zero market share. The result? The community would lose a freely distributable project, that benefits the entire community. You would lose a competitor in the market, meaning a lack of competition, and leading towards a monopoly.
Am I overstating, or overdoing things? No. The design of the GPL is to ensure that it *always* stays open, and that the community gets improvements returned to it, for the benefit of the entire community.
Science has worked this way for a long, long while. If you’re all so upset about sharing, then please stop using electricity. Please stop relying on power from nuclear plants. Please stop using your walkman, your TV, your radio, and so on. They are all the results of scientists working together, to create things, for their own egos yes, but also, for the betterment of mankind.
Imagine how it would be if science was on a BSD style license, with patents abounding from the 13th century onwards. It would be a nightmare! Thankfully, it didn’t work that way. But – the future isn’t so bright or rosy, as the large corporations take over the science mantle, and start dictating what, who and when scientists can share their discoveries with!
And by the way, no one voted on the contents of GPL v2. I didn’t hear a big argument about that. What’s so different now? Quite possibly, we have more brainless people in the world now. Sort of proves my point that IQs are dropping. Oh, and people are just mindless zombie drones these days without any original thought.
Dave
“Am I overstating, or overdoing things? No. The design of the GPL is to ensure that it *always* stays open, and that the community gets improvements returned to it, for the benefit of the entire community.
”
Actually you are, and before you get carried away with this discussion. Might I remind you that a lot of Linux distros are composed of NON-GPL code (GASP!) and are doing fine in spite of any “hypothetical” situation you can cook up.
“Imagine how it would be if science was on a BSD style license, with patents abounding from the 13th century onwards. It would be a nightmare! Thankfully, it didn’t work that way.”
Uh, huh. Might I remind you why Leonardo DaVinci “encoded” his notebooks. The world isn’t as simple as you think it is. Back then, or now.
Seriously though, you could make a good case for GPL being a worthy socialist cause.
Is there such a thing? LOL
After all it is taking the means of production for programmers out of the hands of corporations run by fat-cats and putting it back in the hands of the IT workers.
Last time i checked any code you write while in the employ of a company for the company is property of that company. Anything outside of that personal ownership is implied.
How anyone could view this as a bad thing is beyond me.
The GPL has alot of Socialistic overtones despite good intentions.
Must be all the years of anti-socialist propaganda.
Can’t speak for most but perhaps for some its an acute understanding of Socialism and its pitfalls? Good old human nature is the primary reason Socialism fails (read Thomas Hobbes, Social Contract for more in depth information).
Good old human nature is the primary reason Socialism fails (read Thomas Hobbes, Social Contract for more in depth information).
I’m a big fan of Rousseau, but I think you’re misinterpreting him quite a bit. While philosophically he believed that society had a negative influence on man, corrupting his natural purity, the premise underlying “The Social Contract” was that society was necessary for the maintainence of a workable civilization. That leads me to the very simple point: if science weren’t socialist, we’d be writing these words with sticks on dirt. Science, and philosophy for that matter, cannot exist in the state of nature, and only makes sense in the context of society.
Socialism, at some level, is unavoidable, so it is futile to argue about its merits in completely general terms as you are. The only thing we can do is argue about its merits in specific contexts. In the context of science and mathematics (of which programming is a part), socialism has proven itself to be a generally good thing.
I’m a big fan of Rousseau, but I think you’re misinterpreting him quite a bit. While philosophically he believed that society had a negative influence on man, corrupting his natural purity, the premise underlying “The Social Contract” was that society was necessary for the maintainence of a workable civilization. That leads me to the very simple point: if science weren’t socialist, we’d be writing these words with sticks on dirt. Science, and philosophy for that matter, cannot exist in the state of nature, and only makes sense in the context of society.
I haven’t read Rousseau its Hobbes that defined the human condition quite well. In summary Humans are by their very nature driven by basic animalistic principles meeting survival needs are at the top. A software developer with a good idea doesn’t meet his survival needs by giving away his software for free nor does giving away his software provide incentive to develop new ideas or to innovate. This is where free software faces an uphill battle. For those that already are meeting their survival needs they still lack direct incentives to make a given idea or piece of software better. Example: Blackbox.
Socialism, at some level, is unavoidable, so it is futile to argue about its merits in completely general terms as you are. The only thing we can do is argue about its merits in specific contexts. In the context of science and mathematics (of which programming is a part), socialism has proven itself to be a generally good thing.
I will disagree Socialism is dependent on the myth of everyone being equal at almost every level. Again when you take from the have’s and give to the have not’s those that haven’t put in the same amount of effort in the system human nature takes over. The have’s seeing that everything they work for gets given to those that haven’t get pissed off and expend less effort on coming up with ideas. This is elementary sociology.
“I will disagree Socialism is dependent on the myth of everyone being equal at almost every level. Again when you take from the have’s and give to the have not’s those that haven’t put in the same amount of effort in the system human nature takes over. The have’s seeing that everything they work for gets given to those that haven’t get pissed off and expend less effort on coming up with ideas. This is elementary sociology.”
That reminds me about that quote (Russian?) about the workers pretending to work, and the government pretending to pay them.
I will disagree Socialism is dependent on the myth of everyone being equal at almost every level.
That’s incorrect, as can be demonstrated easily by the classic Socialist saying: “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”
Clearly, this sentence doesn’t make sense in a context where people are viewed as “equal on every level”.
The misunderstanding comes from the use of the word “equality”, which is often misrepresented by people to the right as meaning “sameness” when trying to denigrate socialism. The fact is that “equality” does not mean “sameness” but rather equality of status. It is not unique to socialism, but is also part of most religions (all men being created equal before God).
The fact is that those who oppose this idea of equality seek to defend acquired privileges by the elites, implying that the elites deserve these privileges because they are “better”. There is also a powerful myth that says that you need this artificial hierarchy of men and women in order to have a viable society (while isolated examples have shown that organizations that follow anarchist “equality” principles can in fact work).
Again when you take from the have’s and give to the have not’s those that haven’t put in the same amount of effort in the system human nature takes over.
A demonstration of this favorite myth of the right: if a CEO earns so much money, that’s because he works so hard. Well, the average CEO earns 300x more than the average worker. Does that mean that he works 300 times more? That he is 300 times more skilled/intelligent? Of course not: under the guise of adhering to a meritocracy, the right is in fact defending an unjust system where the privileged get richer, and the poor stay poor despite the fact that they often work a lot harder than members of the better-off elites.
The have’s seeing that everything they work for gets given to those that haven’t get pissed off and expend less effort on coming up with ideas. This is elementary sociology.
It’s also false. There are no indications that overall productivity is lower in countries that have higher social safety nets – of course, I’m excluding countries with no safety nets at all, such as China, but the vast majority of Americans wouldn’t want to live with the Chinese standard of living anyway.
A good comparison is Canada vs. the U.S. Canada has enjoyed a higher overall economic growth than the U.S. over the past couple of years, and yet its social safety net is much more developed. Also, one only has to look at economic development in the U.S.S.R. in the early 20th century to the 1960s to see that a centralized economy can achieve remarkable growth. Another good example is China. Of course, human rights records in those countries were dismal, but that goes to show that you can both have a strong economy and an unjust society at the same time. In fact, the two are not really connected…
The misunderstanding comes from the use of the word “equality”, which is often misrepresented by people to the right as meaning “sameness” when trying to denigrate socialism. The fact is that “equality” does not mean “sameness” but rather equality of status. It is not unique to socialism, but is also part of most religions (all men being created equal before God).
This is a separate definition then the one I am referring to. Social equality is what I am talking about .
A demonstration of this favorite myth of the right: if a CEO earns so much money, that’s because he works so hard. Well, the average CEO earns 300x more than the average worker. Does that mean that he works 300 times more? That he is 300 times more skilled/intelligent? Of course not: under the guise of adhering to a meritocracy, the right is in fact defending an unjust system where the privileged get richer, and the poor stay poor despite the fact that they often work a lot harder than members of the better-off elites.
You demonstrate the typical liberal stumbling block of equating monetary gain with work value. Obviously (using your example) someone finds a value in that CEO’s work to pay him 300x more then an average worker which makes them exceptional. Does the average worker have the capacity to be the CEO? Probably not since each person is not equal in ability hence the reason for the difference in pay. This person has done what they have done to succeed in the societal systems we have architected. How is it that I am somehow entitled to benefit from their efforts? How it is since this person is more successful they have to contribute a larger share of their earning to society? Socialism was created by a bunch of poor people trying to figure out how to get rich. The easiest way was to remove exceptionalism, Redistribute hard earned wealth and make everyone socially equal. In America privilege is earned not given away most of the poor are poor because of their own endeavors or lack of motivation. You think Bill Gates was born rich? Steve Jobs? Rockefeller? They worked the system and won I have the same opportunity they have. Simple concepts leftist fail to understand.
A good comparison is Canada vs. the U.S. Canada has enjoyed a higher overall economic growth than the U.S. over the past couple of years, and yet its social safety net is much more developed. Also, one only has to look at economic development in the U.S.S.R. in the early 20th century to the 1960s to see that a centralized economy can achieve remarkable growth. Another good example is China. Of course, human rights records in those countries were dismal, but that goes to show that you can both have a strong economy and an unjust society at the same time. In fact, the two are not really connected…
Canada where it takes weeks to get a simple MRI in it socialized medical apparatus I can get an MRI today if I wanted one. Where on average 30,000 more Canadians immigrate to the US a year then the other way around. Doctors leaving Canada in droves to practice in the US because they can make a lot more money then what the Canadian Government pays them. U.S.S.R which collapsed due to rampant corruption and ultimately lasted a less then a quarter of the time the US capitalistic society had been around. China where there are two classes of people Extremely poor and the rich, A country slowing moving towards democracy and a free market economy. Socialist democracies in Europe that have double digit unemployment rates and the largest economy in Europe suffering from negative economic growth? Yeah….great system.
You think Bill Gates was born rich?
As a matter of fact, he was. He was born into a millionaire family, and is now a billionaire. You don’t think his childhood of privilige helped him? If so, you are naive, to say the least. Though not impossible, there are a very few actual rags-to-riches stories; passing on of privilige from one generation to another is much more common. It has nothing to do with being “skilled” or “valuable”; it has to do with being part of the upper-crust already and thus already having the connections to start closer to the top.
“You think Bill Gates was born rich? Steve Jobs? Rockefeller?”
Just to nitpick. The first was born to a well to do family. Rockefeller’s father was a farmer (had a problem with alcohol). Comfortable for the times. Steve’s parents were a machinist, and accountant.
That doesn’t diminish their works, but neither were they a rags to riches either.
This is a separate definition then the one I am referring to.
It is not a separate definition. I am also talking about social equality, and I don’t understand how someone could be against it.
You demonstrate the typical liberal stumbling block of equating monetary gain with work value. Obviously (using your example) someone finds a value in that CEO’s work to pay him 300x more
I don’t think you understand how this works. CEOs get increases from the board, which is itself composed mostly of CEOs from other companies. The vote themselves increases. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. The rich get richer, the poor stay poor.
Does the average worker have the capacity to be the CEO?
The CEO does not have 300x the ability of the average worker – and, from seeing the performance of some CEOs, there’s a lot of average worker that would do an equally good job! Of course, being a conservative you’ll never accept this. No amount of arguments on my side will make you let go of that myth, because your own worldview is based on it. But the fact remain that the vast majority of CEOs (and other officers) are grossly overpaid for their work – proof that the market isn’t smart nor self-correcting (as we were able to witness in 1929, and why there are so many safeguards that had to be built into the system – making it less “free market” – so it wouldn’t collapse).
How is it that I am somehow entitled to benefit from their efforts? How it is since this person is more successful they have to contribute a larger share of their earning to society?
What country do you live in? In the states, as it is in most western countries, people with more income contribute more to society in order to compensate for the inherent injustice found in the capitalist system (i.e. capitalist exploiting the work of others to increase their own capital).
There is a very pragmatic reason for this. If it wasn’t there, then the rich would eventually find their heads on the end of pikes. If you remove redistribution of wealth, you end up with revolution.
Socialism was created by a bunch of poor people trying to figure out how to get rich.
What a ridiculous, reductive view. Socialism is the natural evolution of an industrialized society, because the “rich” don’t get to be so without the poor’s labour. Capital without a workforce doesn’t do anything.
That’s the problem with most right-wingers. They don’t really have valid counter-arguments so they rely on logical fallacies such as straw men arguments, reduction ad absurdum, ad hominem attacks and the like.
The easiest way was to remove exceptionalism, Redistribute hard earned wealth and make everyone socially equal. In America privilege is earned not given away most of the poor are poor because of their own endeavors or lack of motivation.
Another myth, a very insulting one at that. Obviously you don’t know many poor people. You’ll be surprised to find that most of them work very hard, in difficult conditions. Many have two jobs, and in fact will work a lot harder than the majority of people from upper classes.
By the way, I am what you’d consider an exception. I’ve always easily succeeded at school, I regularly score higher than 150 on IQ tests, I have a high-paying job in a dynamic industry (video games). But it’s not my fault if I’m bright, I’m not responsible for it, I was born like this and my parents nurtured it. Why should I be privileged for things that I’m not responsible for?
You think Bill Gates was born rich? Steve Jobs? Rockefeller?
For every Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, how many thousands who’ve worked just as hard but did not succeed due to chance, circumstances or foul play? This is one of the right’s biggest myths: work hard and you’ll be a millionnaire. Well, I know plenty of people who work hard, and they’re still not stinking rich.
Simple concepts leftist fail to understand.
I hope for your sake you don’t really believe in these smokescreens of the elite to hide their undeserved privileges.
The rest of my response is continued in the next post (damn 8,000 character limit!)
“I don’t think you understand how this works. CEOs get increases from the board, which is itself composed mostly of CEOs from other companies. The vote themselves increases. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. The rich get richer, the poor stay poor. ”
And the people with voting stock?
“(i.e. capitalist exploiting the work of others to increase their own capital).”
*hands paycheck back to boss*
*Hands back slightly used health care benifits*
*Hands back IRA. (gotta love that compound exploitation baby!)*
Canada where it takes weeks to get a simple MRI in it socialized medical apparatus I can get an MRI today if I wanted one. Where on average 30,000 more Canadians immigrate to the US a year then the other way around. Doctors leaving Canada in droves to practice in the US because they can make a lot more money then what the Canadian Government pays them.
Ah yes, the usual myths conveyed by american right-wingers who are opposed to the Canadian medical system.
– MRIs are easier to get now, that was a momentary anomyaly. You may not be able to get them as quickly as you do in the states, but here they don’t cost a thing. Every Canadian can get one.
– Over the past couple of years there has been an increasing number of doctors coming back from the U.S. to Canada, because even if salaries are higher in the states the standard of living is often higher in Canada. However, there’s no denial that doctors make more money in the States, but that only goes to prove my point: health care costs more in the states than in Canada. In other words, you’re defending higher health costs for the population as a whole. Thanks for proving me right.
– As for the number of people migrating to the U.S., I’d like some links as reference please. In itself, it doesn’t prove anything, however. Perception and reality are two things: many people move to the U.S. because they believe it to be the land of opportunity, however many of these people end up in with lower standard of livings than what they would have here. I personally know of at least four people who moved to Silicon Valley and came back because they simply coudn’t stand living there. They made less money here, but their expenses were a lot lower as well and they a lot more services.
U.S.S.R which collapsed due to rampant corruption and ultimately lasted a less then a quarter of the time the US capitalistic society had been around.
I’m sorry, but you’re contradicting your official party line here. It wasn’t corruption that made the U.S.S.R. collapse, it was the high cost of the arms race combined with the Afghanistan quagmire. That’s not me saying this, by the way, but people who hold Reagan as the greatest president the U.S. ever had…
Let’s have a little intellectual honesty, here. You’ll note that I specifically mentioned the U.S.S.R. up until the 1960s. You can’t deny that the economic progress of the U.S.S.R. from 1917 to 1961 is nothing short of remarkable, especially considering the extremely high costs, both human and material, of WWII.
China where there are two classes of people Extremely poor and the rich, A country slowing moving towards democracy and a free market economy.
Ironically, this class division didn’t exist on a widespread scale before China undertook its move towards free-market economy. However, you are completely mistaken when you say that the country is moving towards democracy – it certainly is not! Which proves my initial point, that you can have a free-market economy without democracy. I know right-wingers are practically incapable of understanding this, but China is the glaring example that this is true (Nazi Germany is another good example: it was very corporation-friendly. So was Chile under Pinochet.)
Socialist democracies in Europe that have double digit unemployment rates and the largest economy in Europe suffering from negative economic growth? Yeah….great system.
Not all socialist democracies in Europe have double-digit unemployment rates, and negative economic growth can happen in “capitalist” countries as well, so this argument is not based on reality, but rather on shaky conjecture. You’ll have to do better than that.
However, that’s besides the point as this was not what I was talking about. I wasn’t saying “this system is better”, simply that it is possible to have strong economic growth in a interventionist state, and even in non-democratic states. Economic growth in itself is not an indication of a high standard of living: the distribution of wealth combined with economic growth is.
I have enjoyed our banter. Leftists live in an altered universe and most suffered thorough indoctrination they received at universities and other educational institutions or by state run media outlets. Its not that I do not want to debate you or that I can’t I feel we may have picked the wrong forum for it
and ultimately I won’t convince you of the obvious truths, besides individual freedom of thought and reasoning based on logic is wasted on those that subscribe to the liberal ideology.
I can never understand the thought process that ideas and the sweat that goes into creating something great from said idea should be freely traded
Software isn’t poetry or art, its a piece of engineering. In the engineering world, people share things. They do this to different degrees — academia shares more than industry, and some things (turbine designs) are far too valuable to share, but generally, everybody shares to some extent, simply because that’s the only way to keep the whole machine going. If everybody stopped sharing, you’d have all these bits and pieces of great technology, but nothing would ever fly, or drive, or light up, etc, because they’d just be pieces of technology floating in a vacuum.
Let’s look at the motives for everybody to keep sharing. The easiest one to consider is the government. Government keeps sharing because they are publically funded, its as simple as that. When you work for the government, your ideas generally belong to the public because they were funded by the public. Now, why does academia keep sharing? Primarily, it does so because their income, research dollars, is tied to the volume of their publishing output. Now, why does industry share? Believe it or not, at least a small part of it is the desire to contribute to the knowledge of humanity. A bigger motive is because sharing some stuff keeps the other two groups sharing. Industry is forced to share with the government, because it often depends heavily on government contracts. Industry is forced to share with academia, because if they didn’t, academia wouldn’t provide them with the knowledge that they do, and because if they didn’t, their prospective workforce, which comes from academia, would not have any idea how industry works.
At the most basic level, people share their work because they are forced to use the work of others. Unlike a poet, an engineer (software or otherwise), doesn’t come up with a work from scratch. Not only are his ideas useless without the work of others (what good is an autopilot without a plane, or a web browser without an OS?), but very often his work is directly based upon the work of others (nobody designs an auto-pilot from first-principles).
I’m in awe of your ability to post comment on an unpublished license.
Can I have some of your psychic pills?
“Sure, you can get the source code, _if_ you buy their service contract. Oh, another word for “Service contract” is “recurring cost to the customer.””
You can get the source code for Red Hat Linux regardless of whether you buy a service contract. They are freely available as SRPMS from Red Hat’s website and anyone can redistribute them.
You do need a service contract for errata updates of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, although there are third parties distributing this as “White Box Linux” binaries.
Red Hat also has a completely free distribution called Fedora, with errata updates, but no commercial support.
I vaguely recall reading about that somewhere. Wasn’t it some sort of sort-lived Greek experiment that failed? *grin*
On another FSF license issue, I have been a bit pieved by Debian’s fight with the FSF’s FDL, but then I read their comprehensive list of problems with it.
http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.html
They make some good points. I think I’ll be waiting for some constructive critisim of the new GPL before any converting happens.
“They make some good points. I think I’ll be waiting for some constructive critisim of the new GPL before any converting happens.”
Even if one doesn’t agree with Debian legal. At least they do a good job of arguing their side (remember the firmware issue?), as opposed to the knee-jearkism that passes for discussion out in a lot of the world. Always a good read.
Nobody here knows what GPLv3 will be like. This thread is pretty devoid of substance. It’s like reading reviews on Amazon before something has even been released, which Amazon usually deletes right before it is actually released.
The only people I’ve heard making a great play of something not being a democracy are Born-Again Christians, who like to spout that God is not a democracy, take what we say as the truth or take a walk. Is GPL a religion? If it walks like a duck…
I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that the shine of the GPL is beginning to wear off, and a lot of people are going to start heading in more profitable, better organised, and more accountable directions than nailing their own hides to this arrangement of planks.
Strangely enough, though, it seems the anti-GPL people are the ones engaging in baseless emotional rhetoric.
Is BSD a religion? Probably not, but it sure seems to promote petty factionalism.
Yep, you sure are right. I modded you back up. I wonder if the person who modded you down is the same asshole that keeps modding me down whenever I make a pro GPL post that does not favour the BSD license.
What you are seeing is the fact that osnews.com is blatantly anti GPL and pro BSD, and that many of the readers here are pro BSD as well. If you even dare utter a word against their beliefs you’re suddenly a troll and get modded down. Not on merits, or argumentative ability, but purely because they’re anti GPL.
Try and count the number of BSD license bashing articles that osnews.com has published in the past 12 months to the number of GPL license bashing articles that they’ve published. That will surely prove my point.
I see many of the anti GPL posts are from anonymous cowards. My suspicion is that many of them are people with accounts, who post anonymously, but then log in to make usage of the ability to mod posts up/down to suit their views. I would strongly suggest to osnews.com that they ban anonymous coward posts, and have a tracking system that shows the top ten post modders (both up and down). Then we’ll see trends start to develop and we’ll sort the wheat from the chaff.
Dave
Dave. Spare us the “woe is me” speech. There’s more than enough of that over on Slashdot. The only things we are PRO on is truth, and facts. You want to argue the positive aspects of the GPL? That’s fine. And some of us will argue the negative aspects of the GPL. Some of use will even play devil’s advocate. That’s part of a healthy debate. But whining about you not getting your way is just poor sportsmanship.
As for the AC aspect, in case you forgot. We all are transparent to the administrators of this board. And last, pardon me for being rude, but it’s YOUR JOB to weed the wheat from the chaff. No one elses. That’s why they teach critical thinking in college.
> It’s funny how GPL users feel like they are
> defending freedom,
They are not “defending” freedom, but spreading the idea of freedom by spreading GPL licenced software.
> when the GPL forces them to keep
> their software free.
Freedoms have to be defended from proprietary slavedrivers, and no other licence manages that better than the GPL.
“They are not ‘defending’ freedom, but spreading the idea of freedom by spreading GPL licenced software.”
Isn’t that kind of like spreading democracy at gunpoint? Why not just lead by example and let others decide whether to release their code or not? Or are you only willing to be free if everyone else is, too?
“Freedom” is free from qualifications and requirements. Check out BSD/MIT if you’re unclear on a truly “free” license.
Why not just lead by example and let others decide whether to release their code or not?
That’s precisely what the GPL does. People can choose to release their code under whatever license they wish.
However, if they also choose to include *my* code in their software release, the release of my code along with their code might have additional restrictions.
That’s true whether my code was released under the GPL or released under one of a fairly wide array of other open source licenses, BTW. The GPL is hardly alone in adding restrictions on code redistribution.
People can always choose to not use my code if they are not happy with the license I’ve chosen, or (if the code in question belongs entirely to me) they can come to me to see if we can negotiate another method of licensing.
I’m willing to be flexible if the price is right. 🙂
Or are you only willing to be free if everyone else is, too?
I’m not sure what I would gain by giving freebies to those who aren’t going to give me something in return.
Why should my efforts line someone else’s pockets?
“Why should my efforts line someone else’s pockets?”
So like when you work for Red Hat or some other company and you get a salary and the executives get million dollar bonuses, you’re not lining someone else’s pocket?
Nice job of quoting me out of context. 🙂
It’s obvious that a person who writes code for pay is also obtaining some form of compensation.
If I wrote code on my own time, I’d also like some form of compensation. Sometimes positive user feedback is enough, sometimes it isn’t. That depends on the specific nature of the code being written.
In those instances where user feedback isn’t enough, I would be more likely to use a more restrictive license.
Any other comments?
Isn’t that kind of like spreading democracy at gunpoint? Why not just lead by example and let others decide whether to release their code or not?
I completely fail to see the analogy. A far better example is spreading economic freedom the way the EU is doing. If a country wants to join the EU, one of the first things they have to do is revise their internal economic codes to be in line with the EU’s (generally more capitalistic) economic guidelines. Would you say the EU is spreading economic freedom at gunpoint? Of course not, they are simply imposing the obligations that come along with the benefits of being an EU member.
‘Isn’t that kind of like spreading democracy at gunpoint? Why not just lead by example and let others decide whether to release their code or not?’
“I completely fail to see the analogy. A far better example is spreading economic freedom the way the EU is doing. If a country wants to join the EU, one of the first things they have to do is revise their internal economic codes to be in line with the EU’s (generally more capitalistic) economic guidelines. Would you say the EU is spreading economic freedom at gunpoint? Of course not, they are simply imposing the obligations that come along with the benefits of being an EU member.”
Your analogy fails because you compare it to joining the EU. Using open source code is the equivalent of “doing business with a EU country,” which the GPL then requires countries to become EU-like if they utilize any product of commerce with a EU country. The EU model you present is actually more BSD than GPL. The EU does not have requirements that countries have EU-like economies in order to engage in commerce with EU countries.
Using open source code is the equivalent of “doing business with a EU country
Bullshit. “Doing business” involves a transfer of goods of equal value. When you use open source code in your product, there is no transfer of equal value happening. The use of open source code is the exercise of a privlege, rather than the purchase of a good. Exercising the privlges of an organization almost always requires one to abide by the rules of the organization.
utilize any product of commerce with a EU country.
Utilization is different from derivation. You’re completely free to buy and sell GPL software as you wish. The restrictions come into play when you derive from it.
The EU does not have requirements that countries have EU-like economies in order to engage in commerce with EU countries.
In the sense that the EU is part of the WTO, yes it does. Which means that, even if the rest of your post was right, you’re still wrong.
> Is GPL a religion? If it walks like a duck…
What for example is “religious” with the requirement to not close up other peoples code?
> I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that the shine of
> the GPL is beginning to wear off..
Well, I’m sure you then wont like to hear that the GPL is more popular today then ever before, and its popularity and the pool of free GPL code growing every day.
Is GPL a religion? If it walks like a duck…
What for example is “religious” with the requirement to not close up other peoples code?
1 Timothy 6:10 (King James Version)
“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
This reponse has been brought to you in association with the European Tong-in-cheek Association.
The Eclipse Foundation would consider a move to GPL 3.0, but the gains of such a move would have to be significant for this to happen, Milinkovich said.
Nonsense. Eclipse is going to go nowhere near the GPL. They have commercial, proprietary plugin vendors that depend on eclipse being non-viral.
> I can never understand the thought process that ideas
> and the sweat that goes into creating something great
> from said idea should be freely traded.
Exchangin information freely is a natural legality and a moral right. People have ever since exchanged information and learned from each other.
The copyright system perverted the natural order and legislated an unnatural system of restrictions, EULAS, and non-cooperation, a system maintained by force and threat of legal violence, in case of non complying.
This perversion is now luckily fought back by the Free Software philosophy and its steadily growing pool of free code, free to use, learn from and modify, and totally unencumbered with copyright shit of any kind.
Funny, the GPL crowd strike me as being like people who preach tolerance then throw a total fit when they run into something they don’t agree with. Sorry, did I just accuse the GPL crowd of being a movement to crush anything that isn’t GPL? Wow. Let me pull on a hair shirt and beg forgiveness from Saint Stallman.
Here’s another parallel with religion. Just when the holy prophet has got the maximum number of people sucked into his scam and people begin to wake up to it being just as bad a deal as what the last mad prophet sold, out he comes with another message from the eternal, to keep the troops jollied along and obedient.
I can see this merry dance going on for ever. At least, it will go on until such time as people begin to wake up to where this road is heading and stop giving the frolicking fakir all their attention and cash. Maybe he’ll slink off or, having drank too much of his own message, initiate a group suicide pact.
Wow, just wow… That’s gotta be the highest bullshit-to-substance ratio I have ever seen. What were you hoping to accomplish with that post? Maybe you were merely out to show us how utterly you have misunderstood the point of civilized discourse, or maybe you were just plainly trolling…
> Then don’t call it “Free software.” Call it what it
> really is – “Enforced open source software.” EOSS. New
> acronym.
Free Software is not only “open source”, but guarantees the basic freedoms to any of its current and future users.
Only _one_ of this freedoms is the access to the source.
So if you insist on using the attribute “enforced” on GPLd software, call it “enforced Free Software”.
“Free Software is not only “open source”, ”
No. That’s where the ideology of GPL and the FSF corrupt the definition of “free.” There has long been “freeware” which was software distributed freely but was not necessarily distributed with source code.
> Isn’t that kind of like spreading democracy at
> gunpoint?
No, its like ensuring freedom of every single citizen in a state by legislation, and not allowing anarchy and slavery.
> Why not just lead by example and let others decide
> whether to release their code or not?
Not releasing the code would restrict the users of the software, and deny them the basic freedoms the GPL guarantees _every_ user. Such restrictions should not be encouraged by releasing useful software under a licence that permits such restrictions.
They couldn’t do otherwise, even if they wanted. In the text of the GNU GPL 2 they promised that
(…) new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
How could they make sure that a “similar spirit” is agreed upon if they let the community vote?
> No, GPL users are simply defending their right to
> restrict the way in which the general release of their
> source can be used by other parties.
The GPL does not restrict the way a software can be used. It restricts the software from being relicenced, since the only reason to relicence Free Software under the GPL would be to make it less free than the GPL, and to deny the users the rights they were otherwise guaranteed by the GPL.
It restricts the possibility to make free code unfree, since the “freedom” to restrict rights should not be encouraged, and is the reason the GPL was created in the first place.
> Funny, the GPL crowd strike me as being like people who
> preach tolerance then throw a total fit when they run
> into something they don’t agree with.
I dont see here anybody running berserk except GPL-bashers, who spread their imprudent FUD about it on every single occasion possible.
Oh and that includes your silly religion analogy too.
“Well, Snowball, all pigs are created equal. However, some pigs are more equal”.
{puts on flame-retardant outfit}
It’s certainly a non sequitur, that’s for sure. Technology news interests me but I don’t take a passionate view on the GPL either way. From what I gather, the new GPL licence being written without a democratic process seems perfectly sensible. For a start, how would one decide who was elligible for a vote? Could some arties have more votes…. it would be silly. The piece should be written by experts but with consultation from interested parties. Highly sensible.
And, speaking as a socialist of some 15 years standing, (and this is the only time I will ever mention this on a technology post), I can’t say I see any “socialism” in it. I know two things about Stallman: 1. He looks like a tramp and 2. He’s a liberal (in the old fashioned sense of the word, not the current American usage). I think the poor sod would baulk at the idea (and he probably does) that he and his colleagues are writing socialist licences.
Edited 2005-11-03 19:23
Now I’ve calmed down a bit, there really is too much of an element of religion about GPL, as there is with the other extreme. To some extent, I think, this is a failure typical of the American mindset, which tends to polarise things in a simplistic and over-zealous way. Being European, I more easily see the world in shades of grey. Quite frankly, it’s more than a bit irritating to see this go on as if nobody else exists.
If I’m being serious, I’d like to see the proprietory, BSD, and GPL camps get together and hammer out a consensual view of the bigger picture. This is more likely, in my opinion, to calm things down and get people to better appreciate the merits of other perspectives, and how they might all knit together to form a cohesive whole. If the worst of the distractions can be taken off the table something better may emerge.
*Disclaimer. I’m a Buddhist. Sue me.
The best post I’ve seen in a flame war so far 😉
Negative and positive are perspectives on one underlying reality. I’m happy with that, and science is in lock-step agreement, so anyone who isn’t a raving loony should be happy with that as well. What I am unhappy about is the chaff being thrown up by the main players. Whatever the reality is, this just gets in the way. And that’s unarguably a bad thing.
There’s plenty of amusing and informative comments in here. Really, this is turning out to be much more fun than I thought possible, given the polarised, peurile, petulance that’s been the norm recently.
It’s pretty clear the GPL, BSD, and proprietory routes all have their disadvantages, as Capitalism and Communism have theirs. I agree, all of these are systems which seek to modify human behaviour. It’s their biggest strength and their biggest weakness.
Again, I’d like to lay the challenge down to Stallman et al, that rather than getting hung up on the past, which any codification encourages, instead, they might take a fundamental look at the GPL and see if there is something beyond it. Accept your shame. Try harder.
“It’s pretty clear the GPL, BSD, and proprietory routes all have their disadvantages, as Capitalism and Communism have theirs. I agree, all of these are systems which seek to modify human behaviour. It’s their biggest strength and their biggest weakness.”
Actually, that’s not correct – GPL _does_ try to modify people’s behavior, while BSD _does not_. The GPL clearly puts forth an ideology and demands adherence to it in exchange for use of the code, while BSD makes no imposition on the user at all. The user is free to do what the user chooses with the code.
Freedom Is An Illusion. The absence of visbile constraints sets up a dynamic within the BSD world that amounts to indirect control. It’s a long rope, but it’s still a rope.
> Last I checked I could just walk up to my local park
> with my little sister and just play. No membership
> needed!
But you also didnt have the “freedom” to make the park proprietary and lock everyone else out of it. You would have that dodgy “freedom” if the park was BSD licenced, but the GPL fits the real world better, since it ensures that nobody can restrict access to free goods to profit from this artificial scarcity and uphold that artificial scarcity with legal force.
Let’s see if I can do some ASCII here.
……………Total Code Package
|——————————————–|
|…….BSD CODE……..|.code company writes|
|………..A………..|……….B………|
———————————————-
A is going to be as free from “lockup” as GPL code.
B Is the part that can be “locked up” because as the copyright holder one can do that.
THAT is what all the BSD critics are complaining about when they say “Pick me! pick me! Not him!”.
Arguing back and forth without a definition of freedom is pointless. To me freedome means choice. Thus I’ll always favor the BSD license because GPL essentially takes away choices (namely taking the code and releasing it without the source later).
To me this is an inherent flaw of the GPL because it seems like the reason for the GPL (at least to me) is “we’re not really sure if free software is superior because it’s free so we’ll “force-spread” the freedom”.
BSD on the other hand seems to be driven by “do what you want with the code” knowing that in the end even if you choose to turn the code proprietary users will decide to pick non propriatary code instead.
Also an interesting addition since public domain was mentioned: There is countrys in wich it is impossible to release public domain code because you cannot give away your intelectual property rights.
Also, since working at companys was mentioned:
I think you grant the rights to the code to the company but you’re still the intelectual property owner.