If you release your software under copyleft, and someone else can't use that in another project because they chose an incompatible license, the "hindrance" is entirely their fault, not yours.
Now if someone takes your permissively licensed code and makes it proprietary, THAT is a real hindrance to users of that software, and while it may not be your fault directly, you had the power to stop it because you are the copyright holder and could have copylefted it. So permissively licensed software actually has more potential than copyrighted software in allowing a license to "get in the way."
'Do as you please and leave the copyright' vs. 'Do as you please, leave copyright, distribution requires sources etc...' Which is more permissive? "Permissive" in your sense of the word is entirely a misnomer since it's effectively a permission whitelist not a blacklist.
This is getting to be entirely repetitious since I've had this discussion many times before. I'll let an old post explain why I can never in good conscience put GPL on anything I do : http://eksith.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/gpl-vs-bsd
One persons restriction on what developers can do is another persons "Never able to access the source to devices I own"
I'm sure you have your reasons for disliking the GPL. Many of us love it for those very same reasons, and for the freedom it grants to everyone, not just the immediate recipient.
The GPL and proprietary licenses are both about controlling what other people can do, just in opposite ways. They each address the fear that other people won't play nice. The BSD license sits in the middle and is about trusting people to make good decisions. The trust extends so far that BSD code can be converted to the GPL or a proprietary license.
Do embedded device vendors deserve our trust to make good decisions ? They don't display outright malice, but they are institutionally set up to abandon software after a few years, as software maintenance is only ever a cost center.
Unfortunately management doesn't care about this aspect of their business, and has to be dragged kicking and screaming to a world of user-upgradeable software.
Are you actually comparing Darwin vs Linux, or OSX vs GNU?
Proprietary software has many advantages over Free - heavier corporate investment creates more consistent and polished results. But that doesn't imply that it's better for all purposes, or that a new project is better off choosing a license that makes easy to incorporate into proprietary products.
Darwin is an OS (the kernel is called XNU), so I was comparing it to Linux-based OS's. Darwin is the basis of both OS X and iOS. I agree that whether or not proprietary or copyleft is better or worse for a given situation is hard to say. A BSD license simply leaves the door open.
GPL isn't about control in the way proprietary licenses are, since it grants rights beyond what you would get with no license at all, while proprietary licenses take away rights you would normally have under copyright.
Both the GPL and BSD licenses give developers that want to build on software others wrote rights that they do not have by default.
However, compared to BSD licenses, the GPL gives fewer rights to those 3rd party developers. It also gives users of the software those developers write rights. BSD licenses, on the other hand, leave it to those developers to decide what they want to give their users.
So yes, the GPL isn't about control in the way proprietary licenses are, but it is about control.
No. The GPL is about the users. It empowers those who use the software to have access to the source and in case they are so inclined (say, the developers are a bunch of tools that don't listen to the needs of the users), to be able to run away with the code and continue with real user oriented development. That is, a fork.
This "the GPL gives developers power" is pure FUD that showed up in the 90's as part of the reactionary trantrums throw down by some BSD groupies and by ESR and his gun-toting friends who wanted to sell Free Software to the corporate world, so they corrupted the term and invented Open Source. It just so happens that developers are users too.
So, if you want to strike it rich with open core, sure, you choose a lax license, say MIT or Apache, or even better BSD 2-clause, and when the suckers have implemented all the features and ironed out the bugs, you run away with the code, sell your startup and more power to your bank account in the Caiman's. Right?
So, no. The reason why the corporate world uses the GPL instead of the BSD license for the really important stuff is because it creates a level-playing field. It is the same situation as the Cold War (perhaps you are too young to remember its lessons?): "If you and I can blow each other to bits and take everybody else with us in the process, let's stop and rather do some conquering and plundering together, shall we?" And that's exactly why the mobile space is a nasty, miserable world of patent lawsuits: There are no mutual assurances of total, generalized annihilation if someone doesn't want to play by the rules. Patents are just not it; ask the Chinese.
I agree with that first paragraph. My main disagreement is about your use of 'No'. I don't see how what you say contradicts what I said. Care to explain?
I won't comment on paragraphs 2 and 3, because they, to me, look more like opinions than factual discussion.
The last paragraph, similarly, IMO is not built on facts. "The corporate world uses the GPL" certainly isn't uniformly true. To mention one example: from what I can see, a C compiler is part of the "really important stuff" and clang is more popular than gcc for new developments.
The GPL is not about control, it's about freedom. It gives you all the rights necessary to preserve the four freedoms. The only thing the GPL limits is power; it does not give you the power to take those freedoms away from anyone else.
Because the limitations on power apply to everyone. If neither you or I have power, then neither of us have control over the other. We both stand on the same ground.
If the copyright holder has the same amount of power as the licensee, why does the FSF require copyright assignment for GNU projects?
Copyright holders retain all of the power granted by copyright. The GPL grants only some of that power to licensees. A BSD license grants almost all of it.
- Only the copyright holder can effectively enforce the license on a particular piece of software
- They are in a better position to enforce the GPL than most users
And yes, the reason for the existence of copyleft is specifically to disable the powers granted by copyright that can be used to attack the users' freedoms.
So your language here is the language of control: "enforce", "disable", and "attack" prevention.
The point is simply that there is a power discrepancy between copyright holders and everyone else, and that by limiting power the copyright holders are exerting control over what happens to their creative expression.
I don't really understand why this is contentious, I just see it as a fact about the GPL. The FSF routinely refers to BSD-style licenses as permissive, which means the GPL is restrictive in comparison. "Restrictive" is another way of saying "controlling".
The view of the FSF is that, in the case of software, that power discrepancy is morally wrong. So copyleft was established as a method to disable it.
In this context we don't consider "restrictive" as the opposite of "permissive." The ones who are trying to restrict users are the proprietary software companies. We need to use certain language to draw attention to this because proprietary software developers are trying to downplay the fact that they are restricting their users. The only reason the GPL is not "permissive" is because it does not permit them to restrict users.
Sure, the GPL is more permissive than simple copyright, but it's much more restrictive than BSD-style licenses. The GPL is controlling (compared to a BSD license) in that it seeks to ensure freedom, a proprietary license is controlling (compared to a BSD license) in that it seeks to ensure profit.
> Now if someone takes your permissively licensed code and makes it proprietary, THAT is a real hindrance to users of that software
I look at it as decent screening process. If the only reason the person / company is returning the changes is the license, then it is very probable that I don't really want those changes or to work with them.
Its also a really poor business decision on their part (yet another good reason to not deal with them). They will spend time on their fork and have no influence over the direction of the code.
If a proprietary company decides to modify and distribute GPLed software, then I would say they have been persuaded into a good business decision, because their users will have freedom with that software.
You don't need to work with anyone that you don't want to. The GPL doesn't have a requirement that you need to submit pull requests. All it requires is that if you distribute binaries, you must also distribute source code to anyone who asks, so that the users can have freedom. And if the users have freedom, then anyone can have as much influence on the direction of the code as they want.
Landley speaks to this in his Toybox presentation, noting that the forced source code contributions resulting from the Busybox lawsuits were absolutely worthless.
By that logic, the FSF created a pseudo-proprietary environment where code from several notable projects including the Linux Kernel, have no way of using code or even migrating to the GPLv3.
I don't blame anyone except the FSF for this massive oversight in license compatibility.
They also haven't solved that LibreDWG issue yet, even though they hold all the cards and it would be of literally no effort on their part to fix this mess.
What oversight? They recommend licensing as GPLv2 "or later", but the Linux project didn't accept that, since Linus doesn't like the GPLv3. How is it the FSF fault?
No, but the GPL already included a "or any later version" clause if the copyright holder wanted to make use of it. Were they supposed to force people to accept it to use the GPL? If not, how is it their fault?
Now if someone takes your permissively licensed code and makes it proprietary, THAT is a real hindrance to users of that software, and while it may not be your fault directly, you had the power to stop it because you are the copyright holder and could have copylefted it. So permissively licensed software actually has more potential than copyrighted software in allowing a license to "get in the way."