Nice, Eric...
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| Author | Content |
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| dinotrac Apr 18, 2006 11:36 PM EDT |
ESR's comment on empowerment nicely expresses the mindset behind a number of non-GPL free licenses. Those who consider the GPL to be the only reasonable choice for licensing free software (unlike, say, the apache, postgresql, perl, python, php and scads of other folks) might argue that ESR & company are fools for letting themselves be ripped off by the likes of Microsoft. That's the beauty of freedom: Don't want Microsoft to incorporate your stuff? By all means, release your code under the GPL. Then they will have to be covert (bad) or comply like good little citizens (watch carefully for shadows cast by low-flying pigs). Don't care if Microsoft incorporates your stuff, seeing that as the cost of freedom, somewhat akin to the ACLU defending Nazis and KKK members? Go with a BSD-like license, or, if you're really ready to give up all claims, even public domain. It's all good so long as one important criterion is met: What you actually do is what you intended to do. |
| grouch Apr 19, 2006 1:34 AM EDT |
"Don't care if Microsoft incorporates your stuff, seeing that as the cost of freedom, somewhat akin to the ACLU defending Nazis and KKK members? Go with a BSD-like license, or, if you're really ready to give up all claims, even public domain." Bad analogy. The ACLU increases freedom for all by defending freedom on a case by case basis, regardless of whose freedom is being defended. The BSD license does not protect anything except a copyright notice and the developer(s) from liability. There is the initial code that is freely reusable, but that is the dead end of the freedom. Its reuse may result in reduction of freedom, as in typical Microsoft use. Its reuse may result in increased freedom, also in specific instances, such as the BSD code that used to be in Linux. Since it is agnostic with regards to continued or expanding freedom, the BSD license is not similar to the ACLU's actions. The GPL fits that analogy because it does not restrict usage but does restrict the removal of freedom. The GPL increases freedom with each use, even if it is the KKK that is using it. |
| dinotrac Apr 19, 2006 3:48 AM EDT |
grouch, grouch, grouch, grouch, grouch... The analogy is great. After all, the BSD license increases freedom for all, by offering, on a program by program basis, regardless of whose freedom is being granted. I'm guessing it's the distribution provisions that frost your cookies, as that's the only difference of note between the GPL and other free licenses. You might prefer this analogy: It's kind of like the Congress passing a law seeking to protect the religious freedoms granted in the first amendment by requiring that each and every one of us begin the day going to a public place, getting down on our knees, and praying out loud. Of course, the ACLU might not like that kind of thing (one hopes). |
| Rascalson Apr 19, 2006 4:31 AM EDT |
As has been mentioned before time and again. The BSD license is less free for everyone except the leeches taking code, making money from it and giving nothing back. Some people may "choose" to use the BSD license and there are many successful high quality software projects that are licensed under it. However, the Open Source programming methodology is much the same whether one is licensing under GPL, MIT, Apache, BSD etc. The license is after all just the license. And you can try and spin it anyway you want but when you boil it all down the GPL is still more free than BSD for almost everyone. |
| dinotrac Apr 19, 2006 4:51 AM EDT |
Ah, the sound of zealots chirping in the spring. Again... Freedom ain't freedom if it doesn't let people do things you'd rather they didn't. Oh...and there is the essential freedom of an author to choose his or her license. Perhaps you'd like to stamp that out while you're belly-aching. The GPL is a wonderful license that ensures the transfer of source code. BSD-like licenses are wonderful licenses that permit but do not guarantee the transfer of source code. Different strokes for different strokes. Whether BSD or GPL, once the source is published, it's out there in the public and nobody can take it away. Oh...lest we forget...the GPL also permits leeches to use your code. The only restriction it places is on the redistribution of that code. |
| Rascalson Apr 19, 2006 5:21 AM EDT |
Ah, right off the bat Dino attacking the messenger first and not the message. Your second line does not describe freedom at all it describes anarchy. Your fourth line addresses nothing at all, and implies something that I did not say. And yes they can take it away if its BSD because by licensing something under the BSD you are giving someone else so much freedom that they can, if they are powerful enough and rich enough, take away your freedom to your code as well as your users freedoms. And for your last line you address "use", which has jack nothing to do with providing or guarenteeing any of the freedoms for the code. Again incase you lost sight of the message. Anarchy is not freedom. The BSD gives everything away, including the guarantees of all the other freedoms. |
| tuxchick2 Apr 19, 2006 9:14 AM EDT |
This is fun, can I play? The different licenses address different types of freedoms. The BSD license is very close to public domain; just release the code into the world and hope it finds someone to feed and clothe it. 'leech' is appropriate, as it allows anyone who makes improvements or fixes bugs to keep them all sekkret and not share or give anything back to the nice folks who wrote the original code. But that's the license the devs chose, so there we are. (and then we have the vast amusement of Theo DeRaadt whining about how no one gives back to the OpenBSD project.) I think the GPL is a work of genius, because it enforces a greater freedom- the freedom to participate in and support a large ecosystem of healthy software development. Both devs and users benefit far more than they do under BSD licensed-software. Neither license has any mechanism for preventing the Wrong People from using the software. RMS wants GPL3 to include an anti-DRM provision, and while I sympathize with wanting to stab DRM between the head, and Billg and SonyBMG and Hilary Rosen and Sonny Bono as well, to name but a very few of a long dishonorable list of villains, it's a bad idea. It's too much of a DRM-ish concept itself. |
| Rascalson Apr 19, 2006 10:29 AM EDT |
I agree with your last part. Maybe a simple way to put the difference between BSD and GPL would be that BSD is more open and GPL is more free. |
| jdixon Apr 19, 2006 11:11 AM EDT |
> BSD is more open and GPL is more free. Funny, I would say exactly the opposite. The BSD license means you can do more things with the code (more free), while the GPL means all distributed changes must be made available to all (more open). Oh well, the terms are rather subjective. |
| number6x Apr 19, 2006 11:14 AM EDT |
tuxchick, Don't be too hard on Sonny Bono. In 1986 he starred in a b-class horror movie along with Julia Loius-Dreyfus, and June Lockhart called Troll. The Movie, produced by the famous b-movie mogul Charles Band of Full Moon entertainment, is a great example of how close two creative works can be, without being infringing. Troll was one of those movies that was so bad that it was funny. The basic story line is about a young hero played by Nathan Hathaway who learns the ways of magic from an older witch played by June Lockhart, in order to fight the forces of evil magic that threaten his friends and family. Oh, I forgot to mention that young hero's name... Harry Potter. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092115/ Sonny Bono, who helped create current copyright law, starred in it. So you can hold this up next to the works of J.K. Rowlings created a decade after the movie Troll was released, and show how things can look generally the same, and yet not be similar enough in their specifics to be infringing. Thanks Sonny! |
| hkwint Apr 19, 2006 11:20 AM EDT |
I remember we had this with other people (but WITH dinotrac of course) discussion on LXer before, and the most valuable thing I learned from it, was "One freedom/right may take away another." For example, BSD gives people the freedom/right to leech the code, but it might take away the freedom/right to view the new code after the BSD code is incorporated in closed software. Just like the freedom to place a barbecue in your garden may take away the freedom/right of your neighbor to sit in the garden without the smell of carbonized meat. I consider saying one of the licenses is more free than the other plain nonsense. It's just your initial frame; are you the one willing to use (and not leech) some BSD code to make closed software, or are you a developer willing to use that new code? Are you the one placing the barbecue, or are you the neigbor? In my opinion, the most valuable Freedom of Open Source is the Freedom to choose your own license. (amen) |
| Rascalson Apr 19, 2006 11:32 AM EDT |
It is very subjective. One perspective being that yes "You" may be able to do more things with the code but there are no guarenteed freedoms, thus more "open" may be a better term. Where as the GPL has more guaranteed freedoms but is not as open as the BSD and others. |
| number6x Apr 19, 2006 11:44 AM EDT |
I always look at the founding motives behind the FSF and the GPL. To guarantee the freedom of people to use, modify, distribute the code, now and in all future derivations. It really has more to do with continuing to ensure the freedom of users of code, and for them to have the same freedom in the future as they do now. All of the contributions to GPL'd code are returned to the community, and the users gain from that. The user's freedoms are ensured now, and into the future. If every enhancement made from this point forward to BSD code is locked up by a proprietary software vendor, The users see no benefit. The proprietary vendor may feel more free, but the user's freedom to access those enhancements is more limited. So its really a point of view thing. From the point of view of Microsoft, a BSD license allows them freedom to keep enhancements locked up. From the point of view of the software users, the BSD license denies the user the freedom to access and modify the enhanced code. The GPL would guarantee the user's freedom to browse and modify the enhanced code, but would limit Microsoft's freedom by leaving them no choice but publishing their enhancements. Of course Microsoft is free to quit using other people's copyrighted code altogether, and actually start writing code for themselves. But when you think about the history of the company from their dumpster diving beginnings through the Q-DOS episode and after multiple lawsuits for infringement, this would be a completely new avenue of business for them. :-) |
| tuxchick2 Apr 19, 2006 12:03 PM EDT |
Indeed, 6x. Though the thought of microsoft writing their own code gives me the willies. I mean, like, you know, Windows. Need I say more? I forgot my witty riposte to dino: I love the smell of La Brea in the morning. |
| grouch Apr 19, 2006 6:04 PM EDT |
dinotrac: The ravages of time have obviously and sadly left your gray matter babbling in some dusty corner of your cranium. Your analogy simply cannot be stretched to cover the BSD license. It's a Twiggy-sized piece of spandex on Rosanne. A developer who chooses the BSD license makes only that instant snapshot of code free. The ACLU, in defending the right of the KKK to peaceably march down a public street, does not defend only that instance; they defend the right of all in unknown, unforeseeable but similar situations, to likewise exercise the right of peaceable assembly and political statement. The BSD license is great for infrastructure, such as TCP/IP and OpenSSH implementations, because the availability of a high-quality implementation, which even a leech like MS will use, benefits us all. In this way, just as spandex stretches too far to accentuate too much, that ACLU analogy borne of your crotchety mind is somewhat, distantly relevant. It still does not fit well and leaves much cellulite painfully exaggerated. Again, the GPL fits the ACLU analogy much more closely. Each time a developer chooses the GPL he or she not only makes the instant snapshot of released code free, but ensures that future iterations of that code will likewise remain free. This is similar to the result obtained when the ACLU, in the hypothetical case, wins in court against some local permit requirement that has as its main purpose the placement of selective, local political control over who may peaceably assemble or protest local politics. Just as the freedom of speech includes the obligation to tolerate unpopular speech, the freedoms protected by the GPL include the obligation to tolerate unpopular usage of GPL code. The BSD license is also indifferent to usage, but it does not impose any obligation beyond the copyright notice. It is a gift offering by developers with a very tiny string attached, certainly, but it does not create an obligation of future freedom as does cases won by the ACLU. I am certain that you recognize, even from the depths of your advancing madness and the bowels of your dungeon (do the keepers bring food to you or do they stand at the top of the pit, toss in the occasional sacrificial goat and run before the howls begin?), that both BSD and GPL licenses are necessary and beneficial. My only argument in this instance is that you tried to stuff a rhinoceros into a bikini. The result is painful to witness, for anyone with even an occasional connection to sanity. |
| dinotrac Apr 19, 2006 8:35 PM EDT |
Gosh grouch: So many words to say so little in such an uncreative way. Hmmm. Think I'll stick with my madness. |
| grouch Apr 19, 2006 9:20 PM EDT |
dinotrac: I wasn't trying to be creative. Creative people get paid. Since you won't admit your analogy was drawn in haste, at least admit you were trolling a bit for a BSD-GPL flamefest. IIRC, you used to enjoy pounding on the intolerant ones on either side. [edited to add:] As for my wordiness, my defense is that I've been reading transcripts of SCOG lawyers' presentations. They seem to take pages to say, "I don't know". |
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