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posted by janrinok on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the anything-is-better-than-nothing dept.

Two stories appeared recently, The problem with license trends in Bruce Byfield's Blog on Linux Magazine's site, and the other on ZDNet, titled The Fall of the GPL and the rise of permissive licenses which both point out some worrying trends in open source licensing.

The first point both articles make is that there is an increasingly cavalier choice of open software licenses selected by projects. Many projects seem to choose a license at random or simply adopt what ever license was in vogue on the platform where they started development. Aaron Williamson, senior staff counsel at the Software Freedom Law Center, discovered that 85.1 percent of GitHub programs had no license at all.

Byfield spends much of his article explaining just how hard it is to actually obtain any reliable statistics. So many software sites simply fail to mention licenses in their repository directories, that one is reduced to google searching for license names, which often shows nothing at all. There are few ways to gather any statistics other than brute force download or researching project by project. Byfield's point is that nobody has done this in a believable way.

The trend seems clear that those who do choose a license are increasingly choosing MIT/BSD virtually un-restricted licensing for new projects as opposed to any versions of the GPL. From the ZDnet article:

(Apache/BSD/MIT) ... collectively are employed by 42 percent. They represent, in fact, three of the five most popular licenses in use today." These permissive licenses has been gaining ground at GPL's expense. The two biggest gainers, the Apache and MIT licenses, were up 27 percent, while the GPLv2, Linux's license, has declined by 24 percent.

It could be that those NOT choosing a license are simply tired of the whole argument, realize they will never be in a position to enforce any license anyway, and simply cast their code to the wind and trust to the mantra of "prior art". You would think that the generation that grew up with Groklaw and the SCO wars would actually care about this issue. One would think that watching Apple take BSD from open source to closed source while hurling sue-balls left and right would have served as a warning.

Or it could be a realization that the restrictions imposed by the GPL and other "copyleft" licenses are, in their own way, almost as burdensome as some commercial licenses. Or maybe it is the subtle differences in the GPL, GPLv2, GPLV3, LGPL, LGVLv2, LGPLv3, Affero-v1, Affero-v2, (ad infinitum) are so confusing that even a comparison chart of license features is confusing and bewildering to many who just want to cut code.

Are those of us in the software industry just making a mess for the future with all these licenses? Have we thrown up our collective hands in despair? Has the GPL-style copyleft license outlived its usefulness?

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  • (Score: 2) by Subsentient on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:15PM

    by Subsentient (1111) on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:15PM (#129511) Homepage Journal

    Mostly I do that so I don't need to think about licensing.

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by turgid on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:29PM

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:29PM (#129517) Journal

      There is a problem with that though. I'm afraid I don't have any citations to hand, but I seem to remember some companies (in the USA, where else?) who think it should be their $DEITY-given right to assimilate Public Domain works, for free, and put them under copyright so that some sort of profit can be made from them. I didn't follow the twisted logic but it was of the form that everything possible should be owned by corporations so that a profit can be made because it benefits society in some way. Presumably a small handful of PHBs and lawyers get to make money out of other people's efforts. It follows from Capitalism or something or else it means you're a pinko-commie and probably a liberal.

      As a result, I took to releasing small amounts of pointless code on the Internet under the GPL and LGPL in order to have "prior art" on any daft patent claims and to make it plain that I claim copyright on my work. It really is pretty trivial stuff, but we all know that the IP hoovers of this world claim as innovation...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:29PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:29PM (#129532)

        That is not how copyright works. You can't copyright something that someone else published. You can copyright derivative works, even so minor a derivative as an extra punctuation more, but you can't take the original work out of the public domain.

        You really need to chase down whatever crazy-ass story you heard, because either you heard it wrong or the person who told it to you told it wrong.

        • (Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:58PM

          by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:58PM (#129545) Journal

          It was on the green site a few years back, and I seem to remember some company wanted to get copyright law changed so that any photos uploaded to the Internet by the Little People could be hoovered up (claiming copyright) by companies without asking permission, giving payment or credit if the company thought they could make money out of them. It's not much of a stretch of the imagination that this could be extended for sound/music, video, prose, poetry, program source code... you name it. When you put content up on the internet, make sure you explicitly claim copyright! Otherwise, you might find yourself taken for a ride by these chancers.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:58PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:58PM (#129546)

          Oh course you can copyright somebody else's works, especially if they don't. They, or someone else, needs to challenge you in court if you do. If no one takes you to court then you're scott free.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Sunday December 28 2014, @07:30PM

            by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 28 2014, @07:30PM (#129759) Journal

            IIUC, it's not legal, no matter how you paint it.

            OTOH, the chance of getting caught is pretty slim if you steal from people without a large staff of IP lawyers/searchers. So probably what they were saying was "There's no real chance of getting caught, and even if we are there won't be much punishment.". This isn't always true, as occasionally GPL code will be found in a commercial product, but the demanded recompense is almost always just "remove it", so you could argue there isn't much punishment. (OTOH, it's usually difficult to know who put the code there or why.)

            If you publish code, etc., without a license, then nobody has the right to make copies unless they have a contract with you allowing them to do so. So its essentially useless as a help of further development. My favorite license is the GPL, but those with different goals properly choose a different license.

            Responding to an earlier post, Apple did not close BSD. BSD is still open. Apple made a closed source fork of BSD, which is allowed by the license, and is often the intended purpose of code written using that license. (If it isn't, you should choose a different license.)

            FWIW, my favored license is the AGPLv3, but for maximal compatibility I often choose the GPLv2. (The original GPL is not a good choice under any circumstances that I can think of, unless you have a particular need for an existing code base that uses it.) I don't know why one would choose the MIT license over the BSD license, but the MIT license seems about equivalent.

            --
            Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
        • (Score: 4, Informative) by caseih on Saturday December 27 2014, @11:34PM

          by caseih (2744) on Saturday December 27 2014, @11:34PM (#129594)

          But with software that distinction hardly matters. Your public domain code can be placed in a proprietary product, and completely hidden from view in compiled form. Public domain, in short, has no way to ensure that people who use the code keep it open and accessible. It's completely the opposite. If you want your code to stay free and open, you must pick a license that will ensure this.

          This is the reason I default license all my work under the GPLv2, and some under the GPLv3. The GPL gives me the freedom to develop and publish my code for my own use and benefit. If someone else finds it useful, great. They can hack away, and everyone benefits. If anyone actually finds my code valuable (which is unlikely but hey), the can negotiate a suitable license with me the copyright holder and pay for the right to use it. I don't see the benefit of using any other license, especially for one-off github repos. If something actually became popular, I would consider multi-licensing it under the GPL and something else. With the provision that any accepted patches would also have to be dual-licensed.

          • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday December 28 2014, @12:07PM

            by TheRaven (270) on Sunday December 28 2014, @12:07PM (#129675) Journal

            If you want your code to stay free and open, you must pick a license that will ensure this.

            The problem with this reasoning is that you're assuming that most people who improve software then publish the results. Last statistics that I saw showed that around 10% of the total workforce for programmers were working on COTS software, the rest worked on in-house projects. These people are under no obligation - with any version of the GPL (aside from the AGPL if they run a public web app) - to contribute their changes to anyone else. Google is a good example of this: they didn't have to contribute back any of their GoogleFS changes to the Linux kernel, and chose not to because they saw them as providing a competitive advantage.

            In companies that I've consulted for, I've seen a significant trend to avoiding GPL'd code for in-house projects. Or, if they do use them, to make sure that they never distribute any derived works. Companies that are quite happy to publicly admit to using BSDL code and share their improvements will flat-out deny using [L]GPL'd code.

            --
            sudo mod me up
          • (Score: 2) by metamonkey on Monday December 29 2014, @05:40PM

            by metamonkey (3174) on Monday December 29 2014, @05:40PM (#129991)

            The only things I'd consider releasing under a non-GPLed license are some libraries, simply because I think I'd be more likely to get improvements from the community by using a more permissive license like MIT.

            If I write a material design button library for Android 5, I'd like to share it, but I just don't think people would want to go through the record-keeping required by the LGPL. They're making a commercial app, they just want a damn button library, and they don't want to think about the implications of "infecting" their app with the GPL. Nor with making available the source for the portions of the library they used. It's just a lot of bookkeeping to get some pretty buttons. Instead, I think I'd be more likely to get contributions by using the MIT license. They'll use my buttons, wrap them up in their closed-source app, I don't care, and then probably share any improvements they made back. But if I LGPL it...I just don't think anybody would use it. I'd rather have wide adoption with non-guaranteed returns than low adoption with guaranteed returns.

            Completely different for a full-fledged project. That gets GPLed. But a library? MIT.

            --
            Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:23PM

        by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:23PM (#129574) Homepage Journal

        In the US, copyright is automatic. Once you publish a work, it's yours until long after you're dead. You only need to register your copyright with the copyright office if you think you might need to sue someone for infringement. There's no way for Adobe to take your code and claim ownership once you've published it.

        If you want your work used freely, that's your choice. But you still hold copyright and the corporations can't have it.

        --
        mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:47PM (#129521)

      If only "public domain" where that simple.

      Here's some background on why CC0 (Creative Commons "No Rights Reserved" license) is more public than public domain is:

      The Problem

      Dedicating works to the public domain is difficult if not impossible for those wanting to contribute their works for public use before applicable copyright or database protection terms expire. Few if any jurisdictions have a process for doing so easily and reliably. Laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction as to what rights are automatically granted and how and when they expire or may be voluntarily relinquished. More challenging yet, many legal systems effectively prohibit any attempt by these owners to surrender rights automatically conferred by law, particularly moral rights, even when the author wishing to do so is well informed and resolute about doing so and contributing their work to the public domain.

      A Solution

      CC0 helps solve this problem by giving creators a way to waive all their copyright and related rights in their works to the fullest extent allowed by law. CC0 is a universal instrument that is not adapted to the laws of any particular legal jurisdiction, similar to many open source software licenses. And while no tool, not even CC0, can guarantee a complete relinquishment of all copyright and database rights in every jurisdiction, we believe it provides the best and most complete alternative for contributing a work to the public domain given the many complex and diverse copyright and database systems around the world.

      https://creativecommons.org/about/cc0 [creativecommons.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:00PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:00PM (#129547)

      I've considered Public Domain or BSD or DWTFYL but end up using MIT as it includes a patent disclaimer.

    • (Score: 2) by davester666 on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:55PM

      by davester666 (155) on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:55PM (#129566)

      One would think that watching Apple take BSD from open source to closed source while hurling sue-balls left and right would have served as a warning.

      Not sure what this is about.

      Apple pushes patches to open source stuff all the time, as well as open sourcing a bunch of software, and publish updates to their software as they release new versions. Hell, they bought cups, employee the guy who wrote it and continue to publish updates to it.

      And I haven't read anything about Apple suing people over open-source code. And I'm pretty sure that would make the news.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:20PM (#129514)

    Hasn't GitHub attracted a large share of casual projects (i.e. relatively niche applications with no overarching ambitions)? For these projects, the authors may lack concern or motivation to enforce a non-permissive license.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @12:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @12:23AM (#129601)

      This is pretty much it. It's not that some kind of community shift has taken place, it's that a bunch of casual programmers have started sharing their stuff. Asking whether the GPL has outlived its usefulness is about as cogent as, for example, asking whether the desktop has outlived its usefulness because of all the mobile phones that are now sold.

    • (Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Sunday December 28 2014, @11:47AM

      by wantkitteh (3362) on Sunday December 28 2014, @11:47AM (#129674) Homepage Journal

      That's exactly what I immediately thought when I read the 85.1% statistic. I'm sure there are some projects in there that probably ought to have a license for the author's protection, but I would be very surprised if the vast majority of those projects are actually worth the author(s) spending any time at all selecting and implementing license protection on. I've "abandoned" a project or two to public access online repositories after they've served their purpose and become obsolete, sounds more like the GPL people are butthurt that less people consider their efforts worthwhile these days.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:27PM (#129516)

    "GPL-style copyleft license outlived its usefulness?"

    GPL-3 drove a stake through it's heart.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:31PM

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:31PM (#129519) Journal

      GPL-3 drove a stake through it's heart.

      There is nothing to stop you using earlier versions of the GPL.

      I'm very disappointed at the apparent support for the embrace-and-extend licenses these days (e.g. BSD). Does no one remember the 1980s anymore?

      • (Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:52PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:52PM (#129522)

        > Does no one remember the 1980s anymore?

        Probably not, most people coding nowadays barely remember a world before linux. It is kind of like all those women who like to declare they aren't feminists because they are too young to know how much it sucked to be female 40 years ago. Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure.

        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:03PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:03PM (#129527)

          Go back to tumblr.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Arik on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:13PM

        by Arik (4543) on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:13PM (#129529) Journal
        "I'm very disappointed at the apparent support for the embrace-and-extend licenses these days (e.g. BSD). Does no one remember the 1980s anymore?"

        They barely remember the naughties, and you want them to remember the 80s?

        Hipsters love Apple and Apple's choice of license, and aren't going to remember anything that causes cognitive dissonance with those basic premises in any case.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by digitalaudiorock on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:32PM

        by digitalaudiorock (688) on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:32PM (#129534) Journal

        I'm very disappointed at the apparent support for the embrace-and-extend licenses these days (e.g. BSD).

        I suppose there's a mentality that goes like "as long as I can do what i want with it, I don't care what anyone else does with it", but I'd guess that could be a dangerous assumption. I confess I'm not really up on the nuances of the various licenses and I'm certainly no lawyer, but this is the concern I'd have: a) guy writes software as public domain or whatever, b) Big Co Inc copies it, adds a feature, and calls that theirs, c) guy adds similar feature to the public version, d) Big Co Inc sues guy. Even if they theoretically couldn't do that I'd be concerned it could come down to who can afford the lawyers.

      • (Score: 2) by fnj on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:37PM

        by fnj (1654) on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:37PM (#129535)

        I'm very disappointed at the apparent support for the embrace-and-extend licenses these days (e.g. BSD).

        Not to take away from your right to be disappointed, but why? Do you have any rational reason for being disappointed in use of the BSD license?

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:49PM

          by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:49PM (#129538) Journal

          Yes, it erodes the effort being put into GPL code, which ensures the rights of the end-user/developer in ways that the BSD license does not. We are where we are today because of the GPL and LGPL. FOSS would still be a niche if it were not for GNU.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:56PM

            by frojack (1554) on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:56PM (#129567) Journal

            Wait, so you are disappointed in the BSD license because people seem to like it better than the license you favor?
            While I suppose that is your right, it seems sort of shallow.

            Why are so many developers and projects voting with their feet contrary to your wishes? Apache and MIT licenses, were up 27 percent, while the GPLv2 has declined by 24 percent.

            The BSD license must have some draw, some appeal that is beating the GPL.

            If someone can write a piece of software and grab some utilities out of BSD and satisfy the requirements of the license by leaving the "by-line" in the code as opposed to forever bearing the burden of supplying source code for an equivalent "borrow" of code from Linux, why in hell would they use Linux (GPL) code?

            There are many companies who go to great lengths to root out any GPL code in their products because their lawyers advise them (rightly or wrongly) of the "GPL Infection". The infection has never been settled in court, so to this day it is still perceived as a real risk, even when most GPL advocates claim it is not.

            The relevant section of the GPL is this:

            b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

            The sentence itself is ambiguous, and in-spite of many protestations to the contrary, lawyers do indeed see that as a serious risk. (Stallman himself has weighed in on both sides of the issue over the years). The whole debate about linking to libraries [illinoisjltp.com] further entrenched the "infection" fear.

            So bringing it back on point, is it possible that the reason the GPL is falling in popularity is because it has abusive clauses that limit people's rights more than the protect them?

            --
            No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
            • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Pav on Sunday December 28 2014, @07:19AM

              by Pav (114) on Sunday December 28 2014, @07:19AM (#129648)

              IMHO the reason for the GPL losing favour is professionalism, but that's not flattery ie. many more FOSS coders are working on someone elses dime, and are therefore less free. Most must leave license choice to others, or choose a permissive license out of fear of being seen as less valuable in a tough employment environment. Also, many new FOSS coders are just out to make a buck in the environment they find themselves in and don't give a toss if they're working on free software or not. Many from the younger generation are aspiring company men or entrepreneurs, and have no idea about the divisiveness and litigation of the Unix wars ie. why the GPL became popular in the first place.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @11:40PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @11:40PM (#129810)

                GPL losing favour

                Among the previous analysis at the other site was the revelation that the premise was bullshit. [googleusercontent.com] (no orig link[1]) [gogle.com]

                [1] I'm not linking directly to the other site any more. If the link is broken because Dice Holdings is still screwing around, I advise you to substitute a valid 12-character string for the bogus one following q=cache:

                -- gewg_

              • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday December 29 2014, @03:44AM

                by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 29 2014, @03:44AM (#129860) Journal

                There is no valid data. Read the beginning of the blog post and you will see both the Red Monk studies and their main source, Black Duck Software mentioned. Yes, it's noise from Black Duck again. In case you missed it, Black Duck [techrights.org] is a mouthpiece for M$. It and Redmonk [techrights.org] seem to exist to spread anti-GPL FUD. Bruce Perens called Black Duck out on it once and encouraged others to see through their bullshit.

                --
                Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
          • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Hairyfeet on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:55PM

            by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:55PM (#129583) Journal

            So in other words IP is bad only if it isn't ours [tmrepository.com] along with a little FOSS is my religion [tmrepository.com], spoken like a true zealot.

            Remember kiddies freedom means you are free to choose things OTHER than FOSS but the zealots do not believe in freedom, because to them the only "freedom" is the fredom to do as they say and be like them. I leave you with a few words of wisdom from one of my favorite bands..

            You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
            If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
            You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
            I will choose a path that's clear
            I will choose freewill

            --
            ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @08:02AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @08:02AM (#129653)

              If you have choose freewill, it is already too late, you are not free. You have to have some reason to choose freewill, and if you have a reason to do so you could not have done otherwise: in other words you are compelled. So back to the original point, you have freewill if you do not choose to have freewill, for if you already have it you cannot possibly choose to have what you already have! So clearly you cannot choose the freewill in front of you! [Truely I have a dizzying intellect. Just wait till I get started!] But if you have no freewill, you cannot possibly be free to choose to have freewill, since you have none. I hope this is all clear now, and I wish you the best in coming to the realization of your inherent freedom and liberation from your Redmond overlords. Seasons Libre!

          • (Score: 2) by fnj on Saturday December 27 2014, @11:49PM

            by fnj (1654) on Saturday December 27 2014, @11:49PM (#129595)

            I was pretty sure that was your line of thinking, but I didn't want to be presumptuous.

            It escapes me how the BSD license could erode the "effort being put into GPL code" in any way. In fact I'm quite sure it doesn't, and no license could. You pick the license that harmonizes best with your goals. And I wouldn't give a fig for what anybody else was picking.

            If you start your own project, by all means use the license you prefer. If it's a question of contributing to somebody else's project, you're going to maybe have to decide whether or not to contribute based on the license it uses.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @03:50PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @03:50PM (#129711)

            Yes, it erodes the effort being put into GPL code, which ensures the rights of the end-user/developer in ways that the BSD license does not. We are where we are today because of the GPL and LGPL. FOSS would still be a niche if it were not for GNU.

            Just like the Komintern ensured the equality of the People, right?
            BSD(2,MIT,etc) is a license that acknowledges that there is something called copyright used to oppress the masses - and then proceeds to piss over it and give all users(regardless of their ulterior motives) the moral equivalent of Public Domain. This is what freedom and civilization is all about.
            The GPL, on the other hand, grabs the copy-right and flings it towards the same people it's said to protect so it may hit some opressor.
            The dictatorship of the proletariat.

            PS: As an aside, I find the abuse of the word "freedom" by the gnu-mongers totally abhorrent. War is peace at its best.
            Come back when you understand Freedom.

          • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday December 28 2014, @07:40PM

            by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 28 2014, @07:40PM (#129760) Journal

            The GPL does not directly benefit the developer. It indirectly benefits the developer by requiring that published code developed using what he wrote as a basis is made publicly available under the same license if it's made publicly available at all. If the GPL benefits any isolated entity, it benefits the code itself.

            What the GPL does is allow a system of code development where improvements accumulate, and it thus benefits the system. The difference from BSD is that in BSD forks tend to split off and become isolated. In GPL they always have the potential of merging back. Both have their advantages, but I prefer the GPL. OTOH, it's quite reasonable for groups with large development staffs to prefer the BSD.

            --
            Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
            • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Monday December 29 2014, @01:25PM

              by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 29 2014, @01:25PM (#129947)

              Since GPLv3 this is not the case, and if there is a decline that is (IMO) one of the causes.

              GPLv3 is deliberately incompatible with its previous version, thus fragmenting the code ecosystem, effectively into three - GPLv2 only, GPLv2 or later, and GPLv3. Any project fork that accepts GPLv2 code cannot, ever, merge back with a fork that accepts GPLv3 code. The BSDs have never ever been this stupid with versions of the "same" licence.

              Just look at the matrix here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#v2v3Compatibility [gnu.org]

              It's not the "no"s or even the "Ok"s its the dozens of yellow ok-if and the nine or so footnotes, and the fact that rarely will you be copying or linking just two pieces of code, so you need to do this matrix again and again. GPL licensing just got 10x more complex with the advent of GPLv3, and if you need to get corporate lawyer approval then that means more than 10x as expensive and much more likelihood of a "no".

              • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday December 29 2014, @08:09PM

                by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 29 2014, @08:09PM (#130020) Journal

                I understand your point of view, and it's not invalid. However I believe that there were problems with international law that caused the GPLv3 to be needed. (I have never understood what those problems were, so don't ask me.) As for "incompatible" the FSF always recommended that you include the "or later" in your GPL license. This has always bothered me as it means trusting that the FSF will continue to support Free Software, but if you don't include it, then there will be incompatibility between any two versions of GPL licensing (unless there are special hard coded exceptions).

                The GPLv2 *should* be sufficient, but there were also problems about patents. I suspect that the laws have been so written that there will be problems with any possible legal license, but I'm not sure. The real strength of the GPL is copyright law, and you don't get called on that unless the copyright owner chooses to do so. But there are lots of corner cases that aren't clear, and perhaps would be interpreted differently in different countries. E.g., if you have a license to use a particular software patent, but don't have the right to sublicense it, is it legal to distribute GPL code that uses that patent? In the US it's clearly illegal to sell such code, but IIUC it's not clear whether you can distribute it. The GPLv3 clarifies this point. (You've got to be able to license any patents used in the code, and the license must be included with the code.) I don't like that either, as it messes up what was a nice and clear license. But corner cases need to be dealt with.

                --
                Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
                • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday December 30 2014, @12:58PM

                  by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 30 2014, @12:58PM (#130181)

                  I understand your point of view, and it's not invalid. However I believe that there were problems with international law that caused the GPLv3 to be needed. (I have never understood what those problems were, so don't ask me.) As for "incompatible" the FSF always recommended that you include the "or later" in your GPL license.

                  If it were just redrafting to be clearer and to "work" in more jurisdictions, then there would not be any incompatibility. Sadly, the GPLv3 is in fact more restrictive than v2 and hence falls foul of v2s "not impose any further restrictions". Note that it is _any_ further restrictions, additional restrictions that you might be ok with or that rms thinks are a good idea are still not acceptable. The incompatibility is there in fact because the GPLv2 _works_.

                  Using "or later" is an issue of trust, as you say, and that trust has now been lost because rms/FSF had a Vader moment and chose to create a more restrictive GPL. Should we just pray that he does not alter the deal any further ? Using "or later" means that your code can be embraced and extended into a codebase under a more restrictive licence that you disagree with - just the same problem as BSD code (and just the same counter argument - i.e. your original v2 code is still there), but then you may as well use BSD, at least your code will be compatible with GPL v2 and v3 that way.

                  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday December 30 2014, @07:24PM

                    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 30 2014, @07:24PM (#130290) Journal

                    Actually, the "or later" clause would allow the license to be EITHER restricted or loosened. Restricted is less immediately effective, because the code continues to be available under the prior license.

                    OTOH, I'm not quite sure what particular part of the GPLv3 you are objecting to. Any change would render it incompatible, whether it tightened or loosened conditions. And it's my understanding that changes were needed. When you say "conditions were tightened" I don't know what in particular you were talking about, because for my use case there weren't any changes, except that the licenses were incompatible, and this would have been true if the GPLv3 were word-for-word the MIT license, so "tightened conditions" isn't guaranteed to be the cause of the incompatibility. (Well, if it were the MIT license you'd be able to use it in GPLv2 projects, but not conversely unless the "or later" clause were present.)

                    --
                    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 1) by quixote on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:53PM

        by quixote (4355) on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:53PM (#129542)

        "One would think that watching Apple take BSD from open source to closed source while hurling sue-balls left and right would have served as a warning."

        Embrace and extend licenses, indeed. Not just Apple. The Goog did the same thing. Android is linux, plus a bunch of ooh-shiny Dalvik stuff they could use to ring-fence it. They've been so successful at BS-ing everyone that your regular man/hipster/whoever-in-the-street doesn't even know it's linux.

        The RedHat guy was just saying how open source is now everywhere. Instead of being glad, like I once thought I would be, all I can think is,

        "Yeah. Now that corporations have figured out how to own it."

        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday December 28 2014, @07:44PM

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 28 2014, @07:44PM (#129763) Journal

          The GPL underpinning of the Android is still there, so if you want you can strip the proprietary gizmos out of your phone. Unfortunately, government regulations require that certain parts of the phone be restricted access, and you don't have the right to write code to access them.

          I.e., there are very good reasons why there's no really open source phone, and it doesn't have anything to do with technology.

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29 2014, @12:01AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29 2014, @12:01AM (#129812)

            Much of Google's code is open and reusable.
            You don't, however, get to reuse Google's trademarks without adhering to their terms.

            -- gewg_

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:56PM

        by frojack (1554) on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:56PM (#129544) Journal

        I'm very disappointed at the apparent support for the embrace-and-extend licenses these days (e.g. BSD).

        BSD licenses aren't "embrace and extend".

        All it says is leave our copyright in it and do with it what you want.
        It has changed slightly over the years, but they are pretty much effective the same. Its short and sweet. Read it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses [wikipedia.org]

        Virtually nothing in it is remotely like Embrace and Extend [wikipedia.org]. Its Free as in beer AND free in as libre.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:04PM

          by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:04PM (#129551) Journal

          Think about compilers and programming languages. Supposing a large corporation comes along and "leverages" (I hate that term) a BSD compiler infrastructure to implement a compiler for a shiny new language for its proprietary platform. Now, suppose they don't release the source code for their compiler front-end for their new shiny language, but they give the binary away for free. Next they stop giving the binary away for free. Then, they change their platform and you can;t run any of your old programs any more without buying a new platform and a new compiler binary. But someone comes along to implement another free compiler for that language, but they copyright, patent or withhold some important details of the language and its implementation. What happens to all that code you wrote? Do you fancy starting all over again in a new language? Ever been burnt like this? People have short memories.

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:12PM

            by frojack (1554) on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:12PM (#129571) Journal

            Now, suppose they don't release the source code for their compiler

            Your problem. Read the license.

            You always have the ability to re-write some of your code to use the BSD Compiler.

            I've been through this several times, when my predecessors at my Day Job bet on the wrong compiler, and implemented some functionality using compiler specific APIs. Anything that can be done in one syntactically closed language can be done in another. So we simply wrote replacement APIs, using the SAME names, and inputs and outputs into a private library for the new compiler. Presto, chango, no source code scanning and fixing.

            We learned our lesson, and never relied on compiler APIs again if there were alternatives. And when we had to, we wrapped all such API calls in our own library subroutines such that we would only have ONE place to fix for future moves.

            In short, your example isn't that convincing, because you started with a non-open product and acted all surprised when you found out. And switching compilers is not the end of the world for any professional.

            --
            No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
            • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday December 29 2014, @07:14PM

              by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday December 29 2014, @07:14PM (#130007) Journal

              So we simply wrote replacement APIs, using the SAME names, and inputs and outputs into a private library for the new compiler. Presto, chango, no source code scanning and fixing.
               
              Of course, according to Oracle you have violated the author's copyright by doing so.

          • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday December 28 2014, @12:19PM

            by TheRaven (270) on Sunday December 28 2014, @12:19PM (#129679) Journal
            We don't forget that kind of thing, but we also see that the GPL doesn't actually prevent it. Lots of companies did similar things with GCC, open sourcing some part that produced or consumed a proprietary intermediate representation (depending on whether they wanted a proprietary front end or back end) and then having a proprietary program that talked to this. Yet for those of us wanting to, for example, integrate GPL'd code into an Apache project were hit by license road blocks.
            --
            sudo mod me up
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @12:35PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @12:35PM (#129682)

              You can work around it, however it diminishes capitalistic zeal to a certain extent. The R programming language is a good example - it's very popular and the big software houses play up their interop capabilities, but they don't seem to be competing with new-and-improved variations the way they do with Hadoop, for example.

          • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday December 28 2014, @02:02PM

            by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Sunday December 28 2014, @02:02PM (#129692) Journal

            Read the above and laugh folks, because you only have to change a few lines to get an RIAA screed because BOTH are based on "ZOMFG what if they STEAL THE BITS!"

            News Flash you cannot steal the bits as the BSD original? STILL THERE. Now where have we had to explain this before? Oh yeah RIAA goons trying to use Newspeak to make copying into shoplifting.

            This is how you can spot a zealot folks, when their FUD can be swapped with any *.A.A FUD with just a few word swaps. Both are based on the fallacy that one can "steal" something that can be infinitely copied for free. The only difference is the *.A.A does it for fear of losing profit, the FOSSie because of jealousy that somebody else might make a buck. They both have to use FUD and ever more bullshit "what if?" that can be destroyed with 3 seconds of logic because they don't have a leg to stand on. So let me make it perfectly clear,mmkay? You cannot "steal" the BSD code because THE CODE IS STILL THERE, anybody can still use the original code and do as they will...can somebody modify it and keep their modified version? Sure they can, just as TiVo did with GPL, so what? Then THEY have to constantly tweak their code and waste time trying to keep it synced with upstream...this bothers the BSD code how exactly? Its still there, you an still use it, its not a finite resource anybody an "steal" so drop the RIAA FUD, it just makes you look like a zealot.

            --
            ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
            • (Score: 2) by Pav on Sunday December 28 2014, @06:40PM

              by Pav (114) on Sunday December 28 2014, @06:40PM (#129747)

              The RIAA care about the content owners. Not the movies/music. Not the artists (though they often spin it this way - Hollywood accounting testifies to the contrary). It's only about the interests of content owners.

              The GPL only cares about software users. Not incompatible business models. Not the developers (or at least not rights beyond those they have as users). It's only about the interests of users, be they contributors or not.

              These positions might seem equally unfair until one considers that the GPL empowers the many at the expense of the few, and RIAA empowers the few at the expense of the many. BSD is no-holds-barred, which ultimately favours the powerful - the BSD heirarchy is developers over users, and companies/capital over developers. Linux would have never prevailed against Microsoft if it were BSD licensed.

              • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday December 29 2014, @03:05AM

                by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday December 29 2014, @03:05AM (#129851) Journal

                Lets see which meme you used, shall we? Oh its a classic, the always popular ok when we do it [tmrepository.com] (quite popular with dems and repubs) although you could also go with hypocritical freedom [tmrepository.com] or software freedom [tmrepository.com] just depending on which vibe you are going for.

                In the end it won't change reality which is you are the *.A.A are the same, you are using the same bullshit "what ifs", ytou are spewing the same FUD, and you BOTH are going by the fallacy that you can "steal the bits" which is fucking stupid and ignorant when THEY do it and ya know what? Its STILL FUCKING STUPID AND IGNORANT when YOU do it! Just because you wave a little penguin flag doesn't make your FUD any less stinky, all it does is spread the shit smell.

                But at the end of the day it does illustrate nicely you and the *.A.A are just two sides to the same rotten coin, one can't stand the thought of losing a hypothetical profit, the other can't stand the thought that anybody else might make a buck, total crab bucket mentality. Tomato tomahto.

                --
                ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
                • (Score: 2) by Pav on Monday December 29 2014, @04:36AM

                  by Pav (114) on Monday December 29 2014, @04:36AM (#129867)

                  Noone is trying to change the license you use. If you want to lock yourself into a BSD prisoners delemma where the first entity to successfully defect wins big, then more power to your arm. Perhaps you own a large development company and can throw more coder-hours than any opposition into successfully forking/closing the code if/when it becomes financially worthwhile - in that case your choice is rational. Those of us who would prefer to avoid such scenarios will continue choosing GPL.

    • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:33PM

      by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:33PM (#129579) Homepage Journal

      Well, hello, Mr. Nadella!

      "Outlived its usefulness"? Guess what, I'm using a CC license for my books, spelled out in the title pages.

      GPL-3 drove a stake through it's heart.

      OK, since we're attempting humor, how do you kill a fat vampire?

      Drive a steak through his heart.

      --
      mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
      • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday December 28 2014, @02:22PM

        by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Sunday December 28 2014, @02:22PM (#129697) Journal

        Make your snark all you want, you cannot change reality which is that RMS used the GPL to target a specific company in a childish and vindictive manner...you thought this would have no consequences? What non GPL based company is gonna want their employees to go within 100 yards of the GPL after RMS used the license as a platform to attack a single company? Balmer should have sent RMS a fruit basket because that giant fuckup sent FOSS back a good decade. Everybody laughed at Balmer and his "GPL is a virus"...until RMS used GPL V3 as a weapon, companies stopped laughing right then and there.

        So go right ahead and make your jokes, won't change reality which is GPL is dropping fast, Linux on the desktop has dropped so low its getting curbstomped by "other" [hitslink.com] and has actually gotten below the margin for error. BTW you might want to look up the statistics for GPL adoption and Linux adoption because before RMS stuck his nasty foot in his mouth [youtube.com] both were GOING UP, they had all kinds of positive buzz, and there were tons of articles on how business and FOSS could get along, after he used the GPL as a club against his enemies? Yeah go see for yourself, after that little stunt GPL started a perfect arrow curve going down and last I checked has NEVER recovered, nor has it had a single truly positive month since.

        But hey, what does figures and reality have to do with anything right? BTW have you seen a commercial where a bunch of chimps cheer and party because of a chart that it turns out is turned upside down? For some reason that commercial just popped into my head, can't imagine why.

        --
        ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29 2014, @12:23AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29 2014, @12:23AM (#129815)

          TiVo did an end-run around the spirit of the GPL.
          GPLv3 closed the loophole in GPLv2 that was exploited via TiVoization.

          A dev can still CHOOSE which version of GPL he wants to use for his from-scratch project.
          This might be difficult to fathom for someone who embraces The M$ Way, where, if you don't pay for the **most recent** M$ license, you have slipped off the compatibility treadmill.

          -- gewg_

          • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday December 30 2014, @10:10PM

            by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 30 2014, @10:10PM (#130347)

            TiVo did an end-run around the spirit of the GPL.
            GPLv3 closed the loophole in GPLv2 that was exploited via TiVoization.

            That is one opinion.

            Personally, I can't square that with the "loophole" that is closed in GPLv3. The text that closes it limits itself (and therefore the "loophole") to one specific class of device - "user product" (roughly appears to be consumer device, i.e. a "pro" device or industrial device or similar is not covered). This is therefore a discrimination (additional conditions) against certain developers, effectively a field-of-use restriction, and a favouring of a certain class of users with more rights than others. To me, the spirit of the original GPL was always to have _no_ field of use restrictions and _no_ discrimination among classes of users, and in fact the FSF have previously campaigned against field-of-use restrictions in other licences, particularly patents (not sure if they still do).

            I cannot see how a "loophole" that only applies to a certain field of use was in fact an end run around the spirit of the original licence which did not discriminate on fields of use at all.

            A dev can still CHOOSE which version of GPL he wants to use for his from-scratch project.

            Of course they must be careful if using GPLv2 not to depend on any LGPL v3 libraries or libraries that may become such. Ironically, if they choose a BSD/MIT licence or even proprietary they _can_ use such libraries, it is as if the FSF wants to force the "upgrade", but in fact it is actually the GPLv2 preventing the code being embraced and extended into a _more restrictive_ licence - (L)GPLv3.

            This might be difficult to fathom for someone who embraces The M$ Way, where, if you don't pay for the **most recent** M$ license, you have slipped off the compatibility treadmill.

            Licence terms are usually negotiable, obviously at a price. But with the rms way, if you can't accept the way he alters the deal, you are off the compatibility treadmill whether you can pay or not - see FreeBSD and GCC for example. I fail to see how being as bad as M$ in this way is an advert for free software.

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:31PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @07:31PM (#129518)

    One would think that watching Apple take BSD from open source to closed source while hurling sue-balls left and right would have served as a warning.

    Sue balls?

    My girlfriend Susan, who coincidentally is an attorney, objects. ;)

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:22PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:22PM (#129555) Journal
      Yeap, lawyerpult [dilbert.com] is better.
      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:43PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:43PM (#129582)

      My girlfriend Susan, who coincidentally is an attorney, objects

      That's because sueballs are like pokeballs, just for Susans.

    • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday December 28 2014, @12:09PM

      by TheRaven (270) on Sunday December 28 2014, @12:09PM (#129676) Journal
      Even without the odd turn of phrase, it's a strange comment. FreeBSD and LLVM (two projects that I'm actively involved with) have received a lot of code over the years from Apple, but no lawsuits. For both projects, we've had useful contributions from a company that won't allow GPLv3 code in the door and is trying hard to ditch the last of its GPLv2 code.
      --
      sudo mod me up
  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:00PM (#129525)

    One would think that watching Apple take BSD from open source to closed source

    You can call me naive, but what this then? http://www.apple.com/opensource/ [apple.com] .

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Nerdfest on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:30PM

      by Nerdfest (80) on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:30PM (#129533)

      Those are projects they *use* that they haven't co-opted or bought and closed-sourced yet. TIVO used open source software as well.Apple has not given that much back to the community that helps them reap fairly obscene profits, and their general philosophy is diametrically opposed to software freedom. Google contributes a bit more, but really not enough either considering what an important part of their business it is.

      • (Score: 5, Informative) by TheRaven on Sunday December 28 2014, @12:14PM

        by TheRaven (270) on Sunday December 28 2014, @12:14PM (#129678) Journal

        Apple has not given that much back to the community that helps them reap fairly obscene profits

        As a member of the FreeBSD Core Team and an active LLVM developer, my response to this is one word: Bullshit.

        In FreeBSD, for example, Apple funded a huge amount of the TrustedBSD work. It was developed concurrently for FreeBSD and Darwin and provides MAC and a variety of other pluggable policies (and forms the basis for the application sandboxing on OS X / iOS). They changed the license of launchd at our request and have contributed back changes to FreeBSD libc and a number of other parts of the system.

        In LLVM, Apple provided the initial version of the C/C++/Objective-C front end, the ARMv8 back end, and a huge number of other things (a big chunk of the autovectoriser, for example).

        I presume that you're also aware of WebKit, which is still predominantly developed by Apple. This spills over into LLVM, where the JavaScriptCore team has significantly improved LLVM's JIT interfaces with patch points and stack maps for use in WebKit.

        If we made a list of the largest commercial code contributions in the FreeBSD base system, then Apple might not be the top of the list, but they'd easily be in the top 5.

        --
        sudo mod me up
        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday December 28 2014, @07:48PM

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 28 2014, @07:48PM (#129765) Journal

          Thank you, but I feel the real answer to the original plaint is that Apple did not close BSD, they just made a closed source fork, and this is explicitly allowed by the license, and, to an extent, is part of the intent of the license.

          Your point that Apple is also a contributor to open BSD, merely highlights that they aren't entirely predatory, which, while true, isn't the point if we're talking about licenses and why some particular licenses are chosen.

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
          • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday December 28 2014, @09:07PM

            by TheRaven (270) on Sunday December 28 2014, @09:07PM (#129787) Journal

            Actually, it's exactly the point. GPL advocates portray the world in a very black and white way: you're either an open source company or you're a proprietary company. The truth is that there are very few companies that are either, even the poster children for both camps. Red Hat produces some proprietary software, Microsoft releases some open source.

            In reality, most companies will use a mixture of proprietary and open code. I can't think of a single company that has jumped right from one end of the spectrum to the other in a single bound. Most move gradually. The GPL makes the very difficult, because it's an all or nothing proposition. The vast majority of companies that employ developers are not primarily software companies. They're just going to use the software in house. For them, the GPL is just legal hassle (can they link it with some third-party proprietary library that they use without violating the license if they don't distribute the result? Probably. Is it worth the time to get a lawyer involved to figure it out? No). If they do pick a GPL'd project to use, their most common reaction is simply not to tell anyone outside of the company. They'll keep a private fork of it if they make any changes and deal with the pain of merging. Or they'll write an in-house replacement and keep it private. If there's a BSD licensed alternative, then they'll pick that up and use it. Releasing their code does not bring any further obligations and does reduce their maintenance costs (forks have a non-zero cost), so they'll push code upstream. If they see that it's saving them money to interact with an open source community, then they'll do it more.

            Juniper is a good example here (Disclaimer: I don't work for Juniper, I'm guessing at their motivations and goals a bit). For a long time, JunOS was a proprietary fork of FreeBSD (actually, JunOS was a load of different, mutually incompatible forks of FreeBSD, but that's a different issue). Every time they wanted to sync the code with FreeBSD, they'd hit a load of problems merging. They'd give back some stuff, but not much that was core to their business (e.g. not much in the network stack), but that meant that they'd often end up with different implementations of new features. After a while, they realised this was silly and started trying to minimise their diffs. They're contributing a load of infrastructure upstream that makes it easier to have binary device drivers that work across different kernel versions, for example, and they're pushing a load of the rest of their stuff into the main tree. Their goal is to keep private only things that really do give them a competitive advantage (which is not much - most of their value is in the hardware) and things that no one else wants. The end result will be that their customers will get new features from FreeBSD faster, their costs will be lower, and FreeBSD will benefit (for example, from libxo integration in FreeBSD 11, which makes all of the core command-line utilities produce machine-readable output, which has been a feature of JunOS for a long time).

            The choice is never 'adopt a GPL'd project and contribute to the community' vs 'adopt a BSDL project and don't', it's always more nuanced than that.

            --
            sudo mod me up
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:11PM (#129553)

    I may not be typical, but this article's statistics align with what I do, and the conclusions are the opposite of whats actually the case for me. It's insulting to assume I made those decisions because I gave up or was ignorant. Give people a little more credit please: we arn't quite that incompetent.

    I have 2 projects on GitHub that intentionally have no licence. One is from a group project which my group members refused to agree to give up any rights (dreams of making some money one it) and thus wanted the most restrictive licence (a licence is a grant of rights, so none = most restrictive full copyright). There is no single person who owns it now, so licencing it is basically impossible at this point. Another is a project I wrote as an example/proof of concept, but it turned out it may (or may not) violate a particular patent (which itself may or may not stand up in court if challenged), so without legal help I'm scared to give anyone permission to do anything with it.

    I've also had projects which I hadn't decided on a licence for yet, and were thus unlicensed (all rights reserved).

    Remember: picking a license is a grant of rights. If you have no reason to grant some rights, you have no reason to apply a license. GitHub is a nice place to store personal projects (free version controlled hosting), which often don't need any licencing because they are not intended for use beyond the copyright holders.

    I generally I licence my code under MIT or BSD. If I went GPL, I'd need to get copyright reassignment from any contributors if I wanted to use my own open source projects in my commercial or closed source projects. That would be stupid: if I want to be able to use a product commercially then I'm going to let all contributors (potentially anyone) do so as well. If I only did GPL opensource stuff, those libraries would have had to stay closed source since they originated as parts of closed source projects.

    Side note: LGPL does not work with the packaging tools and languages I use, so I can't use it. If it worked well in practice, it would be a decent option, but I don't just ship C projects as folders full of DLLs.

    I've spent a lot of time on licencing: my lack of licences on some projects, and use of BSD/MIT on others is not an artifact of not understanding the details of GPLv3s, or being scared and unwilling to deal with those details, its simply those licences can not legally work for what I do. These are well informed intentional choices: its not giving up on enforcement, or throwing up my hands. Don't assume I gave up on enforcement just because I let you use my code: I really want you let you use it, just don't claim it as your own! If I wanted nothing from it, I'd use WTFPL or public domain.

    This comment is under the WTFPL: do what the fuck you want to.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:42PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @09:42PM (#129562)

      > MIT or BSD. If I went GPL, I'd need to get copyright reassignment from any contributors

      Surely you should get clear copyright assigns no matter what license you use?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:25PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:25PM (#129575)

        I can add a new contributor to the list of authors, and they can still own their work (it becomes a work partially owned by all contributors from a legal perspective). You only need reassignment if you as original copyright holder want special powers to be able to violate the existing licence (use their contributions in ways that violate the license), which is something users of GPL need frequently, but BSD and MIT users generally do not (If its a MIT project with a hundred owners, anyone can for into into GPL, but if its GPL, you need all their consent to fork in into MIT for example). Generally I think giving yourself special powers as the "owner" of the project is stupid: why should a community project need a centralized legal owner, and why would someone contribute to a project like that?

        If a project is GPL, and the owner wants to commercially use my contributions to it, they need copyright reassignment. If I don't want them doing that, I need to refuse copyright reassignment. GPL really only keeps the nice opensource only properties if there is no copyright reassignment, or you trust the owner (And GNU if using the future versions clause).

        • (Score: 1) by Synonymous Homonym on Sunday December 28 2014, @09:51AM

          by Synonymous Homonym (4857) on Sunday December 28 2014, @09:51AM (#129667) Homepage

          If a project is GPL, and the owner wants to commercially use my contributions to it, they need copyright reassignment.

          Why?

          The GPL explicitly grants rights to copy, distribute, and/or modify the software, and charge for it if you wish.

          • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday December 28 2014, @01:49PM

            by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Sunday December 28 2014, @01:49PM (#129690) Journal

            Because you'd be able to sell exactly ONE copy and after that it would just be distributed for free by the one you sold it to?

            There is a reason why you don't see any decent single player FOSS games for example, despite the fact that ID has given the community the engines which made some of the biggest SP games on the planet. The reason why is that the GPL allows one to make money ONLY by using the "blessed trinity" which is 1.- Sell services/support, 2.- Sell hardware which the GPLed software runs on, or 3.- The tin cup or "eBegging". One can pretend you can charge for it but you'd be hard pressed to find anybody making shit on GPL without following the blessed trinity.

              Of course because of this proprietary software will always have the advantages when it comes to variety and depth of software because I would argue that the majority of software simply doesn't fit into the blessed trinity model so you just can't make enough to keep from starving, much less be able to devote full time to making it world class. This is why GNUCash is a bad joke compared to Quickbooks, why there are tons of software niches where there exist no GPL equivalent at all, why the only GPL FPS games are lousy Q3 Arena CTF/DM clones, you just can't make enough money to survive if your software doesn't fit into the extremely restrictive GPL, which is why I am not surprised that GPL is going down while BSD is going up. After all RMS might be able to live by squatting at MIT and begging, most programmers? Can't do that.

            --
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            • (Score: 2) by Pav on Sunday December 28 2014, @05:37PM

              by Pav (114) on Sunday December 28 2014, @05:37PM (#129736)

              Said another way : wage slaves don't have enough freedom to give. I'd challenge that assertion though.

              Games are a special case in that the meat/content of a game isn't actually software, though there aren't a shortage of free and capable game engines. I'd suggest it's only a question of FOSS awareness among aspiring game artists - a high quality FOSS game would certainly give substance to a resume. As for accounting/business the FOSS offerings seem to cover the small and the large, but there's practically no mid level stuff. GnuCash seems to be growing beyond personal finance though, and it's certainly possible to spin a high level offering down to the mid range. I'm actually surprised that Wikipedia is telling me that high-end FOSS ERP [wikipedia.org] is predominantly GPL, though I'm only personally familiar with the GPLed Ademiere.

              • (Score: 2) by Pav on Monday December 29 2014, @12:05AM

                by Pav (114) on Monday December 29 2014, @12:05AM (#129814)

                Speaking of free art and computers the European Demoscene [youtube.com] is already a done deal - for most of PC history the state of the art in graphics and sound was here and not in commercial games, and even now is more interesting from an artistic point of view despite games that approach billion dollar budgets. A lot of game/sound/artisitic talent comes from this artform, which ironically originally was part of the pirating scene before splintering away and becoming its own thing. Some Commodore 64 cracking/demo groups such as Razor 1911 [youtube.com] and Fairlight [youtube.com] are still active and producing graphical/audiovisual demos (even though they're only second rate compared to some of the new guys).

              • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday December 29 2014, @02:54AM

                by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday December 29 2014, @02:54AM (#129846) Journal

                "Wage slaves"? Good lord comrade, why not speak about Marx and the proletariat while you are at it? I mean did it even occur to you that somebody that paid tens of thousands of dollars for their degree doesn't WANT to be a fucking bum like RMS? By the way no bitching, the man himself declares he is a "squatter" at MIT and doesn't own more than the clothes on his back which by pretty much every definition is a bum.

                  BTW isn't it funny how RMS doesn't say his lawyers should have to work for free, nor his doctors, or pretty much anybody else OTHER than programmers? Why is it that ONLY programmers should have to live as bums, buried in debt for all their lives to give HIM free stuff, why does he not say that everybody (including himself) should have to work for free?

                And I'm sorry but the blessed trinity means GPLed software that doesn't meet the repressive trinity model WILL always be piss poor and feature short, simply because the developers just can't afford to throw away years of their life which will be rewarded with jack and shit. From games to bookkeeping, medical transcription to office software, the GPLed software is just not in the same league, sorry but its not. No way is anybody gonna put in the hours it takes to make the next Bioshock or Quickbooks only to get told he can't make a profit on his hard work, communism is dead comrade, its just not gonna happen. Look up the figures yourself, GPL has been in a perfect arrow dive since RMS released GPL V3 and it hasn't had a single quarter of positive growth since, not one. Compare this to BSD which has had positive growth pretty much the entire time, why? Because BSD allows you to keep enough proprietary that you can eat, whereas if you aren't in the server, embedded, or SAAS space GPL will let you starve, its just that simple.

                --
                ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
                • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Pav on Monday December 29 2014, @04:11AM

                  by Pav (114) on Monday December 29 2014, @04:11AM (#129862)

                  *sigh* Yeah, GPL coders are bums that don't get paid. I'm sure Google, Amazon, Redhat, etc... and a bazillion other small shops (one of which is two doors down from me) will be unhappy but relieved now you've helped them discover they've been mistakenly paying them.

      • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday December 28 2014, @02:13PM

        by TheRaven (270) on Sunday December 28 2014, @02:13PM (#129695) Journal
        There are three reasons to require copyright assignment:
        • You might want to change the license.
        • You might want to use the project under a different license (or grant special licenses to others)
        • You want to ensure that you have standing to sue in cases of copyright infringement.

        Most of these don't apply for permissively licensed software. The FSF, amusingly, gets a big chunk of its income from selling proprietary licenses to free software. When they catch a company violating the GPL, they will offer a settlement that retroactively grants a time-limited license for whatever the company was doing, in exchange for some money and the company complying with the GPL in the future. They couldn't do this without copyright assignment, because they wouldn't have standing to go to court in the first place if they didn't own the copyright and neither would they be able to offer the special license. They also want to be able to change the license from GPLn to GPLn+1 in the future.

        --
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        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday December 28 2014, @07:58PM

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 28 2014, @07:58PM (#129770) Journal

          And, of course, the problem with single entity owning the licenses is that you need to be able to trust them to be honorable. GPL mitigates this, as you will always have the rights that you receive it under, even if a license change cuts you off from new versions. Ditto for MIT and BSD code as long as you get the source. Some other licenses also have mitigating terms (e.g., one license requires that the source code always be distributed with the code, and allows copying of the software, but doesn't allow use on military devices). For other licenses the terms can be confining in many different ways.

          However, I must admit that my primary reason for preferring GPL software is that I know what the terms are, and I don't need to study the license to figure them out. This is also true for BSD and MIT. Not for any others, and I HATE figuring out what licenses mean, particularly since I'm just guessing as to how a court would interpret them.

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
          • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday December 28 2014, @08:55PM

            by TheRaven (270) on Sunday December 28 2014, @08:55PM (#129785) Journal

            However, I must admit that my primary reason for preferring GPL software is that I know what the terms are, and I don't need to study the license to figure them out

            Really? Have you done the FSF's GPL knowledge test? I've yet to meet a GPL advocate who got full marks on the first attempt...

            --
            sudo mod me up
            • (Score: 2) by Pav on Monday December 29 2014, @05:32AM

              by Pav (114) on Monday December 29 2014, @05:32AM (#129875)

              I only got 66%. :) I was tripped up on the minutiae of how source is to be distributed, which would rarely touch those obeying the spirit of the license. If by chance it did the FSF are excellent at allowing accidental infringement to slide provided the problem is rectified. It's only the deliberate infringers that get the hammer.

            • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday December 29 2014, @07:54PM

              by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 29 2014, @07:54PM (#130016) Journal

              Not in the last decade, so I may not be current, but at one point I could get almost all of the answers. (It wasn't on the first try, or the second.) However I do remember that I found all the terms acceptable, and none of them burdensome. OTOH, I have no desire to sell proprietary software.

              --
              Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by darkfeline on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:20PM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Saturday December 27 2014, @10:20PM (#129573) Homepage

    Uh, no license means all rights reserved. It doesn't matter if the code is public, you have no legal right to do anything with it if you were not given a license along with the source code. Of course, in practice it means a complete illegal free-for-all unless you're a company or you're taking part in some large endeavor where you'll be likely to get sued for it.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @11:01AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @11:01AM (#129671)

    Devo has a CD out (since 20 years) called "Total Devo" with a track on there named "Soo Balls" (or Soo Bawls, can't remember which).

    Good stuff.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @02:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @02:17PM (#129696)

    End of one line:

    that 85.1 percent of GitHub programs had no license at all.

    Beginning of next line:

    Byfield spends much of his article explaining just how hard it is to actually obtain any reliable statistics.

    So implied in that 85.1 is an uncertainty of 0.05 percent in that number. That's pretty darn good. Then it goes on to point out that he's just pulling numbers out of his ass.