gpl backlash?

[Matthew C. Weigel]

On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Wilfredo Sanchez wrote:

[for readability I've reformatted some comments]

> | Except the *NeXT* community.
> 
>   OK, that's fair.

> | making open systems in the first place), of course.  My objective
> | is to benefit the user, and make the user's life nice.
>   OK, I like that objective.

Good!

[snip]

>   Certainly the GPL has worked well here.  Writing a compiler is
> enough of a pain in the ass that dealing with the GPL, regardless of
> your objections, is likely worthwhile.
>
>   And I'll grant you that the GPL has done great things for free
> software.  In times when nobody in business thought free software was
> interesting, it kept things moving.  To that end, the GPL is a
> wonderful thing.  On the other hand, people are starting to see real
> economic benefit (resource management, compatibility,
> standardization) to open source.

I disagree -- it looks like people are starting to see the benefits of
getting their end users to fix bugs.  Which can be a different animal
from open source entirely.

[note: I'm not sure if I agree with the APSL but I'm not flaming it
here; I'm trying to push the idea that there are different degrees of
freedom to software, and I happen to like the highest degree possible]

Of course, the fastest way to open software up is to provide lots of
endearing and attractive open source options, that strongly encourages
more open software.  The GPL in some cases is overkill (there's a
strong encouragement in the BSD family for proprietary vendors to give
back), but in some cases its necessary.

>   The GPL's major flaw is its unbounded viral nature.  
[snip]
>         But you have to at least specify what you mean by derivative
> works, and allow for the possibility of integration of open code with
> closed code.

Do you mean by this that if the GPL were more specific in its
allowances and prohibitions, it would make for more acceptance and a
better license?  I can agree with that.  It's important to put people
at ease that their use of a license is doing what they think it's
doing, and clear language is important there.

>               And yes, you can probably find ways to change the code  
> such that you don't have to contribute anything of value if you  
> dance around the license enough, but I can accept that.

As can I.  It would be difficult to add proprietary extensions to gcc,
for instance, without making a clearly derivative work (as opposed to
the below).

> the "protection" that you're after.  Lucky it's never been tried in
> court; I'm quite curious about it.

As am I.  For the rest of it, see above.

> | For other things, the most important thing for the end user is
> | compatibility; internet servers, for instance.  In those cases,  
> it's more
> | important that *absolutely everything* come from a commnon code base, 
> | period.
> 
>   Well, it's important that things interoperate, not that they use  
> the same code, though sharing code does tend to help that a lot.

The fastest way to push a standard out is to give people the code to
implement the standard, so that it will work with some minor tweaks and
studying.  It looks to me like X won this way, as well as a lot of BSD
stuff (I'm almost certain OS/2 uses some BSD code for its networking
stuff, for example).

> | >    1 Infinite Loop, 302-4K, Cupertino, CA
> |
> | This has got to be a joke...?
> 
>   Yes and no.

Those Crazy Californians again, I guess.  Yes, my roots go to
California too :)

On a side note, has anyone been receiving multiple copies of messages?  I
received the message I'm responding to *thrice*.

 Matthew Weigel                                       Programmer/Sysadmin
  weigel+ at pitt.edu                             Operating Systems Advocate
                         http://www.pitt.edu/~weigel