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Comment by chme | Hacker News Reader

Companies don't want to use GPL licensed software because they want to build their closed source software on top of it and thats difficult.

Currently instead of just releasing their software under a GPLv2 or GPLv3 compliant license, thus giving customers the right to change and adjust it however they like, they choose to withhold those rights and put the software under a proprietary license. A company that does this is clearly not interested in empowering their customers and should not be of any consideration when discussing an ideal customer rights issue like the GPL.

IMO GPL is not there to be liked by companies, just like the green party is not liked by industrialists. GPL assigns legal obligations to companies and rights to customers. I fear that if GPLv4 is designed to be more likable to companies, rights for the consumer will suffer.

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> "Companies don't want to use GPL licensed software because they want to build their closed source software on top of it and thats difficult."

No, it goes beyond that.

I've heard stories where IT departments have blocked GPL software from being used (as end users, not as an integral part of a software product) due to it being unclear where the GPL starts and ends.

The article gives an example of a legal clarity issue in the 'dynamically linked' section:

"Most of what is in GPLv3 are important, clear improvements. However, they’re clouded and subsumed by one big unknown – the dynamic link.

Apple, for example, was forced to stop contributing to the open-source project Samba, and instead had to build its own SMB file server, based on the final GPLv2 code release of Samba. Now, Samba is deprived of code contributions that Apple would otherwise have been happy to share. Why? Because Apple is afraid that someone might argue that Samba is “dynamically linked” to OS X, and in turn (per rules of GPLv3), force Apple to share the entire source code of OS X.

This is stupid. But some argue even typing a file name into a terminal window constitutes a dynamic link. Others argue you must use some shared library, where code natively interacts in an intended manner, such as a dylib or .dll file to create this scenario.

Vagaries of this degree should not be in the GPL. It should be scrapped, or at least, replaced with clear and concise definitions that most industry experts in engineering (and product management) can explain in human terms."

Apple was not “forced” to abandon GPLv3 software. GPLv3 contains two key provisions Apple seems to have a problem with: It forbids locking down hardware so that users cannot actually run software they want (tivoization) and it forbids patent lawsuits against users of the GPLv3 software. Apple's hostility towards GPLv3 very likely has nothing to do with dynamic linking.

That's your projection of the events. I'm confident if you looked in the Samba mailing lists you could get a more definitive view of why Apple did what they did.

If you are confident about this, please explain why you think Apple did remove GPLv3 software and provide evidence.

I have searched for a few minutes and did not find anything.

Hmm, yeah, looking into this Apple devs didn't seem to have discussed the change on the Samba mailing lists, earliest news item I can find about it is this, but it's from unnamed sources...

http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/03/23/inside_mac_os_x_10...

I can't find any indication in this article that Apple's reason was the fear of dynamic linking as you claimed (in cotrast to erlehmann_'s claim that Apple had problems with the "no locking down" and "no patent lawsuits" clauses in the GPLv3).

> force Apple to share the entire source code of OS X.

The GPLv3 applies to the Program as the GPL defines it. It has a provision, in Section 5, for aggregate works of many programs and is mentioned in the FAQ [1].

> But some argue even typing a file name into a terminal window constitutes a dynamic link.

Who? The FSF holds the opposite. A terminal emulator and a program that runs within it are two separate programs.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#MereAggregation

From your link...

> "Where's the line between two separate programs, and one program with two parts? This is a legal question, which ultimately judges will decide."

The types of links should be crystal clear from the licence, rather than relying on judges to determine fair use. Companies are likely to avoid the GPL due to the potential risk derived from this lack of clarity.

Possibly, however I don't think you can get much clearer without sacrificing generality.

A terminal emulator and a child process will have different virtual address spaces, so you may choose that as the discriminating factor. A web browser and a web application will share address space. But a web browser and a web application are clearly two separate programs as well.

It isn't really a problem unique to the GPL. Any interpretation of a non-trivial license with conditions will have an element of "I know it when I see it". Software licenses especially due to the level of abstraction.

> I've heard stories where IT departments have blocked GPL software from being used (as end users, not as an integral part of a software product) due to it being unclear where the GPL starts and ends.

Those running those IT department have thus demonstrated their incompetence. The first freedom granted by all free software licenses, including the GPL (any version) is the freedom to run your programs for any purpose. As long as you don't distribute the GPL license code you're using, you're not obligated to anything.

For instance, one is perfectly allowed to use GCC for the purpose of compiling proprietary software and distributing the resulting binaries. Because by doing so, you only only run GCC —you don't distribute it.

> Currently instead of just releasing their software under a GPLv2 or GPLv3 compliant license

HPE now has a "default to GPLv3" policy for new code that they write.

HPE being HP Enterprise?

Interesting, I hadn't heard that. When did they institute that policy? Good on them.

Yes. I think it came after this talk by Martin Fink:

https://lwn.net/Articles/660428/

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