Now, paradoxically, GPL is less free than many open source licenses. The GPL restrictions will limit adoptions, as we're seeing here.
Stated differently, GPL was an important starting "assist" that's now slowing us down. It's time to turn it off.
The BSD license allows anyone to do what they wish with that BSD licensed code.
Nothing happens to the original BSD licensed code just because someone uses it in a closed product. It's still available under the same bsd license.
Would you go into more detail here? It seems to me, to use the router as an example, even if they were to make the source code available, getting updated code to run on the router would still be difficult, if not impossible, depending on how the software is running on the hardware. Is it burned into ROM? Are you able to flash firmware? I'm admittedly speaking from ignorance here. How are these types of issues addressed purely from the point of view of the GPL (or any other license, for that matter)?
To quote the license:
“Installation Information” for a User Product means any methods, procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to install and execute modified versions of a covered work in that User Product from a modified version of its Corresponding Source. The information must suffice to ensure that the continued functioning of the modified object code is in no case prevented or interfered with solely because modification has been made.
If you convey an object code work under this section in, or with, or specifically for use in, a User Product, and the conveying occurs as part of a transaction in which the right of possession and use of the User Product is transferred to the recipient in perpetuity or for a fixed term (regardless of how the transaction is characterized), the Corresponding Source conveyed under this section must be accompanied by the Installation Information. But this requirement does not apply if neither you nor any third party retains the ability to install modified object code on the User Product (for example, the work has been installed in ROM).
It's this sort of thing that's really important for 'Free' software.
Certainly in the case of ROM you are correct – but it's a bit of an unusual case really. The only other option would be outright banning the inclusion of GPL software on such devices, but that seems overboard.
Hardware makers wanted to exercise the right to use open source software without returning that right to the people who bought their products from them. GPLv3 was designed to remove the loophole that allowed them to do that. It's true that GPL has more restrictions than BSD or MIT. But the freedom those licenses give is the freedom to steal without giving back.
I hate when people claim using BSD licensed code is stealing. It's not just a lie, it's a total perversion of freedom itself.
Once the router company clones the source, it becomes this new code-base, that they can add to, without revealing those new changes. You are still allowed to make any changes you want to the original code-base, but:
1. That is not the code-base you want. You want the one running on your router.
2. You don't have all the build environment, and toolchain magic needed to produce a new binary blob for your router.
Also, blah blah DMCA.
Yes, but you should add that you are talking about the RMS definition of freedom, not about the word freedom as it is generally understood.
Some dictionary definitions of freedom are:
> the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.
> absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government.
> the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.
So the changes in GPL v3 are about maximising the freedom of your software and it's users, at the expense of curtailing the freedom of Apple/TIVO & friends to distribute it.
It says nothing about the cost of the liscense to the end user of the software. It's confusing, because you may think "I have the source, I can just compile it for free". But the reason that you have the source (and the binary, in some cases), is that most GPL software is also offered free of charge.
As a side note, it's more practical to get usage of a piece of software with the restrictions of the GPL used, if the software is also available free of cost.
Damn it, we need a different word.
This is the very reason most successful companies doing free software, do it by selling consulting, support contracts, training or hardware.
Anyone whose software cannot fit those models usually ends up looking for another source of income.
Personally I prefer John Loke definition: 'Freedom of people under government is to be under no restraint apart from standing rules to live by that are common to everyone in the society ... and not be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, and arbitrary wills of others'.
Rules, which are common to everyone, and the CC license share-and-share-alike encapsulate in the name.
The GPL puts (somewhat onerous, some would argue) limitations on the user in order for the software to remain free. Think of it as liberating the software by giving it rights.
If you release your code under the BSD license, no one can 'steal' it. That's a misrepresentation of reality. They're using it according to the license. If I release code under the BSD license and someone takes it, uses it in some closed-source router whose code or behaviour I can't fix or modify, then so be it.
Likewise, your code is never 'monopolized' or 'disappeared'. Anyone else who wants to do something with that code is still able. Nothing is taken away from the rest of the world by one person using that code for their own purposes, whether you disagree with those purposes or not.
If you release your code under the GPL license, no one is 'restricting' usage of the code. That's a misrepresentation of reality. The area outside the license, which include adding legal restrictions, are as if there were no license and is enforced solely by copyright.
Anyone else who wants to do something with that code is still able. Nothing is taken away from the rest of the world by limiting what legal restrictions may be added to the software license, whether you want to add such restrictions or not.
The freedom GPL preserves is that of the user.
If you ship me GPL-based binaries, it's my right as a user to see what's actually running. I also get to redistribute that under the same license as was afforded to you, but principally, I always get to see what's running.
Somebody can take MIT code, alter it, compile it down and ship that. That's great if you're a developer. Super easy. But as a user, why do you expect me to trust this stuff? Especially when there's a GPL version out there that does let me audit it.
What about the contributions of embedded compiler vendors back to LLVM?
The BSD's have been using ZFS without any issues for a while.
However, GPL may cause issues which makes people leery of using ZFS with Linux
That's the point of it.