The Problems with the GPL

On “The GPL is hypocritical”:

> At the same time the GNU project and FSF endorses and make heavy use of the GPL, which by its very nature is "nonfree" because it restricts what you can do with the software.

Freedom isn’t about being able to act without restrictions, it’s about not living under oppression. Freedom itself is codified in laws that guarantee the right to free speech, free assembly etc. and these laws necessarily restrict the actions of the people. Free speech doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t trump a police officer’s right to arrest you for speaking freely.

You can’t effectively build a walled garden with GPL code. You can’t effectively build spyware or adware with GPL code. You can’t effectively build black-box IoT products with GPL code. All these dark patterns aren’t possible with GPL code because the GPL places restrictions on what you can and can’t do with it. And by licensing your library as GPL, you’re also ensuring that it’s not (legally) going to be used in any of these dark pattern scenarios.

So yeah, the GPL places more restrictions on derivative works but ultimately gives users more freedom than the BSD-style licenses.

Yet Linux is way more popular option both on the server and the desktop. Way way way more people and companies contribute. And it seems that BSD use is declining on servers? [1] MacOs is a unix but how does that help the BSD community, as most code is build upon it and the changes don't really trickle back. Companies just take, if you can do whatever you want with the code. You can wish that everybody shared back in a perfect world, reality proves this is simply not true. At least the company trying to influence development has to contribute to gain influence, and you can fork it (with their changes!) if you don't like that.

The GNU license at least somewhat protective. To each their own, but I would never release software under a permissive free license.

[1] https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-bsd

This is a useless post, except as basic reading for those completely clueless about free software licenses.

There are different senses of 'free', the GPL captures one of them. Freedom of the software itself to 'live' evolve, be used. The point isn't to stop anyone from using the software. It's specifically to stop someone from using modified software and not sharing the changes for others to use. The license limitations are to promote software use and distribution.

A completely different take on 'free' is permissiveness for the user of the software to do as they please.

Each has its uses, choose an appropriate license and stop whining.

There's a bit of valid critique that GPL crowd abhors paying for software, even if that wasn't the core intent of Free Software. But BSD licensing by itself does not offer any solution. It in fact sidesteps any dealing with intellectual property - like the article goes on a rant against capitalist greed instead.

I wish the notion of GPL/commercial dual licensing were more mainstream. If there were some FSF ethics guideline one could follow. But RMS and his followers are suspicious, if not belligerent of dual licensing. Thus (and that's another valid insight there) corporations are using political influence instead.

> You cannot sell GPL licensed software

Wrong