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Comment by bifrost | Hacker News Reader

I as a user can't use GPL'ed software freely.

When was the last time you redistributed modified software as a user? You can benefit from free software without ever writing a line of code.

Not that long ago, its why I primarily use BSD/MIT/etc licensed software.

And you weren't happy giving out the source code? Even if you weren't charging money for this I'm struggling to be sympathetic

In what context? I currently struggle imaging a situation.

There is no obligation to upstream anything after all, you just gotta provide the code if someone asks... And why would you care as a user?

Yesterday.

Example?

I could see it for things like electronics projects where the firmware gets modified as a form of configuration.

You might want to give out or sell customized devices, adapted to the specific user or deployment. The end user typically only wants the binary, so distributing the source is at best a good-faith-waste-of-time and at worst an opportunity to cause support problems.

The example I'm thinking of is keyboards running QMK firmware-- it's literally customized by editing a bunch of C and recompiling.

If you do this for your own personal consumption you aren't violating the GPL, and if you do this for other people all you have to do is give out the source code when asked.

What is stopping you from using GPL'ed software freely?

The license, I'm not a fan of violating licenses. I get that most people do it anyways, I'd just prefer not to.

What about the license prevents you?

The fact that its not free, like the BSD/MIT/etc licenses.

I'm trying to understand your argument but you're not giving much clarification. I don't understand why you can't use GPL software freely.

The general gripe of such people is that copyleft prevents you from distributing custom changes to other entities without sharing the source. That one catch is "less free" than the utopia where anyone can take code without a stick making them contribute back to foster the ecosystem.

What would you possibly do as a user that would run afoul of a a GPL license? It doesn't do anything unless you redistribute it

Its pretty obvious what I'd be doing.

GPL violations happen all the time but they rarely get caught.

> Its pretty obvious what I'd be doing.

It's really not. The GPL requirements, AFAIK, only come up if you're distributing binaries and refusing to give source to people when asked (or, in v3, if you stop people from building and running that code). The only situations I can think of where that would even come up are situations where you're no longer acting as a user. So humor me; what exactly could a user do to violate the GPL?

I think you might want to read the GPL to get a deeper understanding of how it applies. Its fairly easy to violate the GPL as a user.

I'm not sure it is for the vast majority of users? How do you violate the GPL by using git?

We are now 3 comments deep into you claiming that users can violate the GPL, and repeatedly not explaining how they can do so when asked. Is it too much to ask for a specific example of how a user can violate the license on a piece of software using the GPL, rather than repeating the same insinuation without any substantiation?

Not the GP and I agree that as a mere user you’d not easily violate the GPL. But even as a developer it’s less free than you seem to imply: the GPL actually requires more than just distributing the source: you must also license the modified or additional code under the GPL. If you create “derivative works” of GPL licensed software, you are not free to distribute your modified or new code under a more permissive (non-copyleft) license such as the BSD license.

Note that you can find whole textbooks on what constitutes “derivative works”, but in any case it’s much broader than just forking a library. Basically any software that integrates the GPL licensed code (other than integration by way of loosely couples interfaces communicating via other means) is a derivative work.

For example, when your enterprisy application bundles and uses a GPL library to generate PDF’s of some of its data, the enterprisy application as a whole typically becomes a derivative work, which means (11) you must distribute the source of the full application together with any binary distribution of the app and (2) that source must be licensed under GPL.

Yes, I'm well aware of the viral aspect; I was objecting specifically to the claim that a user could be restricted by the GPL.

Or give the ability to choose which PDF generator the program uses. The situation you give is completely reasonable from the perpective of what the GPL was designed to do

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