It's time to say goodbye to the GPL | Hacker News Reader

It's time to say goodbye to the GPL

martin.kleppmann.com

20 pointsappwiz14 comments

Ya don wanna use da GPL, don't. I think I'll continue to do so, thank you very much for sharing your opinion tho.

The fuss about RMS isn't about "he defended pedophilia!", plenty of people could have been charged with that when netflix did "Cuties." This has always been about the GPL and the difficulties it creates for those who want to steal software from its creators and charge them money for it. Which is what the GPL was designed to do: make that theft difficult.

Read the posting, it's not about that.

One may dislike Stallman (as I do, and as I think the author does) and think he does a poor job (as I do) and still discuss a separate issue: The FSF's mission in the world of 2021. That's what he tries to do.

Even if one thinks think Stallman is whatever, that doesn't mean that the FSF should stop caring about software staying free, or users having the ability to modify their software.

AFAICT, the FSF's main response to the modern SaaS trend is largely to ignore it, and want the problem to become something that the GPL might solve. Ignoring it won't make SaaS go away, and neither will it change its effect on software freedom.

IMO it's a pity of the FSF shoots itself in the foot by ignoring the world's changes, and also if the FSF shoots itself in the foot by hiring someone like Stallman for a campaigner position. One doesn't have to like Stallman or agree with the FSF's goals to think it desirable that the foundation should do a good job. Pluralism is IMO good and desirable for a society.

There was an "Affero GPL", wasnt there? I didn't try to learn about it, but wasn't that an attempt at reaching the GPL's goals in a SaaS-dominated world?

What exactly you propose should be done? Affero GPL simply didn't work. People use GPL when they want specifically to contribute to Free Software or BSD/MIT-style when they don't particularly care about using the code in proprietary product. What is your solution to AWS-style free rider problem in SaaS?

Oh, if it were up to me I'd say that MIT/BSD/Apache-style licenses are ideal. Simple enough to be understandable, offend noone, and bring as much contribution as anything else in my experience. I do not agree with the FSF so I don't have to work towards its goals.

However, the mere fact that I do not agree with the FSF's goals doesn't make it okay for the FSF (and those who agree with it) to do a substandard job by hiring a badly suited person as campaigner or by ignoring major developments such as the rise of SaaS.

First, "cloud software is harming consumers", then the conclusion is "use MIT and leave regulation to the government".

A very strange article with bits of Stallman hate sprinkled in. I think the cloud vendors will love this article.

What is it with everyone advocating for using or not using specific licenses always assume that everyone is sharing the same goals for software?

How about pick the license that matches your objectives best.

I hate it when authors use "we" in this context when they mean "you" - ("we should move away from the GPL").

There was an article about spiritual teachers doing the same, and how their speech changes if it's reformulated. Interesting read.[0]

[0] https://matthewremski.medium.com/editing-spiritual-teachers-...

This author is ahead of the curve. Few people have realized the futility of copyleft strategies. The idea might be well intentioned, but it doesn't really result in the desired effects. He's right that GPL and its ilk have done nothing to prevent the rise of cloud software and they haven't forced software out into the open that wasn't already there.

I say this as founder of an open source software company. We decided to sell both hosted and local-first (offline, desktop) versions for the exact reasons this author talks about.

<Quote> In the 2020s, the enemy of freedom in computing is cloud software (aka software as a service/SaaS, aka web apps) – i.e. software that runs primarily on the vendor’s servers, with all your data also stored on those servers. Examples include Google Docs, Trello, Slack, Figma, Notion, and many others.

Agreed.

<Quote paraphrasing> (insert hand-wavy excuses why GPL isn't good...)

I'd say its time to look at the GPL3 Affero license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html

--Paragraph 13--

13. Remote Network Interaction; Use with the GNU General Public License.

Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, if you modify the Program, your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version by providing access to the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge, through some standard or customary means of facilitating copying of software. This Corresponding Source shall include the Corresponding Source for any work covered by version 3 of the GNU General Public License that is incorporated pursuant to the following paragraph.

Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, you have permission to link or combine any covered work with a work licensed under version 3 of the GNU General Public License into a single combined work, and to convey the resulting work. The terms of this License will continue to apply to the part which is the covered work, but the work with which it is combined will remain governed by version 3 of the GNU General Public License.

TFA does address the AGPL, it just says it's bad because big companies don't like it or something.

To be honest, I didn't read that screed that far down. But his apologies are the same ilk we saw back in 2000's of how the GPL would never take off.... And look where we are now.

The AGPL will also take off, once we achieve critical mass and say no to SaaS crap we can't run locally.

"If it works, don't fix it."

The GPL has worked, and worked well, for 30 years and maybe more.

When people want to get rid of something that has worked well for many years, it raises the question "What is their hidden motive?"

People are not forced to use the GPL. They are free to use whatever they like. So why the intense advocacy for its elimination?

> As a legal tool to promote greater software freedom, I believe copyleft software licenses have largely failed, since they have done nothing to stop the rise of cloud software, and probably not done much to increase the share of software whose source is available.

A license alone cannot solve the problems. A license is a tool to be used by humans, software developers in this case. "Cloud" is a marketing word for XaaS, and it is not a problem as the author argues: I have no issue with mastodon.social hosting all my toots and interactions, not just because I trust the admin (I could trust gmail's admin) but because I have the assurance that the software must be able to give me back all my data, and that I can interact with it the way it says in the source code. You know why ? Because Mastodon is AGPL.

You know what created the rise of Cloud ? Open source non-copyleft software, being already developed by communities and ready-to-reuse, adopted by companies who just had to pick and collect those bricks, glue them, and capture users. It's not that copyleft failed to prevent that, it's that non-copyleft actually helped it. Author is completely wrong in targetting the former and should question why the latter is possible and whether it's good for society.

To be honest I'm stunned at the recent attacks on the free software movement. I could understand RMS' wrongdoings creating some outrage in the usually vocal tech bubble echo chamber, but now people are coming out of the wookdwork at the same time and making the association between RMS and the FSF and between the FSF and (A)GPL, and because one is bad all of them are bad. It's just a license, I don't get the desire to actively avoid it. I'm starting to wonder if that wouldn't be the work of software developers who want to restrict rights to their users in the name of sustainability, and are just blind to the effect that has on users' freedom

> You might argue that a software license is something that an individual developer can control, whereas governmental regulation and public policy is a much bigger issue outside of any one individual’s power. Yes, but how much impact can you really have by choosing a software license? Anyone who doesn’t like your license can simply choose not to use your software, in which case your power is zero. Effective change comes from collective action on big issues, not from one person’s little open source side project choosing one license over another.

Both are complementary. An individual developer can use the AGPL license and work towards government regulations to safeguard user's freedom. There's no reason the two have to be opposed. In fact a simple regulation can be "if a software is AGPL then the interest of the public is there".

I agree, we should use SSPL[0]. It's an advancement over agpl, s.t. SaaS providers and such have to open source their whole stack containing your code.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Public_License

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