E: Downvoters, have you read the article? The program started a new process for each address lookup instead of using a library because that library is GPL.
Shall we have a discussion?
If they don't want to do that, then being authors and owning their copyrights, that's their right to do. That's nothing I would blame on the GPL.
I mean we should be grateful that these authors made their works available free of cost in the first place.
I'm not sure how you can rationally make an argument for a framework that literally limits the use of improved or more performant code/technology/understanding simply because it does not share a philosophical view of IP/ownership/sharing.
This is the core of the problem with IP in the real world as well, and I find it mind-boggling that we don't look at the SYSTEM and see it as problematic.
So GPLv3 bans that. That, by itself, is inherently an additional restriction not allowed by GPLv2. They don't need to go out of their way or have a conspiracy to deliberately make it incompatible. Especially since the GPL2, as distributed and suggested, includes the "or later" text which resolves this incompatibility to allow GPL3 software to use GPL2 code. If anything, this encourages GPL2+ as the default GPL license if maximum compatibility is your goal.
Others (e.g. Linus), are more focused on getting the code changes so if they want to use them in the original project they can, and don't feel being able to install it on the device it was built for is as high up on the priority list.
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t... https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017...
Perf does not permit the license to be redistributed as anything except GPLv2, so it conflicts with GPLv3 code.
Linux doesn’t use “or later”. https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/COPYING:
The Linux Kernel is provided under:
SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 WITH Linux-syscall-note
LICENSES/preferred/GPL-2.0
LICENSES/exceptions/Linux-syscall-note
Documentation/process/license-rules.rst
All contributions to the Linux Kernel are subject to this COPYING file.
But this is an example of the ugly side of open source licensing. A lot of people don't have strong feelings about ensuring the distribution terms of their code, and just don't care how it's used. And in those cases, it can be annoying to have e.g. opensource.org insist that GPLv3 is the best option.
Edit: To be more specific, I mean that this problem could be avoided if both softwares were released under a public-domain-equivelent license. But of course, that will never happen.
What are they gonna do? Sue you from beyond the grave?
I actually consider putting something into my will that states that all my open-source contributions are relicensed to "public domain" (CC0 [1]) once I die.
[1] https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc...
Can you explain how you reach this conclusion? Assuming the GPL did not exist and the author would have made stuff proprietary, would that be better ?
Some people like me would share code with GPL3 or later, why the f* should we give it to you as BSD? are you running on your devices only BSD code or MIT code ? or are you running proprietary software but for some reason making all stuff BSD will make your job easier since you could mindlesly copy paste shit in your proprietary stuff?
That's a false dichotomy – there are many more open source licenses which wouldn't have led to the problem described in the article.
> E: Downvoters, have you read the article? The program started a new process for each address lookup instead
> of using a library because that library is GPL.
>
> Shall we have a discussion?
> non-bfd, without patch: 7m59s
> non-bfd, with patch: 15s
> bfd: 15s
The same could have happened due to other reasons for alternative implementation, that range from availability of more than one implementation with different advantages and disadvantages, different OS the code needs to run on, or simply preference.
Blaming the license in this case is just short-sighted and with the wording used it just shows a bias of yours against the GPL, but not actual will to participate in a meaningful discussion on the linked thematic.
--- You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange;
Enter MPLv2, with the best of both worlds:
- not viral copyleft
- but users DO have to contribute back
So in that sense it's only very marginally 'better' than a fully permissive license.
And in this case I’m not sure how gpl helps. With gpl2 you only need to distribute source code if you distribute binaries - so they have no legal obligations there. And Amazon isn’t really making meaningful changes to elasticsearch and friends anyway, so having the license require them to opensource their changes is a bit moot.
You'd need a method of determining revenue and then apportioning revenue amongst the many parts of a system. Then there's transfer pricing issues. Not to mention audit requirements. See also Hollywood accounting.
One of the ways open source gets adoption is because using open source with an acceptable license is often much less hassle than paying for commercial software and complying with commercial software license requirements.
Either way, I don't get paid a royalty for work for hire from my past employers, so I don't expect a royalty from anyone else. And I've not worked on a project basis either; so I'm getting paid for having my butt in the seat and anything that happens afterwards is a happy accident.
I've open sourced some personal stuff too, although I don't know that anyone has looked at it. That stuff is usually more like nobody should need to write this again. Not much commercial market for a PPPoE client that can handoff to a standby machine anyway, but maybe it will be useful for someone, some day.
I've got another project in the works, but it's mostly a bit of glue around other people's open source code. If I wasn't retired, I'd try to get an employer to pay me to write it (and it would get done faster!), but I can't see why anyone would pay for just the software. Consulting on the software, sure; but then again, if you were to rely on it, you'd probably want to cultivate in-house expertise to reduce dependency on outside help.
List and more references: https://github.com/LibreCybernetics/awesome-copyfarleft
[1]: https://theceme.org/richard-godden-platform-capitalism-nick-...
You can't just give out binaries without source, but you can choose not to release anything. The thing is, as usage models shift to include a lot of what the FSF very reasonably relabels SaaSS (Service as a Software Substitute), you can release nothing but provide the functionality over the network and reasonably expect people to use it that way. Since you haven't distributed the software itself to anyone, the GPL doesn't put you out of compliance for not showing them your code or letting them distribute it further.
This is the situation the Affero GPL (AGPL) was intended to address—it requires (or tries to require) that source code also be accessible to anyone who is given access to the software over a network. (Imprecisely speaking, that is; do check the license text if you want the specifics.)
Heck no. "as a" already means that. Rewriting the acronym is far more petty than reasonable.
“Service as a Software Substitute” pushes the ‘service’ part to be the most salient. It depicts something which is fundamentally a service, where ‘substitute’ once more emphasizes that you do not, in fact, have the software itself, even though it is taking the role of software. The FSF considers this very important, because they wish users to be able to copy and modify the software they use, and pseudo-distribution purely as a service does not naturally allow for this. If that is not something you care about, then the emphasis will seem strange, yes.
Not contribute, but share the sources if they distribute a binary which uses code derived from GPL-ed one. Wireless router vendors used to share modified sources as an archive on some obscure ftp without comments and documentation (so you'll have a hard time building a binary from these sources). It's better than nothing, but this is not a contribution.
The incompatibility is caused by "lack of restrictions" clause. Without that, GPL becomes essentially BSD with all the corporate thievery that entails.
However, in the case of the Linux kernel (which "perf" is distributed with) changing the license is not an option --- no CLA and, even if it was practical to ask so many people for permission, many contributors are dead now. So here the only option is using dependencies which are compatible with GPLv2. So maybe we need a new library to replace libbfd, which would be more permissively licensed.
In absence of copyright anyone could publish binaries build on GPL code without sharing the sources. So a central feature of the GPL would cease to be if copyright was in any way disabled. Saying the GPL is about disabling copyright is about as true as McDonalds being about healthy diets.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-so... has a feature matrix for about 40 licenses
- https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/solution/joinup-... has a comprehensive set of features you might want a license to have, and shows matching licenses.
You still would have to read up on what terms such as “trademark”, “copyright” or “copyleft” mean.
MIT, X11, BSD (2- or 3-clause), and more similar ones I can't name off the top of my head: these are the basic do-what-you-want license, the only requirements are things that every (good) license already has, such as standard limitation-of-warranty clauses and retention of copyright notice requirements.
Apache (v2): This is the next stage up, which means that the text is lengthier and somewhat denser legalese, but also covers more topics such as trademarks and especially patents. The patent clause here includes a provision that any patent licenses are revoked if you sue the authors for patent infringement.
MPL (v2): This is a weak copyleft requirement, which means that you must provide any changes to the source code when you distribute the binary and additionally the resultant code must be licensed under the same terms, although it only applies on a per-file basis. EPL, CDDL are broadly similar to the MPL, with a few differences in the legal minutiae.
LGPL: Weak copyleft again, except now it's on a per-library basis. [Although, to be honest, the definition of per-library basis isn't entirely clear for non-C/C++ code.]
GPL: Strong copyleft, which means that you pretty much have to use GPL if you reuse the code.
AGPL: Even stronger than GPL, you have to distribute sources to anyone who uses your code over the network.
With the GPL family, there's a distinction between version 2.1 and version 3 that retains relevance, because some people objected to the changes in GPLv3 (notably the anti-Tivoization clause and patent clause changes) and refused to move to GPLv3, with the Linux kernel being the most notable project to refuse to do so.
As for relation, well, any license more complicated than Apache includes lots of legal minutiae that makes it somewhat hard to render judgement if two licenses are compatible or not. In general, though, you can usually use an earlier license in this list in a project that uses a later license, but usually only if both licenses are the latest version (as the most recent updates added some compatibility escape hatches).
IMO, the gist of the GPL boils down to:
> If you "distribute" a "derived work" of this code, you have to release your code as well (under the same terms.)
AGPL not only interprets "distribute" to mean "offer up as a service over the network", but it also interprets "derived work" the same way. This is why anyone who uses (say) MongoDB in a company basically has to pony up for the commercial license, lest they be required to open source huge parts of their company.
I don't understand this part. Why is this useful?
Linus does not think GPLv3 is a good or fitting license for the Linux-kernel and that it changes too much things to be considered a new version of the same license as GPLv2.
So he refuses to add the “or later” backdoor which would effectively relicense “his” kernel with a license he does not approve of.
Is that not his right?
See this video of him explaining his take on GPLv3 and the "or later" clause at Deb Conf if you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU
Think about all the time that would be saved when people no longer need to think about all this lawyer bullshit.
I don't find either to be useful lines of thinking.
Don't compare this stuff to police brutality, looting, murder. They're not even in the same realm. Intellectual property is just ideas and absurd notions of ownership. It's like trying to own numbers. The real brutality is sending people to jail over this.
Says who? The copyright monopolists?
There's plenty of historical evidence to the contrary:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28330810
It seems obvious in hindsight. Less monopolies lead to more competition and better products. Even the US engaged in such infringement.