So you're ok with using copyleft to defend yourself, but not ok with others to use copyleft to defend themselves ? This is bewildering
Even the lgpl definition of “dynamic linking” is something that scares me in the context of npm modules, which is why I’m nervous I made the wrong choice with lgpl
Of course they do. The goal of GPL is to reduce the amount of proprietary software in the world. Proprietary plug-ins would go directly against this.
> I should be able to create it.
Why do you feel entitled to that ? No one prevents you to go and write your own OBS-like or look for a proprietary alternative (and don't complain when they change or shut down their API with no possible recourse at all). But here you look you you want to benefit from the work of OBS contributors, without satisfying the simple obligation in return: the program that you redistribute must be open, just like it was when you found it.
I was a contributor to FOSS until I had to make a choice to step back from excessive keyboard use due to RSI. I love and embrace open source software and the ideals behind it, but I believe everyone should be given their own freedoms.
The plugin boundary should be exactly that, a boundary between the primary app and any created plugins. Why do you feel entitled to force a license decision on a third party's work? Yeah, my work might not function without your code, but your code is your code and my plugin is mine. If I choose to write a utility that enhances your code in ways I want, is that not the benefit and flexibility that FOSS clamors about? Hell, what if someone else adopts a similar API and I choose to take my plugin that direction? That's my choice to make, but forcing GPL on my code may now be hampering my freedoms.
I hear the argument of "if only software X was open source, then I could fix this bug here or add this feature there". I'm right there with you on code that is in the mainline and lives inside the source, but if I'm writing a plugin, that's my work and I own that, not you.
If I choose to make use of a proprietary library because it makes sense to me, like for example CAD solvers where the FOSS alternatives aren't there yet, that's my decision for my plugin. All your GPL license does is infect my work.
That's why I don't use GPL, and why I agree with others that the end result of many GPL licenses is to simply reduce the overall amount of GPL code in the world, as people avoid it out of concern of risk.
Absolute freedom does not exist (or even make sense).
> The plugin boundary should be exactly that, a boundary between the primary app and any created plugins. Why do you feel entitled to force a license decision on a third party's work?
That's the expectation I set when I develop the host software. If I was fine with third party proprietary plug-ins I could set my plug-in headers as MIT or something. Just like if I only wanted my software be used by people who have no revenue or live in $COUNTRY I would put that as a license instead of the GPL.
> Yeah, my work might not function without your code, but your code is your code and my plugin is mine.
this is super super entitled. You're fine with leveraging GPL work which is release for free for your own benefit, but do not want to reciprocate. As I posted elsewhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule ; this is the most basic expectation one can have.
> but your code is your code and my plugin is mine.
but the GPL code is and will forever be freely available ; anything that goes against increasing the pool of freely available thing is a no-go. The end goal of all that would be to change laws so that ownership of ideas, patents, etc..., is itself ended ; ultimately, licenses and copyright shouldn't even need to exist.
> If I choose to make use of a proprietary library because it makes sense to me, like for example CAD solvers where the FOSS alternatives aren't there yet, that's my decision for my plugin. All your GPL license does is infect my work.
Again you seem to forget that your plug-in depends on an existing host software and seem to want to use the work done there without giving anything in return. If there was some kind of public standard for CAD solvers so that the GPL part of your plug-in could be also used with free solvers, that would be a non-issue - ship your plug-in, and end-users can install a free solver or a proprietary one separately if they are fine with proprietary code.
It simply means a percentage of those developers who would have been happy to create third party tools simply now don't.
See for example the thriving plug-in ecosystem SketchUp has.
A third party should be able to create plug-ins without risking their IP - closed source, and any license they like.
This model has been the cornerstone of CAD innovation for the past decades.
True freedom means that you let dowstream users do as they please, not that you lock them in in specific delivery module.
What I've seen some Blender plugins do to get around this is to have an open-source plugin communicate via IPC to a closed source library. It's totally legal. It's a performance and implementation tax that just seems silly to me.
If the IPC is here only for the sake of circumventing the GPL (e.g. there aren't any meaningful use of the "GPL plug-in" part through this IPC channel outside of communication with the non-GPL program), it's totally not. What are such plug-ins ?
Very hard to argue that IPC would ever be just for avoiding license. It always increases total robustness.
Files are interprocess communication too. If files are fine and other forms are not, then it starts to get into an argument of speed making something illegal.
Not only that, but network communication is IPC and that would imply that it's fine to have a GPL program go to another computer holding a non GPL program, but not if they are on the same computer. There are a lot of holes in this argument.
Not only that, but any program that can't communicate with other programs (do drivers count?) through file formats, networks operations or anything else is probably limited anyway.
Quoting the GPL:
> The “Corresponding Source” for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities. However, it does not include the work's System Libraries, or general-purpose tools or generally available free programs which are used unmodified in performing those activities but which are not part of the work. For example, Corresponding Source includes interface definition files associated with source files for the work, and the source code for shared libraries and dynamically linked subprograms that the work is specifically designed to require, such as by intimate data communication or control flow between those subprograms and other parts of the work.
The relevant part is "intimate data communication": querying for instance some other program's publicly-advertised D-Bus API, such as a notification service expected to be used by the whole operating system wouldn't be "intimate data communication". However splitting a single executable into two parts which don't individually make sense are obviously "intimate data communication" - it may be two binaries, but it's still one single software from the point of view of the end-user.
If the GPL part of your plug-in cannot do meaningful things (basically still be useable for its original goal by the end user) without the other, proprietary, side of the IPC up and running, then they have "intimate data communication" and distributing it is breaching the GPL.
I have a hard time imagining how one would justify that a CAD plug-in split under two parts for IPC wouldn't constitute a single work for instance, with the following GPL paragraph in mind:
> A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit.
You mentioned drivers: they are specifically denoted in the paragraph above ("it does not include the work's System Libraries").
First is a plugin that would be shared library loaded into the same virtual memory space as a running program.
The second is GPLed header files that define function signatures and data structures.
The third scenario would be passing already defined data formats like JSON or something serialized through the file system, shared memory, or the local network. In this situation, there would be separate processes, separate memory spaces and no interface definitions would need to be included into the non GPLed program. This situation can't violated the GPL because it would imply that almost any communication with a GPLed program would violate the GPL.
any intimate communication would indeed. Any communication that goes through a standard (e.g. ISO-defined or industry standard, so not something specific to your company) would not.
Quoting the FSF:
> Using shared memory to communicate with complex data structures is pretty much equivalent to dynamic linking.
You can obviously extend "communicating complex data structures" to RPC through JSON & websockets for instance as it's this "exchange of complex data structures" which is the defining matter in what constitutes a single program from the point of view of the GPL.
I gave specific examples and you keep using an abstract label.
> Using shared memory to communicate with complex data structures is pretty much equivalent to dynamic linking.
These are two separate things unless they are talking about shared memory meaning sharing the same memory space as another process, which is what dynamic linking does.
Communicating through complex data structures can describe files too. If you save a file from one GPLed program and open it in a non GPLed program, that is interprocess communication. If both programs are using mmap on the files instead of writes, does that change things? If files are being sent over local loop back does that change things?
Are there any examples of any of these ideas being tested? I've never heard of anyone except for you asserting that two processes communicating without including GPLed source code was somehow a GPL violation.
I am quoting the license text.
> Communicating through complex data structures can describe files too. If you save a file from one GPLed program and open it in a non GPLed program, that is interprocess communication. If both programs are using mmap on the files instead of writes, does that change things? If files are being sent over local loop back does that change things?
I don't thinkg it would at all - it would still breach the license if e.g. you are dumping raw struct contents in your files that are only meaningful for the proprietary side of things.
See https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/8505/gpl-appl...
The part you are quoting is still an abstract label. You can't take specific common scenarios and say 'intimate communication is banned' when 'intimate communication' is not defined well.
you are dumping raw struct contents in your files that are only meaningful for the proprietary side of things.
What does that even mean? You could work with the bmp file format internally as a frame buffer in a program because it is uncompressed. Does that mean if you write a bmp file out of gimp and open it in photoshop you are violating the GPL? If so, why has that never been brought up or asserted by any person or company ever?
The things you are saying don't seem to line up with what anyone else thinks. When has anyone else tried to claim that you can't send files from one GPL program to another non GPL program?
I think you should consider whether you are trying to claiming something is true because you want it to be true, not because it makes sense.
Edit: Jesus do you really not recognize sarcasm? People are free to use whatever license they want and I’m free to explain why I choose lgpl over gpl
choosing a license is a political act whether you want it or not - you are free to choose whichever license you want, that does not mean you won't get called out (like for any other choice with political relevancy even tenuous - eating meat, driving a car, etc. to speak about things I am guilty of for instance)