No one cries "unfair!" or "selfish!" more than a proprietary coder who can't use some gpl code, and the louder they cry the more they themselves advertise how simply correct and necessary that license is.
Stallman was and is right.
The GPLs restrict software authors from being the masters of their users, without requiring them to be the servants of their users. Since the author is choosing the license, it's a voluntary relinquishment of rights that should never have been given by government to merchants. You choose open source if instead you want to give away the those rights (the rights to obscure functionality and lock people out of their own possessions) to whoever wants them. When Amazon picks those up, don't cry about it.
If someone requires other terms, the existence of GPL code in no way restricts them from writing or buying other code that is compatible with whatever terms they require.
Anyone crying about that is only crying that they are not allowed to steal something that is already free.
From an authors perspective, do what you want. Don't use GPL if you don't share the single value it enshrines.
It doesn't make you righter or more rational or the GPL wrong or anything like that, and the desire to rent out access to the use of a secret is the most common and least interesting thing in the world, as is the desire to try to present that as being any sort of principle about freedom instead of the crass food-gathering thing that it is.
I'm not surprised to see their astroturf around here, and I'm not surprised that the astroturf probably isn't paid for, either.
The GPL just asks that you engage in basic human decency. The MIT license declares you a mark.
I use MIT for trivial things like examples, asnswers to questions where you have to declare something or the answer or example is of no value and then why bother writing it.
But nothing substantial. I "selfishly" only want to contribute to the guaranteed for all and eternity pool.
So I don't use or recommend MIT.
But I do think that at least some examples of MIT are the result of the authors being essentially saints. Giving so selflessly that they even give to the devil, making the world a better place only through the mechanism that the most people end up using the best functioning available code. IE it's better that Microsoft sell the use of the TCP/IP stack, than have users end up having to use something else. It was them being better than I think they have to be, and better than I am, but not actually misguided and harmful.
Many uses of MIT do strike me as exactly misguided and long term more harmful than helpful, but not automatically all.
I'm just not a saint myself and don't require anyone else to be either, and I think the world would be at least just as fine if there never was any MIT code but only normal copyrighted and full GPL style.
- take GPL code, do whatever you want with it and NEVER GIVE IT TO ANYONE.
- take GPL code, have someone to pay you do something crazy with it, give it to them and neither of you choose to never give it to anyone.
The only thing the GPL says is that, whoever you give it to gets all the rights you got when you took it.
Well, yes. That's the point after all - you took someone else's code, made changes to it, gave it to a third person, so now you can't very well tell that third person "Sorry, that code I gave you is now a secret!"
> If an employee works on a Linux driver that you'd prefer be a trade secret, those GPL imports are going to be a massive problem.
In theory, sure. In practice, it hasn't stopped any manufacturer from distributing binary blobs. Nvidia, with proprietary drivers, is still the most popular graphics card on Linux[1].
So here we see that there is no problem for a vendor to be wildly profitable and have the best penetration of all its competitors even though they are strictly adhering to the license.
If an employee is working on any Linux driver, your business is depending on the success of Linux itself to make that driver economically viable to develop.
If your success depends on building on GPL code and not giving back, then maybe try to find success elsewhere.
[1] IIRC, that is. I last checked the Steam stats a long time ago, they may have changed.
The whole point of a contract is to spell out in enough detail for both parties (and if it comes down to it a judge) what the expectations of a given arrangement happen to be. Plenty of employees won't actively exercise all their rights under the GPL (related: [0]), but that fact is independent of the GPL itself.
> If your success depends on building on GPL code and not giving back, then maybe try to find success elsewhere.
Just 3 lines ago didn't you point out a massive company successfully building on GPL code and not giving back, touting their ability to do so as a pro for GPLv2? Regardless, the quibble wasn't with whether that clause is reasonable (I prefer to release under GPL), but that paying somebody to do something crazy with the code and then not release it isn't actually in your control if the code in question is released under GPLv2; for that to happen you require either trust/luck or a different license.
> Well, yes. That's the point after all - you took someone else's code, made changes to it, gave it to a third person, so now you can't very well tell that third person "Sorry, that code I gave you is now a secret!"
Or you took someone else's code, paid a third party for business-critical customizations, and expect the product you paid for to not wind up in the hands of a competitor. While we're stuck with intellectual property as a meaningful legal concept there's always going to be another way to look at the problem evoking different emotions and notions of what's fair or reasonable.
No, I did not. I pointed out how strictly adhering to the GPL was not in any way an impediment to the success of writing device drivers.
> Or you took someone else's code, paid a third party for business-critical customizations, and expect the product you paid for to not wind up in the hands of a competitor.
If you don't want your 0.001% of contributions to a product to benefit others, including those who built 99.99% of the product, then don't contribute to it. Put your 0.001% effort into some other product that lets you keep the entire 100% for yourself.
You're effectively arguing that it's unfair that you can't take someone else's labour and sell it on without their permission.
I really don't feel bad for you in that case. It's someone else's labour, not yours. Crying "unfair" because you want to add 0.001% of value and want to keep 100% of value doesn't get you much sympathy.
Especially when, as you pointed out when you referred to my nvidia example, this isn't a hurdle to someone who simply wants to use the GPL software and add their own value into it without violating the license.
It's perfectly possible, just not palatable to people who want the original labour for themselves. NVidia supplying binary blobs aren't trying to own the entire Linux kernel for anyone using their blobl. Someone supplying some proprietary driver, and wanting to keep that driver secret, is doing the opposite.
You apparently have made an unsafe assumption about what my stance is on that.
"copyleft bros" is like saying "soup kitchen volunteer bros"