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Comment by klrr | Hacker News Reader

The key problem here is that it's open source. The meaning of that term has become very vague, not that OSI's definition is unclear but rather since many people apply the term to so many things. Open source is usually applied for marketing and convenience now days rather than actually showing that this software provides the essential freedoms for the user.

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"Open source" has always been about marketing and convenience. If you're looking for "freedom", you should join the "free software" movement instead, which is a distinct one.

Back in the days, people argued that free software will not survive if they keep being idealistic. Instead, people argued that free software should market more, and compromise more with proprietary software. Well, here is the result.

Please put "Free Software (c)(tm)(r) FSF" or some appropriate similar notice. Otherwise people not familiar with the overloaded meaning of "Free" used by FSF would get a wrong impression that they are actually free to do whatever they want with it.

You are free to do whatever you want with the software. The only real restriction under the GPL is that you are not allowed to distribute modified binaries of GPL software without releasing the corresponding source code.

It's just as restrictive as any commercial license, except that instead of being prohibited from releasing the source, you are required to do so.

That is not 'free to do whatever you want'.

The GPL arguably has close to the minimal level of restrictions - it allows you to 'do whatever you want', except where that 'whatever you want' prevents someone else from doing whatever they want.

All of the commercial licenses I've dealt with have prohibited distributing the software, hypothetical modifications thereof, and any and all hypothetical source code.

The GPL speaks for itself. You are free to modify GPL-licensed software and distribute your modified version with the caveat that you make the source code available. Thus you are in fact free to do whatever you want to the software. The restriction is on the distribution of the software, not the modification you make.

Why does that one restriction cause so much distress?

I know the story behind it. I agree with you though, here's the result of open source and it ain't pretty.

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