I disagree, I'd much rather see it under a BSD-style license than GPL.
Every time I look at Android phone or TV or a router I regret that BSD/MIT/Apache is so popular. Those devices run tivoized proprietary builds of what consists mostly of free software, but builds are shitty or just restricted (want a proper firewall? never mind it's there go buy next-tier device). And users can't do anything about that.
Users and GPLv3 deserve more love. They're already screwed by everyone and their pet code monkeys.
As an example, John Carmack (formerly of ID Software) recently posted this on twitter:
GPL never did really do anything for game code, and I do
wonder whether it was a fundamental cultural
incompatibility.
When I was merely a user of free software, I too believed as others did, that a more restrictive (or "stronger" if your prefer) copy-left license was better. However, the more years I've spent in the software industry, the more my opinion has varied.
I think it ultimately comes down to who the primary "users" of your code are. If it's an application, it's probably ok to use more restrictive licensing. If it's a library, or code that's in any way intended to be reused by others more generally, the licensing should have very few restrictions if you want to encourage wide usage and to discourage others from duplicating the work.
>The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any particular advantage, so it is better to use the Lesser GPL for that library.
>This is why we used the Lesser GPL for the GNU C library. After all, there are plenty of other C libraries; using the GPL for ours would have driven proprietary software developers to use another—no problem for them, only for us.
>However, when a library provides a significant unique capability, like GNU Readline, that's a horse of a different color. The Readline library implements input editing and history for interactive programs, and that's a facility not generally available elsewhere. Releasing it under the GPL and limiting its use to free programs gives our community a real boost. At least one application program is free software today specifically because that was necessary for using Readline.
Public Domain or BSD-style licenses are really the best option for encouraging wide usage and discouraging code duplication.
Actual users want products that just work.
You're twisting "users" to mean "programmers that have the time and interest in spending it on hacking their gadgets."
There is a huge difference here: the vast majority of people don't mess with their routers (heck - I'm a programmer, and I code at home and at work, and I don't mess with my router). So the people you're talking about are a very, very small group.
I'm not saying that this is a group of zero size. All I mean is: compare the total number of people that are into their wrt54g routers with the total number of routers out there. Users aren't idiots; they just have other things they'd rather be doing than messing with their wireless routers.
You imply that they're paying too much for their routers, given the features they have. Who are you to say what a feature (of a product you don't have to support) is worth to another person? If you think you can do better, no one is stopping you from making and distributing routers that you'd like, either for sale or for gratis.
Nope, I meant users. Who want products to work.
I'm not willing to hack my phone myself, in fact I don't have resources to do that. But I'm willing to pay someone to do that. Yet, I can't, because the necessary extent of reverse engineering would cost me a fortune. So, I learned to live with what I have.
> the vast majority of people don't mess with their routers
Does that prove anything? See, I don't mess with my phone and my TV, too. Does that mean I'm really satisfied with those? Nope, I just tolerate them.
Imagine there's a patch that automagically improves your network experience by configuring QoS features your router already has (but has no UI for them). Would you install it? If you'd have to crack your router open, solder a serial port, run a TFTP server and risk bricking the device - you probably wouldn't. If you'd have just download a file and click a button or two and have a new feature (not complete router reflash to a new firmware) - I guess you quite likely would consider so.
> Who are you to say what a feature (of a product you don't have to support) is worth to another person?
Uh. Someone, who heard some those other persons complaining? I must admit, this is a subjective opinion, I do not have proper statistics that can make things objective.
However, you're right, routers were a bad example. Average user rarely has an opinion on those just because they don't really consciously interact with them. "Smart" TVs and phones are much more common source of complaints. And the point was not about pricing. It was about inability to control what you have.
And there's the sound of someone slamming down the portcullis between "us" and "them". Programmers and non-programmers. Creators and consumers.
>Every time I look at Android phone or TV or a router I regret that BSD/MIT/Apache is so popular
Android is built on the linux kernel, which is GPL. You are proving yourself wrong with that example.
> And users can't do anything about that.
Of course they can. If they do not want that, they can choose not to purchase it. It isn't rocket science. You are simply upset because actual users are proving you wrong, and showing that they don't give a shit about things being GPL. Your "but think of the users" histrionics are so transparently fake it is insulting everyone's intelligence to continue repeating it.
Proprietary software would still exist without free software. People who write software can do whatever they like with it, and it is incredibly self-absorbed and arrogant to suggest that giving away something they made is a problem because it violates your arbitrary belief system.
Did someone offer you software, with no cost attached, and promises that you can modify and share it, and then it was not enough? You wanted to also have the right to threaten your users with lawsuits if they in turn did the same thing as you just did to the program?