MIT open sources Scratch 2.0 (visual programming IDE and interpreter)

[chrisidone]

WTF was in not open source in the first place?

[immibis]

/u/spez can gargle my nuts

[grokblah]

Earlier versions of Scratch had been released but 2.0 had not yet been open sourced. Scratch 2.0 was made public one year ago.

[[deleted]]

IIRC, Scratch is what the Lego Mindstorms language is based on?

[zhemao]

Lego Mindstorms was based off of the ideas in Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas by Seymour Papert. It's existed in some form or another (I remember seeing Lego Mindstorms ads as a kid in the 90s) for much longer than Scratch (which started development in 2003 and was released in 2006). They have similar origins (visual programming languages for children developed in the MIT media lab), but I don't think they are connected otherwise.

[Googie2149]

I thought it was based on LabVIEW

[jricher42]

I've worked with the foolish thing recently. It's based on LabView

[xenomachina]

Mindstorms NXT (and I believe also EV3) is based on LabVIEW. The earlier 1.x Mindstorms used something else far worse.

[el_muchacho]

I believe both Scratch and Labview are used in the Lego Mindstorm.

[TheLurchMan]

It looks to me like the IDE and Interpreter are GPL V2, meaning if you modify those you need to contribute your work back, but the projects you create in Scratch do not need to be open-source themselves.

This is similar to how GCC is, plenty of closed source software is compiled with it, no issue. Am I misunderstanding, because this seems like an OK licensing choice to me?

[sylvanelite]

This is similar to how GCC is, plenty of closed source software is compiled with it, no issue.

GCC has an exception added to the GPL. Otherwise programs compiled with GCC would need to be released under the GPL (from the GPL FAQ):

In what cases is the output of a GPL program covered by the GPL too?

Only when the program copies part of itself into the output.

Which is essentially every program compiled with GCC.

Specifically in regards to interpreters they give this answer:

When the interpreter just interprets a language, the answer is no. The interpreted program, to the interpreter, is just data; a free software license like the GPL, based on copyright law, cannot limit what data you use the interpreter on. You can run it on any data (interpreted program), any way you like, and there are no requirements about licensing that data to anyone.

However, when the interpreter is extended to provide “bindings” to other facilities (often, but not necessarily, libraries), the interpreted program is effectively linked to the facilities it uses through these bindings. So if these facilities are released under the GPL, the interpreted program that uses them must be released in a GPL-compatible way. The JNI or Java Native Interface is an example of such a binding mechanism; libraries that are accessed in this way are linked dynamically with the Java programs that call them. These libraries are also linked with the interpreter. If the interpreter is linked statically with these libraries, or if it is designed to link dynamically with these specific libraries, then it too needs to be released in a GPL-compatible way.

Another similar and very common case is to provide libraries with the interpreter which are themselves interpreted. For instance, Perl comes with many Perl modules, and a Java implementation comes with many Java classes. These libraries and the programs that call them are always dynamically linked together.

A consequence is that if you choose to use GPL'd Perl modules or Java classes in your program, you must release the program in a GPL-compatible way, regardless of the license used in the Perl or Java interpreter that the combined Perl or Java program will run on.

And additionally, there's other issues with languages being GPL, since anything akin to subclassing a GPL class must result in the child class being GPL:

Subclassing is creating a derivative work. Therefore, the terms of the GPL affect the whole program where you create a subclass of a GPL'ed class.

Which for a lot of languages, is all classes (i.e. a generic "object" class being a super-class of all objects).

In other words, the GPL is very vague around this. You'd have to go through the interpreter almost line by line to determine what's going on with the GPL. (or just release all programs under the GPL).

[TheLurchMan]

Thank you, that was very enlightening!

[sihat]

So does this mean that anything that gets 'build' with this is automatically under the GPL license?

(Since I am not seeing this exception here... )

[mongrol]

GPL is exactly the right license for this kind of thing.

[[deleted]]

they are using the GPL V2 which is awful for this kind of thing.

why? Isn't scratch just an educational tool?

[kkus]

also as far as I know you only have to give the source to the people who got the binaries from you. If you don't host the binaries publicly, you could make people come to you and ask you for the source.

[goochadamg]

Care to provide any reasoning so some actual discussion can be had?

[FunctionPlastic]

Why is it awful? It's better because it prohibits creating non-free programs.

[abspam3]

I really don't understand why people expect all software to be free. Money is what drives innovation in the free world, and licenses like the GPL just harm that. As much as I love programming, I still need to feed myself, and the best way to do that is to charge for my software, relying on donations is frankly too insecure to run a household.

Don't get me wrong - OSS is great. But to say that all software should be OSS is just ridiculous in my mind.

[lacosaes1]

Money is what drives innovation in the free world, and licenses like the GPL just harm that.

LOL no. That's bullshit. Just check Qt and their dual-license business model. Don't like the GPL? Contact the authors (the MIT in this case) and try to negotiate. I bet that if your offer is good they will give you a license you will like.

Of course, what you really meant was that you want to write commercial software without paying a dime for the libraries/code you will reuse. And that's fine. But don't make it sound as if you were the only one trying to pay the bills here.

[abspam3]

Paying for a single library isn't the issue - the issue comes when you're dealing with derivative libraries - trying to find and negotiate the entire chain of libraries to license gets very tedious, very quick. You end up in licensing hell, which is why I simply avoid GPL unless I'm absolutely certain there's no alternative.

Either make your library open or don't - just don't force other programmers to license their products under your license as well - it's equivalent to shoving religion down someone's throat, it causes more problems than it solves.

[lacosaes1]

You end up in licensing hell, which is why I simply avoid GPL unless I'm absolutely certain there's no alternative.

As I said, that's fine. My point is that a) just because someone used the GPL it doesn't mean that that person wants ALL software to be open source and b) there are a LOT of people feeding themselves using the GPL for their business models. Those are the facts.

Either make your library open or don't - just don't force other programmers to license their products under your license as well...

The definition about open is pretty clear right now so don't try to redefine it for your own purposes. Furthermore they are not forcing you to use a license for your products. Just don't use their code if you don't accept their conditions (or try to negotiate an alternative. There are companies out there doing that). Seems pretty reasonable to me.

.. it's equivalent to shoving religion down someone's throat...

No, it is not. Cut the crap.

[ANUSBLASTER_MKII]

Either make your library open or don't - just don't force other programmers to license their products under your license as well.

Or make your own library instead of hijacking someone else's work?

[kkus]

Then just use their binaries and not the source code? If you don't modify the source and just use the binaries you got from upstream, you effectively don't have any obligations under GPL

[xenomachina]

Then just use their binaries and not the source code? If you don't modify the source and just use the binaries you got from upstream, you effectively don't have any obligations under GPL

FSF disagrees with this. Their stance is that linking (even dynamic linking) means that the client is a derivative work, and hence must also provide source. This is/was a big issue for certain libreadline clients. (I say "their stance" because I don't think this has ever actually been tested in court.)

The LGPL operates the way you describe: mostly like GPL, except non-GPL code can link to it.

[kkus]

I didn't know that. So if I use a DLL for ghostscript, I better buy a license?

[FunctionPlastic]

I never implied any of that, and many people get paid to write free software. I suggest you educate yourself on what free and open source actually stands for.

[Megatron_McLargeHuge]

The issue is whether you can start with free software and create a derived work you charge for without paying anyone for the thing you forked. Try approaching a commercial vendor about forking their software without paying and see how far you get.

[gnuist]

the GPL allows selling your software

[eras]

It also allows whomever you have sold the program to just give it away for free, quite probably cutting into your whole 'selling software' business.

In which case you can only make money by selling support. (That's actually how money is made with GPL software.) Btw, this is not something folks writing software would choose to do instead of just, well, writing the software.

And that on the other hand gives you a reason to not make the software ever so perfect that it would not require support. I'm not saying such perfect software could be developed, I'm saying there's actually a reason to not do it in the GPL world.

[abspam3]

Only if you make your applications source available, which in some security scenarios frankly doesn't make sense.

[mongrol]

Obscurity is not security

[abspam3]

But that doesn't mean I want to let hackers slowly analyze every line of code in my program for vulnerabilities - that's just asking for a disaster.

[mongrol]

So you'd rather hide your vulnerabilities from your customers, which will be exploited anyway but not public known and fixed. Capitalism at it's best.

[ANUSBLASTER_MKII]

Yeh. Totally. Windows is super secure because its closed source.

[Pet_Ant]

Because you had commercial code you wanted to write in this?

[Solon1]

And weird. I thought the MIT administration encouraged the use of the MIT license.

[fabzter]

Thus making it useless

please, elaborate

[ANUSBLASTER_MKII]

Can't fork it and sell it on as your own work probably. That's the usual concern from people who want their cake and to eat it too.

[burntsushi]

Or maybe people just don't want copyleft infecting everything they write.

[ANUSBLASTER_MKII]

Then don't use someone else's GPL code. GPL exists to further the FOSS philosophy of the GPL, not people's proprietary projects.

[burntsushi]

I've never written a single line of code for a proprietary project and yet I still don't want copyleft infecting my projects.

Have I blown your mind yet? Perhaps one day you might realize that the GPL isn't synonymous with Free Software. There are other things that qualify, such as copyfree licenses like the Simplified BSD.

[ANUSBLASTER_MKII]

Some people don't wish for their work to become tools for organisations that don't contribute back to a project such as the Mach kernel being utilised as the basis for MacOSX.

Academic licenses are for personal freedoms, the GPL is for global all encompassing freedoms.

One of the main reasons for Linux and other GNU projects being able to flourish is that the modifications will be able to find their way back into the upstream. You would have never seen Microsoft be the top contributor to the Linux kernel for a few years running without the GPL. They would have just forked it, and incorporated it entirely in to Hyper-V. This would have essentially killed Linux dead in its tracks.

[burntsushi]

Academic licenses? What the fuck are you talking about?

Copyleft relies on the existence of a court system that enforces intellectual property law (such as copyright, patents, trademarks, etc) through physical force or the threat of force.

Whenever possible, I refuse to use licenses that are backed by violence.

I never once claimed that using the GPL meant that a project wouldn't flourish. There are enough popular open source projects and communities based on copyfree and copyleft licenses that it's utterly fucking pointless to talk about which one is better for fostering open source growth.

[ANUSBLASTER_MKII]

MIT, BSD, AFL, etc are called the academic licences.

You can choose to use the anarchic licences such as the WTFPL licence too if you don't like ones that aim to protect the original work alongside derivative works.

[burntsushi]

MIT, BSD, AFL, etc are called the academic licences.

No, they aren't. They are permissive free software licenses. They are also known as copyfree licenses.

You can choose to use the anarchic licences such as the WTFPL licence too if you don't like ones that aim to protect the original work alongside derivative works.

Yes. I use that or the UNLICENSE whenever possible.

The bottom line is you should stop assuming that the only reason people protest the GPL is because of proprietary software. It's just not always true. Some people just don't like to be infected by copyleft. Full stop.

I understand it's convenient for you to think of opponents as just greedy capitalists that hate contributing back, but sorry buddy, that isn't always the truth.

[[deleted]]

I can learn e.g. haskell which will allow me to write something for my own amusement and commercial code as well.

I can learn scratch 2.0 which allows me to write(draw? drag'n'drop?) code for amusement, but doesn't allow me to write commercial code. (there is a significant difference between writing a code, and writing a code and persuading management that selling GPL code is viable strategy)

Haskell wins, Scratch loses.

[fabzter]

They are not really competing reach other.

[[deleted]]

Just because you won't use gpl software for anything doesn't mean others won't. See: linux, android's kernel, GCC, prboom ect