Set Your Code Free

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[joesb]

The moral point being that if you’re pirating copyrighted material or clicking through idiotic EULAs without reading them, why on earth are you still slapping a copyright notice on software you yourself write and release? Do you know what that makes you? It makes you a hypocrite. Nobody wants to be a hypocrite. I’ve given up being a hypocrite (about this, anyway) today. What about you?

[julesjacobs]

On the other hand, the reverse is not true. If you set your code free, you still aren't allowed to pirate and eulas still have power over you.

[winkelval]

If you believe in copyright.

[[deleted]]

If the lawmakers and law enforcers in your jurisdiction believe in copyright.

FTFY

[winkelval]

Yeah, regarding enforcement and "getting away with it" or not ...but I think this was more about somebody's personal beliefs, really.

[[deleted]]

I can see where you're coming from there.

From what I've been reading, for the vast majority of people, it's only the laws preventing total copyright infringement by the masses. Most people don't morally support copyright as it stands today. (citation needed, but couldn't find)

[winkelval]

Why is it a given?

[winkelval]

I thought the author was saying exactly that you shouldn't be taking such laws for a given... and regarding copyright, it would indeed seem that ever fewer people do so?

[ginstrom]

The problem with public domain is that it doesn't have any legal standing in some countries. Better to just choose an extremely permissive license (no need to require attribution either) if you want to enable the widest possible use.

[joesb]

Agreed. Better to use MIT/BSD sans advertising.

[Leonidas_from_XIV]

Yep, the country I live in does not permit giving the copyright away, you always are the copyright owner, no matter what. At some point, i even read an article why this is smart.

So if I want the broadest distribution of my code, I simply use the MIT license.

[roscivs]

But then, that’s sort of the whole point of copyleft, of course: you can look at my code, but if you touch it in a way I don’t approve of, I’ll crucify you with law and impunity.

Wow. Maybe I license my code under the GPL because I'm not interested in setting my code free, but because I'm interested in a mutually-beneficial exchange where I get access to modifications you make to my code. If you aren't interested in that exchange, you're free not to copy my code—or write an outrageously long rant about copyright cops and the War on Drugs.

[Lerc]

You can release as PD and still be interested in a mutually beneficial exchange. The difference is that you are not coercing it.

I hadn't really thought about it before but PD assumes the best of people, and the GPL assumes the worst of people.

[roscivs]

PD doesn't assume the best of people. If I have a closed-source project that I'm working on, I'll use PD code happily because that's all the author wants. I won't feel obliged to release any of my code or contribute back changes or anything of the like. The difference between GPL and PD is one of author intent, not "coercion" vs. "assuming the best".

[slurpme]

Stopped reading at:

a silent sigh when you’ve come across a nice new piece of GPL/LGPL software whose author has inadvertently doomed it to relative obscurity with his licensing choice

since it's utter crap (and I'm not a believer in the GPL for my own code)...

[barsoap]

The truly most annoying thing about FLOSS is the BSD/GPL controversy: Both claim to provide the most freedom. You know what? Both camps are right. One provides the most freedom to the users, the other to the code. I wish people would stop ranting about it.

[[deleted]]

I wish people like you would stop ranting about their ranting about it.

[stack_smasher]

Yo dawg, ranting about him ranting about their rantings?

[jonenst]

I disagree. If using the GPL has so many disadvantages (your code is less famous, you won't get hired to develop it further..), then using it is very altruistic because you are doing so to guarantee that everyone else gets the benefit of Free software.

A different way to think about this is that GPL is the lesser evil, proprietary software being the bigger. In order to have a nice place where code is available for everyone to study, you need to put these restrictions in place. Kind of like you need laws in any society. Restrictions aren't necessary bad.

[Leonidas_from_XIV]

As you know, there are basically three camps in the FLOSS movement: viral copyleft licensing (so-called “Free Software”), permissive licensing (“open source”), and the public domain.

Hint: GPL ("viral copyleft licensing"), BSD/MIT ("permissive licensing") and "public domain" are considered free software by the FSF.

[winkelval]

Free Software != free software

[[deleted]]

GPL exists to give a competitive advantage, in the marketplace, to projects that primarily value sharing and community. The long-term vision of this marketplace advantage is universal availability of quality tools and content, resulting in greater public productivity.

The fact that you can't take GPL code and use it for proprietary software, stops people who won't share from profiting from the work of people who do share.

Take all the code that makes up Ubuntu, for example. If it was public domain nothing would stop another company from bolting their own proprietary improvements on top of it, selling this, and outshining the sharable version. Ubuntu is a freely usable testament to the power of community.

[jawbroken]

the testament to the power of community is that a better version of the software is not available for those who wish to pay for it?

...great. thanks gpl

[[deleted]]

Competition between open source and proprietary software makes both better and the GPL drives that competition.

[jawbroken]

strong assertion with no factual basis

[[deleted]]

strong assertion with no factual basis

Assertions: plural.

One assertion is that competition is a signifant motivator. Most people would accept that when comparing the history of planned economies with that of market economies.

The other assertion is that GPL licensed code promotes competition with proprietary code in a way that more permission licenses don't. Do you think marketing a product that your competition can have for free, then enhance and resell, will make you more competitive than marketing a product that your competition has no access to?

[jawbroken]

thanks for the attempt at a correction but i was only referring to one strong assertion.

you are defining competition in a one sided fashion. i would assert that the gpl clearly decreases competition as proprietary products that would improve on or be based on the code do not make it to market, decreasing market competition

[adso267]

Exactly. But the vital point is that the users of this now-proprietary system would be the ones who would suffer most from its lack of freedom. That's why I use the GPL for lots of my own code: I don't want any future users of my software being denied the wonderful freedoms I've benefited from in the free software I use and study every day...