[Asterisk-Users] Re: Advice on OS Choice

[Joe Greco]

> Joe Greco [jgreco at ns.sol.net] wrote:
> > > 
> > > The GPL protects the freedom of the source code and couldn't care less
> > > about the "freedom" of those who would seek to close the code.
> > >
> > So, in other words, it's all right not to offer freedom to all.
>
> No, in other words freedom must be protected against those who would
> seek to deny it.
>
> > Had you not licensed your software under the GPL, you could have
> > benefitted from their efforts to extend your BSD-style copyrighted
> > software.  This is what has happened with companies like Apple and
> > BSDi who have used the Berkeley UNIX codebase, as an example.  Neither
> > of those companies have contributed all of their changes back to the
> > community, but then again, many of their changes would not be
> > appropriate for distribution.
>
> That's not up to them to decide.  Under the GPL, if you distribute
> modified code then you must publish your enhancements for the benefit
> of all.  The team responsible for the core code can decide whether the
> contributed code is "appropriate for distribution."

Yes, and that's fine, but it's not free.  You've encumbered the software
with restrictions.

> The GPL basically says that "if you don't want to distribute your changes,
> and want to use GPLed software, then start from scratch and write it
> all yourself."  The BSD says "I've spent a lot of time on this, but
> I'm happy for you to lock it up, make modifications and pretend that
> you wrote it all."

Pretend that you wrote it all?  No, big license violation.  Go read the
BSD license and don't even think of replying to this message until you
do.

> > > People who say "the GPL strips some of these freedoms" really don't
> > > understand what freedom means.
> > >
> > Yeah.  GPL...  let's slap some restrictions on what people can do.
> > Surely encumbering software with restrictions on what you can do with
> > it is more free than software that lets you do what you want.  Isn't
> > that an Ashcroft-esque definition of freedom?
>
> The whole point of the GPL is to protect the freedom of the code, 

The freedom of the code?

People have freedoms.  Code is an object.  That's like saying "to protect
the freedom of my car" or "to protect the freedom of my gun" or "to protect
the freedom of my computer".  Only a bunch of computer geeks who have read
too many "rights of robots" scifi stories would realistically believe that
somehow code could have any rights.

How about the right to exist?  Will it become illegal for me to delete
software from a computing system?  If code doesn't even have that basic
right, then how is it you're arguing for rights so much more abstract?

Come on, get real.

> for
> the benefit of all.  If you consider the fact that you can't lock up
> the code and release it as a proprietary binary to be a restriction then
> I have no sympathy.  Release your changes freely as open source and
> stop whining.

Sometimes the changes are not appropriate to release as open source.
Sometimes you /can't/, for legal or liability reasons.

> > In the remaining cases, you basically have people who don't want to
> > contribute their changes back, for whatever reason (and there are valid
> > reasons for this). 
> > 
> >    a) This does not hurt a BSD licensed project, whereas
> > 
> >    b) The GPL'd project loses out if the person becomes motivated to go
> >       write a BSD licensed version of their product, so that they can
> >       then go and make their further undistributed changes in peace.
> > 
> >       This is especially damaging when there would have been a mix of
> >       noncontributed changes and also contributed changes coming back
> >       to the project, but instead now you have a competing project.
> >
> That's all a nonsense.  You started talking about "people who don't
> want to contribute their changes back" and then qualified it in (b)
> by saying that the project would have lost out.  In this case, the
> project was in a no-win situation from the moment that person found
> it.

No.  Look at the case of Apple, as one trivial counterexample.

> With the GPL, if a person doesn't want to distribute the source and
> all changes then they can either (a) not distribute anything at all
> (b) create their own competing product.
> 
> I welcome competition.  You obviously have a proprietary outlook.

No, I have a practical outlook, tempered by years of experience as a
software author, including in fields such as medical monitoring.

Have you ever written code for something like a medical monitor?  For
numerous reasons, you don't want that code available to the public.  You
don't need some not-smart-enough hospital techie trying to make changes
to it, figuring out how to override the safeguards and then installing it
on your equipment, and then suddenly having liability issues.

That doesn't mean that during the course of coding that project, that you
run across a nice high performance GPL'd line drawing algorithm, which is
perfect except that it doesn't draw antialiased lines, and while you would
have no problem writing and returning the antialiased line code back to
that project, you don't want your entire product becoming subject to the
GPL.

That's (close to) real world.  In reality, we had a somewhat larger
example (plus some other miscellaneous examples) of something that would
have been nice to use, and which would have benefitted from returned 
changes, had they not been licensed under GPL.  We did, in fact, make 
great use of X11, contributed various code fixes and other things back 
to that project, though the driver I wrote for the propietary touchscreen 
stuff was not sent back to MIT...  what would the point have been?

As a frequent contributor to a number of actual open source projects, it
is rather hilarious for you to say that I have a propietary outlook.  We
even host the CVS repository for a long-term open source project here, so
that's not even close to true.

> >    c) The GPL'd project loses out if the person does something else      
> > entirely. 
>
> If that person wasn't going to contribute then the project would have
> lost out regardless of its license. 

But what would it have lost?  Would the project be any worse off?  No.

That's the point.  Under either the BSD license or under the GPL, you
might not have received any updates.  That's being no worse off than you
were.  However, if the GPL drives the potential contributor away, that
results in a case where the BSD licensed project might get some changes
whereas the GPL project is getting none, and that's a clear disadvantage
to the GPL'd project.

> At least the GPL would have
> protected the project from an even worse situation - wholesale code
> theft and lock-up.

Theft?  Lock-up?  No.  That's what happens when someone actually breaks a
license.  What happens under the BSD license is neither of those, and if
you aren't capable of understanding that, then this is pointless, because
you're presenting the appearance of being a frothing GPL loonie.

You are, of course, welcome to license your software under whatever license
you want.  That's a freedom you have.  I certainly have not suggested that
you shouldn't have that.  However, that doesn't change the fact that there 
are downsides to the GPL.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.