What's free? BSD vs. GPL

[Firestryke31]

Things not POSIX: "The 42 Flame"

Solar, I applaud you. You've put into words (and to a very high quality at that) exactly how I feel in this debate.

QFT. The GPL almost seems like communism to me. In theory it works and sounds nice and all, but in large-scale practice there are problems with it that any fanatic will refuse to see.

[Troy Martin]

Things not POSIX: "The 42 Flame"

That's the ticket. Well done!

My opinions follow:

I'm anti-GPL. I find the entire thing to be less of a free and open-source software license and more like a mass of hobbyist-approved, M$-style legalese. The BSD license, although extremely permissive, can logically be shortened down to two or three sentences. The rest is just to cover the developers' asses in the event someone uses their program and their computer shits itself.

The BSD license is interesting; it used to have four clauses, one of which was controversial. The original third clause said you had to include the following statement in your program and advertising: "This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors." It was removed in 1999 to create the three-clause license we call the BSD license today. Personally, I'm a major advocate of three-clause BSD (and the MIT license, too.)

Another fun little OSS license is the MIT license. It's basically a version of the two-clause BSD license but worded differently. FSF calls it the X11 license as it's most commonly used for (and was designed for use in) the X11 window system.

This one's kind of funny, and I'm not sure if I like it or not: The Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL) for their Shared Source program. It's almost BSD-like but prohibits relicensing in source code form. It looks like Microsoft's response to the open source movement in the form of "Ballmer! Get the open source licensing people on the line! We're fucked!"

Don't you think copyleft is a necessary "evil"? You say GPL wants us to "share-the-way-we-tell-you-to-or-don't-distribute", but I'm asking: what's the problem in that kind of sharing? What your freedoms does GPL compromise, accept your "freedom" to deprive someone else of the very same freedom you have been given? I see nothing "hypocritical" in it.

Oh gods no. It's not necessary, it's just evil. It kills our freedom to have our code used by the public following our guidelines, yet giving them lots of slack. It kills our freedom to have control, as users, over the way we're allowed to use the wonderful tools developers spend time writing for us.

For me, it’s either free (as in, do what thou wilst, a.k.a. public domain), or mine (proprietary license), but none of this “it’s free, but only as we say” crap.

I'd like to add one more: pretty damn free (as in, do what thou wilst, but play nice and remember this code is still technically ours) of them licenses that are borderline GPL-compatible.

[Solar]

Meh. I think the point is that every side of this argument has enough merit that nobody is going to win.

This is not about "winning". It's about not throwing mud at the other camp. I know I'm on a slippery slope here seeing what my blog is about, but compare the amount of anti-GPL statements with the amount of "you're not free, you suck" circulating the web, and you get my drift.

If you need a good example, have a look at XFree86. All they wanted was an honorable mention where their code was used, and in the end the whole support for their (technically sound) product was dropped from Linux for "incompatibility with the GPL", generous flaming by the GPL camp included...

[earlz]

I agree with Solar, Free means you can do what you want. I don't want public domain either though that someone can just rip out and say they made it though. So I go for BSD.

I really hate how GPL people think they are doing BSD code a "favor" by adding a GPL license to it after they fix a few things. Great, Thanks for all your good patching and work. Now that GPL code can never come back into this BSD project. Thanks, your really doing us a favor.

edit:
I think really more people here will prefer BSD, cause we are making OSs, We don't care what people do with them really, and it's usually prefered someone learn from them(learning for GPL code can in some cases mean your project is GPL) I think there will be 2 or 3 "real" supporters of GPL here and then all the noobs that just want to release their software to be free and GPL being the only license they've heard of.

btw, I posted here before it got locked

[Solar]

Actually, my license of choice for an OS project would be a commercial license, at least after the v1.0 release. You need support / download servers, test machines, and if you really want to take off, some magazine ads, a DevCon of sorts, stuff like that. Of course you can ask for donations, but I prefer donations to go to the poor, the handicaped, the hungry. I provide an honest product, people pay a honest price. Not to make me filthy rich, but to keep the wheels turning.

[paxcoder]

I have read the blog, I have read your comments. Bit I still can't see any arguments that would appeal to me.
Basically, what you're all seem to be saying is: BSD gives more freedom (then I ask what are those?), freedoms that GPL takes (then I ask what freedoms does GPL compromise?), freedoms that BSD gives. And that is, my friends, circular logic - a logical fallacy.
The only "freedom" that GPL takes, as I have already said, is to further down in line, mix it with proprietary software thus making it non-free. Now I have in the beginning assumed you are advocates of free software, but in the end, as it turns out, you want to take someone else's code and make it non-free. And then you ask me or tell me that non-free isn't necessarily evil, but GPL is. Why? Non-free restricts freedoms last time I checked (saying the obvious again). I thought the advantages of free software were clear to all of us. And if you're going to argue pay-per-product market, I'm telling you again, nobody will pay for BSD code. There's no reason to.
Bottom line: I don't sympathize with your inability to take someone else's code and claim it as your own by making it non-free. You're criticizing GNU for imposing restrictions (that protect user freedom), yet many of you would like to impose your own yourself if it weren't for the fact that you would have to abide by them.
Sure we are confronting free and non-free. What is this middle ground you're talking about? Is BSD it? You're mad that GPL is doing what you have made it possible for them to do? Not to mention you have given the same permission to proprietary people! What's up with that? Are we to blame now? For not "giving it back"? We are pro-free software, and we don't list "freedom" to take away freedom as one of our goals. Does that make us the bad guys? The reason it bothers you is only because you have such a wonderful permissive license. Don't blame us for fixing it.
I remain unconvinced.

[paxcoder]

Sorry for that thing up there. Gotta keep it cool.
If you really are an advocate of free software and still prefer BSD, what I want you to answer is this:
What freedoms that GPL grants do you disagree with? Unless you can find a freedom that GPL gives/takes, there is hardly an argument left for you, because all GPL does with its copyleft is protect those freedom it gives. Yes, its says: give the same freedoms to your users as you have been given.
Free software advocate, tell me why is that bad?

[Combuster]

To the troll: GPL only takes parts of your freedom. There is no freedom in GPL that public domain or BSD does not give you, while the reverse does hold.

[paxcoder]

To the troll: GPL only takes parts of your freedom. There is no freedom in GPL that public domain or BSD does not give you, while the reverse does hold.

Yes, that's what I want you to define: what parts are those? What freedom(s) are you refering to? And whose freedoms?
Is possibility to take someone's free code and redistribute it taking that same freedom away from others, would you argue that's a freedom? Or is there something else you were referring to?

[NickJohnson]

One issue is that although the GPL does a much better job protecting against proprietary software developers, commercialization of software is the rule, not the exception, in the world today. That makes it difficult to have everyone work together. Also, as Solar argued on his blog, the "proprietary developers" that the GPL fights are less the big destructive companies and more the indie entrepreneurs who are actually beneficial to the software world.

I think what really needs to be done is the lessening of the copyright term for software to something more like the patent term - so entrepreneurs can get their cut (and therefore have motivation) and then things can be released into the public domain where everyone can benefit. This disharmony is bad for everyone, users and developers.

[ru2aqare]

Yes, that's what I want you to define: what parts are those? What freedom(s) are you refering to? And whose freedoms?
Is possibility to take someone's free code and redistribute it taking that same freedom away from others, would you argue that's a freedom? Or is there something else you were referring to?

My experience with GPL'ed code is the following. Take osdev for example. There are lot's of (excellent or not so, that's beside the point) code around that you could use for making your OS better. Driver implementations for Linux for example. If I understand correctly, you can't even *link* (reuse) that code without making your *whole* codebase GPL'ed. Even if you don't make any modifications it, even if it compiles and works out of the box, even if you distribute your OS freely (just under a license different from GPL), legally you can't touch it. You have to reinvent the wheel and build drivers from scratch just to get around that. I think the previous posters were referring to this.

[stephenj]

To the troll: GPL only takes parts of your freedom. There is no freedom in GPL that public domain or BSD does not give you, while the reverse does hold.

Yes, that's what I want you to define: what parts are those? What freedom(s) are you refering to? And whose freedoms?
Is possibility to take someone's free code and redistribute it taking that same freedom away from others, would you argue that's a freedom? Or is there something else you were referring to?

To paraphrase Combuster (and restate what I've said):

Basically copyleft states that if there can be restrictions on software due to copyright, then let's accept them, and choose them in way that encourages availability. Meanwhile the permissive camp believes in minimizing restrictions.

Let's look at this from another perspective. Let us say that you had the choice between living in two places. The first is uninhabited, you essentially have the freedom to do whatever you want because no one cares what you do. The second is an inhabited land with very strict laws, but the laws are meant to maximize freedom. What land is more free?

The permissive camp doesn't care about their neighbours, just as long as they don't falsely claim ownership. Copylefters want to ensure their neighbours follow the neighbourhood bylaws.

[paxcoder]

Also, as Solar argued on his blog, the "proprietary developers" that the GPL fights are less the big destructive companies and more the indie entrepreneurs who are actually beneficial to the software world.

Well if you're going to argue proprietary software is good for software generally, we'll just have to disagree. The ideas - perhaps. But I'd rather see the innovators change camps then feed the dying giant that is Microsoft. BSD doesn't do anything to change that. GPL's copyleft might (see clisp for example of copyleft+nolinking on a gnureadline library freeing the software, also notice BSDs editline alternative now available to see how it compromises that).

You have to reinvent the wheel and build drivers from scratch just to get around that. I think the previous posters were referring to this.

See but that's exactly what I'm saying: Not using GPL because you need to share under the same terms (freedoms) you used it is irrational if you agree with those freedoms.

The second is an inhabited land with very strict laws, but the laws are meant to maximize freedom. What land is more free?

GPL isn't supposed to be restrictive in any way, but it's necessary to keep software from turning restricted. It's not only our freedoms, it's the freedoms of our users. You forgot to mention the proprietary thieves who try to rob the two lands, but only get stopped in one.

[Troy Martin]

GPL isn't supposed to be restrictive, but it's necessary to keep software from turning restrictive. It's not only our freedoms, it's the freedoms of our users. You forgot to mention the proprietary thieves who try to rob the two villages, but only get stopped in one.

Okay, so what are you going to do to me if I take your GPL'd code, implement it in my OS under my BSD license, and don't even acknowledge you? What if I do acknowledge you, but I refuse to switch to the assimilation device that is the GPL?

[stephenj]

You forgot to mention the proprietary thieves who try to rob the two villages, but only get stopped in one.

"Robbery" can only exist in terms of permissive license if you claim you wrote someone else's code.

If I give you something and you take/use it under the terms I specified then you haven't "robbed" me.