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by Sanddancer
3360 days ago
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That same treacherous developer can scoop up talent from a GPLed project too, such as the examples I gave. Sourceforge used to have a GPLed, but was brought closed, and the free version mouldered from disuse. Free software helped expand the reach of proprietary software. The GPL is no guarantee that a free version will always remain the most used branch either. Going GPL also has drawbacks. Look at how Apache 2 and GPL 2 weren't compatible because of the Apache license's patent clause. That lock-in effect of the GPL means that your software package can't be used by the larger free software community. Which if you're satisfied with it, fine, but some people don't want to encumber their software as such. There's no such thing as a universal benefit. |
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I don't understand what this sentence means? Do you mean they take the developers and stop them from working on the original GPL version? In this context I'm referring to the most common case which is a GPL project that has more than one copyright holder.
In _that_ context is is not possible for a developer to take the existing work of the developers, make a proprietary fork, and convince the developers (in a moment of weakness) to switch and start working on the proprietary code. They can create a new project, but that's always true and not possible to restrict (nor would anyone want to).
> That lock-in effect of the GPL means that your software package can't be used by the larger free software community.
And this is the whole point of the "or any later version" clause. Every complaint you're bringing up has already been resolved by how the GPL is used and has worked for >20 years. Of course the GPL does have its downsides (the whole MPLv1/CDDL thing is a real shame) but "lock-in" is not one of them (unless you explicitly decide to lock yourself in, which is your own fault).