[sjs]

(That was mostly incomprehensible, but I'll respond anyway...)

You're making the faulty assumption of thinking that someone who wants some source code that is only available under the GPL will just use it and decide to license their work under the GPL as well.

Every time I need some code for a proprietary product I'm working on I pass up GPL and AGPL code. If there's no MIT or BSD licensed code that does what I need then I will write it myself. This happens frequently. Sometimes I share the source (MIT or BSD licensed), sometimes not. If I use MIT or BSD licensed code I contribute back. Not everyone does but enough people do, and those who do contribute are happy knowing that their code may be even more useful to more people because it is not encumbered by the GPL.

So somebody who is making a proprietary thing is not restricting anyone by using an MIT or BSD licensed component. They are making a proprietary thing and the only alternative isn't to make a GPL thing. Another alternative is to make something else, or make nothing at all. No matter what they do in no way is anyone restricted from taking the MIT/BSD component and doing whatever they please with it. They are not restricted by the proprietary thing.

The GPL has its place, it's just not universally good the way RMS would have us all think.

[__david__]

> So somebody who is making a proprietary thing is not restricting anyone by using an MIT or BSD licensed component.

Of course you are! You are restricting your customers' freedom. The idea of the GPL is bigger than just giving you, a software developer, freedom to use it. The GPL ensures that your final end user also had all the freedoms that the you, the middle man, had. They can stand on the shoulders of you, who were given the freedom to stand on the shoulders of someone else.

That's why it baffles me when people make the claim that the GPL stifles freedom. It seems such an selfish, narrow view.

[StatHacking]

As we say here, "your freedom ends where others' start". You are not forcing anyone to distribute the software or do whatever they want to as long as you respect others' freedom.

What you are doing is not giving the power to restrict others if you distribute it so you keep it flowing. The only way of achieving freedom and equality is (IMO) to equally distribute power on all, so you will end up with the phrase at the beginning.

If you want to use that sense of "restriction", it is restricting power, not freedom. Restricting power is granting others their freedom.

[sjs]

Agree to disagree then. The alternative to Windows and OS X is not GPL-licensed Windows and GPL-licensed OS X, it's no Windows and no OS X, and we still have BSDs, Linux, and other open source systems in the ecosystem.

Nobody who wants an open source OS has been restricted, and those who want a different experience than open source provides have the freedom to choose a proprietary OS. If someone wants an open source Windows or OS X they can make one[1][2]. They are not restricted.

In the real world where not everyone is a programmer people don't feel restricted by proprietary software. Only in some hypothetical ivory tower manned by RMS are non-developers restricted by proprietary things.

[1] http://etoileos.com/ [2] http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html

I'm equally baffled when people can't accept a world where there is more than one type of license and software. Open source has its place in kernels, dev tools (editors, compilers, etc), education, and so on. That does not mean it's unequivocally the best and only model for all software in the world. I felt empowered after switching from Linux to OS X and I'm a developer, because I'd rather not hack on my OS to make it usable. I'd rather hack on the cool stuff that I want to hack on. I'd rather just use iPhoto than try to make F-spot, or whatever the photo app of the day on Linux is, not crash when importing photos, or upload to my online gallery, or usable for day to day use. I'd rather just use Billings than try to build my own open source version from scratch, presumably while still trying to pay the bills with other work. I'd rather just use Acorn than wait for GIMP to be usable by version 3.2 in 2020. And so on.

I still use open source software too. Emacs, iTerm2, v8, Firefox, WebKit, Ruby, GCC, LLVM, and many small projects. And contribute to other smaller projects that I'm actually capable of understanding and contributing to such as node, GitX, and many libraries around the net. I open source tools that I make that I think others might find useful, and if someone takes my MIT licensed tool and uses it in a proprietary thing I think it's great that my code was able to help someone else. I don't selfishly demand that they contribute everything they add back to me if they don't want to. My code helped someone accomplish their goal faster or better and that makes me happy.

If you don't understand that's fine, but I am absolutely not restricted by the proprietary software that I choose to use. I won't even call you narrow or selfish for not understanding.

edit: While writing that list of open source software I use, I realized that only Emacs and GCC are GPL. Why is it that the most popular open source software is not GPL licensed? If the GPL encourages and fosters collaboration why is the MIT, BSD, and MPL licensed software more active and popular? It almost seems as if removing the restrictions from the GPL encourages collaboration. The Linux kernel is a notable exception, so I'm not saying this is 100% true, but the evidence seems to support it in many cases.

[StatHacking]

> In the real world where not everyone is a programmer people don't feel restricted by proprietary software. Only in some hypothetical ivory tower manned by RMS are non-developers restricted by proprietary things.

This is irrespective and has nothing to do with the point. I can figure out tons of adjectives to """describe""" you. Also, I don't know why people think their reality is "the real world" and extrapolates it to others' "real worlds".

It is not about being a dev or not, it's about a system which someone relies on (even a society with Google) and ensuring its continuity and the best for all. If you ensure it, people will recognize your work and the money will come.

> While writing that list of open source software I use, I realized that only Emacs and GCC are GPL. Why is it that the most popular open source software is not GPL licensed? If the GPL encourages and fosters collaboration why is the MIT, BSD, and MPL licensed software more active and popular? It almost seems as if removing the restrictions from the GPL encourages collaboration. The Linux kernel is a notable exception, so I'm not saying this is 100% true, but the evidence seems to support it in many cases.

A software is "good" independent of its license. Licenses don't fix bugs. If you measure by adoption, then you should conclude that Visual Studio is what has encouraged most of the software developing in the past - and I think it's true, but hasn't to do with licensing and business models.

Your evidence supports that many licenses are being used, and that's a good thing. If you want to do things because many people does them, then you should adopt the Chinese culture. We have a phrase here: "Eat Shit: Trillions of flies can't be wrong." (this is not about Chinesse culture, they have outstanding good things and others not so good).

It took about 10 years to the industry to understand that they could earn money with open source software. It was very hard to try to explain someone that he could do better with a different model. Now that the industry has "internalize" it, everybody loves open source. AGPL is the next step: there is room for improvement and you will probably (IMO) do better with a more sustainable model.

[__david__]

I think you may be jumping to conclusions about what I think. I'm generally OK with proprietary software--I use Mac OS X on my main computer. I've paid lots of money for proprietary applications. I've released source under a variety of licenses (including GPL, proprietary and BSDish) and feel that they each have their place. I do feel much better using open source stuff because I know the rug is never going to be pulled out from under me (which happened recently with some proprietary scanner software I bought a few years ago).

BUT, I do think you can objectively measure "freedom" as it relates to software. The people who tend to complain about the GPL being "restrictive" are people that want to take code and release something proprietary. From their perspective the license is forbidding them to do what they want to do and is therefore restricive. But that's only considering themselves and not the people they are releasing the program to which is why I characterized it as "selfish". I think if you step back and look at why the GPL requires you to distribute the source with your binaries it is obvious that they are trying to give your customers the same freedoms you had. That objectively increases the amount of freedom in the whole software ecosystem.

> If you don't understand that's fine, but I am absolutely not restricted by the proprietary software that I choose to use.

Yeah, you are restricted--You are not allowed to compile up the source to your legitimately purchased Photoshop. I fully understand that you don't care (and I don't either [well, until there's a stupid bug]), but to say that you're not restricted is to, I think, misunderstand the situation.

[sjs]

I think that idealistically we agree, and it also seems like we agree on a practical level. We may be in a semantic death spiral, but I'm leaving my long reply here as well since I already wrote it.

--

Ok I see what you mean about thinking that the GPL is restrictive is selfish. I don't think it's necessarily bad to be selfish sometimes. Everyone has to earn a living and wanting to do so is inherently selfish. It's difficult to earn a living off selling and supporting open source software. Sure RedHat does it, and Cygnus does it. There are far more failures though. It seems that the best way to create open source software for a living is to work for a big company that sponsors a project such as Linux, LLVM, or something like that. The rest of us sell proprietary software and services and until you have a lot of momentum I don't think it's wise to open source everything. Releasing your project under the GPL or AGPL from day one is scary for most people. Selfish? Absolutely. Necessarily bad? Not in my opinion.

> Yeah, you are restricted--You are not allowed to compile up the source to your legitimately purchased Photoshop. I fully understand that you don't care (and I don't either [well, until there's a stupid bug]), but to say that you're not restricted is to, I think, misunderstand the situation.

It depends on your point of view. There's the point of view that RMS has: we have all been duped by big corporations. We're captives, and just because we like our prison and can't see the fences doesn't mean we are not restricted. This is the "captive" definition of restrict.

Another definition of restrict is to limit someone's movement or actions, as in "restrict someone to", or "restrict something to". Is one really limited if they don't care about those limits? I think this is where it's easy to get bogged down in semantics and philosophy.

Nation states limit and restrict us in many ways. Is that necessarily bad? Technically we are restricted, but is it useful to try and convince everyone that we've all been duped and anarchy is the true way to bee free? What if you just live in a country that is "free enough" and allows you to do what you want to do, without feeling restricted? If I'm thinking idealistically then yes a state of anarchy where everyone behaves in a cooperative and cordial manner sounds like bliss. But unfortunately that just doesn't work in real life.