Choosing a free software license [LWN.net]

Choosing a free software license

Posted May 23, 2007 18:54 UTC (Wed) by mheily (guest, #27123)
In reply to: A day at the Open Source Business Conference by kwink81
Parent article: A day at the Open Source Business Conference

Even though I prefer the BSD license for my own code, I think Eben Moglen is right to say that the GPL is a better choice for commercial software companies looking to reap the benefits of the open-source development model without taking the risk of having a competitor take the code and incorporate it into a competing product.

However, the fact that the GPL is a more corporate-friendly license does not mean that it is the best license in all circumstances. Many valuable contributions to the free software universe have come from academic, governmental, non-profit, and hobbyist developers. The BSD license, and similar licenses such as the Apache, Mozilla, CDDL, ISC, and MIT licenses, etc., should be considered whenever the profit motive is not the direct motivation for a project's development activity.

These more liberal licenses allow the code to be used in ways that provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. For example, imagine if Microsoft had been unable to import the TCP/IP stack from the BSD operating system into Windows due to licensing restrictions. They would have written their own buggy, incompatible implementation that only worked properly when two Windows hosts were communicating. Or imagine if Apple were unable to use the FreeBSD operating system as a basis for their proprietary UNIX system. They would have used the NeXT kernel and userland instead, spent a lot more time and resources maintaining the codebase, and the resulting Mac OS X would have been of lower quality and more incompatible with the rest of the UNIX family.

Hopefully my comments will not spark another round of the GPL/BSD license wars. Both licenses have their strengths and weaknesses, and developers should consider all their options and choose a license that meets their personal, political, and professional needs.

(Log in to post comments)

Choosing a free software license

Posted May 23, 2007 19:33 UTC (Wed) by kwink81 (guest, #33926) [Link]

>"imagine if Microsoft had been unable to import the TCP/IP stack from the BSD operating system into Windows due to licensing restrictions. They would have written their own buggy, incompatible implementation that only worked properly when two Windows hosts were communicating."

Yes, I agree that all standards of communication, such as Vorbis, ODF, and TCP/IP should be under permissive licenses that allow them to be implemented as widely as possible.

>"imagine if Apple were unable to use the FreeBSD operating system as a basis for their proprietary UNIX system. They would have used the NeXT kernel and userland instead, spent a lot more time and resources maintaining the codebase, and the resulting Mac OS X would have been of lower quality and more incompatible with the rest of the UNIX family."

If FreeBSD had been under the GPL, free software would have been given a significant competitive advantage over proprietary software?

For many of us, that is EXACTLY what we want. We want to help bring positive social change to the software world, not hand the old dictatorships stronger pairs of handcuffs.

Choosing a free software license

Posted May 23, 2007 20:53 UTC (Wed) by mheily (guest, #27123) [Link]

> "If FreeBSD had been under the GPL, free software would have been given a significant competitive advantage over proprietary software?"

Unfortunately, no. My point was that Apple would not have chosen to use a GPL-licensed operating system because it would have forced them to give away a lot of proprietary code that is critical to maintaining their market niche. They have a number of APIs (Carbon, Cocoa, Quartz, IO Kit, etc.) that are intertwined with the kernel and operating system. These APIs provide the "graphical user experience" that is at the heart of their business model.

I just ported a low-level system library from Linux to OpenBSD, and then to OS X. It was pretty easy due to the similarities between Linux and BSD. If Apple had used a proprietary UNIX OS (NeXTstep) as the foundation for OS X, porting would have been more difficult. In my mind, wasting developers' time is a far greater crime than selling a mixture of free and proprietary software.

Choosing a free software license

Posted May 24, 2007 11:38 UTC (Thu) by timschmidt (guest, #38269) [Link]

I think you misunderstand his meaning... He did not mean to imply that Apple would have chosen a GPL'd core for OS X, merely that Apple would have had to re-invent the wheel, and so, been at a disadvantage as compared to GPL'd OS vendors.

Choosing a free software license

Posted Jun 7, 2007 7:47 UTC (Thu) by hozelda (guest, #19341) [Link]

>> If Apple had used a proprietary UNIX OS (NeXTstep) as the foundation for OS X, porting would have been more difficult. In my mind, wasting developers' time is a far greater crime than selling a mixture of free and proprietary software.

Good BSD code allows proprietary companies to thrive, while good GPL code/competition forces them to join the competition and open up.

I and many that support GPL software absolutely care about not wasting developer time. We also care about not wasting end user's time. This is why we don't see why we should use licenses that help large proprietary companies to thrive, especially in a way where through the very powerful lock-in mechanisms, mixed with closed source, a few such entities eliminate a lot of business (and with it money to support even more FLOSS) for many others and put the end users in shackles, forced to accept inferior products than what they would otherwise have.

If all noncommercial entities benefit from BSD the same as from GPL, but if commercial entities (the competition not the incumbant) benefit more from GPL, then it seems to me that if the noncommercial entities join the commercial companies and adopt GPL, they will do two things to improve their position. One is that they will ultimately help to lead to a situation where there is more FLOSS code available for them (5 items of GPL vs. 1 of BSD, 2 of GPL, and 1 of proprietary (.5 of which reinvents the other .5); 5>3). Two is that they will have insurance so if they leave academia or whatever their nonprofit status is (especially true of students) they are more likely to have an interesting job because no very small number of companies dominate, setting the agenda on their closed systems for everyone else. And of course, I haven't even discussed that these non commercial developers are first and foremost end users, and have friends that are end users but not developers, etc. This is one more reason to help proprietary companies (like Apple) change to a FLOSS model and to make sure there is as much free (both senses of word) software as possible, ie, to add to the pool of good GPL code without adding to the pool of good BSD code.

Choosing a free software license

Posted May 24, 2007 10:07 UTC (Thu) by NRArnot (subscriber, #3033) [Link]

> "I agree that all standards of communication, such as Vorbis, ODF, and TCP/IP should be under permissive licenses that allow them to be implemented as widely as possible"

Danger!

This plays right into the hands of those who would "embrace, extend and extinguish". Or those who would insert a "poison pill" (a non-free technology) into an open standard (Rambus's ambush of the JEDEC memory hardware standards springs to mind, though ultimately Rambus failed).

If not the GPL, at the minimum one needs a license that makes sure that the license dies the moment that an implementation of an open standard is extended in an incompatible way. I don't actually know of any license that aims at BSD-openness but also makes sure that a standard (for a communication protocol, in the widest possible sense) is maintained as a single open standard rather than fragmented into mutually incompatible, proprietary, patent-encumbered variants. Is it possible?

If not, the GPL is best - it forces those who use and distribute the original code to give back their code and (GPL V3) patent licenses, but unless there is a way to force them to give back as a minimum full disclosure of their modified protocols and patent licenses to use the same, GPL V3 will have to suffice.

Choosing a free software license

Posted May 24, 2007 10:17 UTC (Thu) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]

What about LGPL?

Choosing a free software license

Posted May 24, 2007 12:00 UTC (Thu) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

Agreed. Note that even Stallman argued for the Ogg Vorbis code to be put under the (revised) BSD license, for exactly these reasons.

Choosing a free software license

Posted May 24, 2007 17:17 UTC (Thu) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]

>Or imagine if Apple were unable to use the FreeBSD operating system as a basis for their proprietary UNIX system. They would have used the NeXT kernel and userland instead, spent a lot more time and resources maintaining the codebase, and the resulting Mac OS X would have been of lower quality and more incompatible with the rest of the UNIX family.

Or imagine if Apple were unable to use GCC as a basis for their proprietary compiler system. They would have used EDG or something instead, spent a lot more time and resources maintaining the codebase, and the resulting compiler would have been of lower quality and more incompatible with GCC and other compilers...

Well, except that they actually decided that they didn't want their compiler to be proprietary so badly that they were willing to put in that effort, and now are a major contributor to GCC proper -- so on net, way more people are getting way more benefit than they would have if GCC were under a BSD license, because we all benefit from Apple's code.

Their compiler and kernel are totally different matters, of course, and probably if the only kernels available had been GPL they would still have made the extra effort to keep it proprietary, because it's much more central to their business model. But the point is that you can't just say that BSD licenses provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people; that's only a rule if you look in the short term and ignore system effects.