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Odd choice of licencesOdd choice of licencesPosted Jul 9, 2010 16:35 UTC (Fri) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)In reply to: Odd choice of licences by robert_s Parent article: A line in the sand for graphics drivers Actually, when the GPL is applied to a library, rather than a program, I'm entirely sympathetic to the viewpoint that describes it as "infectious".
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Odd choice of licences Posted Jul 9, 2010 17:24 UTC (Fri) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
The problem with the 'infection' metaphor is that infections are things that spread on their own, against the person being infected's will.
When a library is under the GPL, that's not an infection, it's a price -- you can use the library if you pay it back by freeing your own software in return, or you can not use the library and not pay that price. Totally up to you.
Ironically, some of the people who hate the idea of this kind of quid-pro-quo rant about how it's 'communist'. (And, to drive the point home, also hate the first-sale doctrine, traditional contract law as applied to EULAs, etc.) Really it's 'capitalism' they seem to object to.
Odd choice of licences Posted Jul 12, 2010 9:03 UTC (Mon) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] Which is fine until the price becomes "you can't write 3D games on Linux without first reimplementing the graphics driver's userspace library and everything that links against it".
Odd choice of licences Posted Jul 12, 2010 14:10 UTC (Mon) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
Yes, that's generally agreed to be too high a price to impose (or, for the more free-software minded, it's agreed that the costs in terms of network effects of locking proprietary software out of the platform entirely are worse than the costs of that software existing). That's why everyone agrees that graphics drivers should be under something like the MIT license.
But that still has nothing to do with "infections".
Odd choice of licences Posted Jul 12, 2010 15:40 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Nothing to do with infections? If a developer wants to use a GPLed library in a proprietary project, his choices are:
- Clean-room rewrite the library. Huge waste of time. - Relicense the entire proprietary project under a GPL-compatible license.
I'm sympathetic to how it could appear like the license is trying to spread on its own. Obviously "infection" is not 100% accurate (what metaphor is?), but I haven't seen a better way to oversimplify this fairly unique aspect of the GPL. I'm afraid "infect" will be used until someone can think of a more appropriate term.
Odd choice of licences Posted Jul 12, 2010 15:44 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
A simpler and less loaded term is "reciprocal" license as opposed to "permissive" license.
Odd choice of licences Posted Jul 12, 2010 16:11 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
With a proprietary license, there isn't even the second option, just the first. And yet nobody describes them as 'infectious'. This makes it sound like the addition of that extra choice is a *bad* thing.
Odd choice of licences Posted Jul 14, 2010 10:55 UTC (Wed) by mtorni (subscriber, #3618) [Link]
Regards using a GPLed library in a proprietary project, you suggested the choices are:
#1 Clean-room rewrite the library. Huge waste of time. #2 Relicense the entire proprietary project under a GPL-compatible license.
I'd like to add two more options to permit a fair comparison:
#3 Relicense (buy) the free library under a license permitting use
Now the fair comparison goes:
With a GPL'd library you have one more choice in this setting.
The comparison becomes more interesting once you consider the options when using libraries in free software or BSD/MIT-licensed software.
It also happens frequently that most benefit would be had by not writing propriertary software at all to tap the most amount of existing free software and interested developers.
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