stupid breeds stupid

Posted Mar 23, 2025 23:03 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: stupid breeds stupid by dskoll
Parent article: OSI election ends with unsatisfying results

This is where imho the "pick any two" dilemma rears its head.

> then downstream recipients are forced to share their changes if they distribute modified versions of the software, and that IMO is a good thing that does benefit everyone.

> If you want to make money writing software, pick a standard proprietary license.

I don't think those two statements are mutually compatible :-) Well, they are with copyleft licences like MPL, but that's a "weak" licence and not liked by the purists.

If I want to make a living from software, using the GPL makes life, well, tricky. How can that be "a good thing that does benefit everyone"? Either I have to re-invent the wheel (a bad thing), or I have major administrative hassle proving I comply with the licence (a bad thing), or I have to think of all sorts of "inventive" ways round the GPL - yet another bad thing!

That's alleviated to some extent by the LGPL, which is a big show of practicality by FSF, but it comes over as an unwanted concession to necessity, rather than the right solution to certain problems.

But we're drifting way off what provoked this thread - a conspiracy theory against Open Source. We both want the same end - for the source to be open. We both agree that if someone makes us a gift, it behoves us to return it. It's just we may not agree about the best way to achieve that end. That's life!

Cheers,
Wol

stupid breeds stupid

Posted Mar 23, 2025 23:44 UTC (Sun) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

The statements are not mutually compatible. The reason for creating GPL'd software is not financial. It is to benefit humanity. If you want to make a living from software, don't use GPL'd software (unless you're willing to jump through the hoops.) If you want to produce GPL'd software, then it's fine for you to use GPL'd software.

The intent behind the GPL was never to empower businesses to make a profit off GPL'd software. The fact that a few have figured out a way to do that is not relevant to the intent of the GPL, which is to empower users to control their own computing environment.