LK2008: The values of the Linux community [LWN.net]

LK2008: The values of the Linux community

Posted Oct 11, 2008 16:16 UTC (Sat) by danielpf (guest, #4723)
In reply to: LK2008: The values of the Linux community by lmb
Parent article: LK2008: The values of the Linux community

You rightly pointed out what was missing in the original article.
Let me expand a bit.

In my opinion the success of GPL over BSD, or else, has almost nothing to do directly with ideology, but with the property of being able to spread faster than others in a given environment, the famous viral property.

Freedom in the GPL sense is a factor encouraging the viral propagation, but this is not necessarily the only and last one. For example, Microsoft's predatory methods are until now more successful in the biological sense.

The software world can be seen as a complex dynamical ecosystem, far less complex than life, but still including similar features like birth, death, reproduction, competition and selection acting on programs.
Life offers many examples of spreading organisms ready to use any tricks to spread better than competitors: fast reproduction, direct or indirect destruction of competitors, parasiting others, etc. No need of ideology there, just methods and acts within a dynamical systems.

Individual freedom is just a notion that has proved superior in human societies over the last centuries, but there is no ground to assume that it will always be the necessary condition to be the best fit for survival. Until Microsoft's empire collapses I may keep doubts that their aggressive methods may be effectively more viral than the GPL.

to post comments

LK2008: The values of the Linux community

Posted Oct 13, 2008 3:03 UTC (Mon) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (16 responses)

Oh let that dead horse rot in peace.

The GPL is not viral. Viruses reproduce whether the host likes it or not. It's a slur, and an inaccurate one.

LK2008: The values of the Linux community

Posted Oct 13, 2008 6:34 UTC (Mon) by danielpf (guest, #4723) [Link] (15 responses)

So what is your proposition? Infectious, self-propagating, contaminating, ...? I don't mind finding better terms, but for the moment "viral" is the meme that is popular. Typically your unhapiness with it should stimulate your creative side to find a better, superior wording that propagates and makes "viral" really a dead horse.

LK2008: The values of the Linux community

Posted Oct 13, 2008 11:50 UTC (Mon) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link]

Why not "meme" ?

Viral properties of the GPL

Posted Oct 13, 2008 11:58 UTC (Mon) by Felix.Braun (guest, #3032) [Link] (4 responses)

The qualification of the GPL as "viral" is utterly wrong and it's sad to see people who should know better perpetuate this meme.

The GPL only requires you to put any derived works of GPL'd software under the GPL. This means that you are not allowed to take GPL'd software, modify it and then distribute the result under a different license. However, you are free to publish your own changes seperately under whichever license you please. Even if you have once published a derived work under the GPL, you may later change your mind and publish new versions of your work under a propietary license or any other license that you can think of.

So the GPL only does one thing: it prevents appropriation of work by other people. You can not take my code, slap a patch on it and then take the whole thing for yourself. So the GPL's only effect is, that the work other's have placed under it is removed from your control. You are completely free to do whatever you please with your own creations. You just can't climb on the shoulder of giants and claim the whole view for yourself.

Characterising this as "viral" can only be called misleading propaganda, IMNSHO.

Properties of the GPL leading to wider use

Posted Oct 13, 2008 15:06 UTC (Mon) by danielpf (guest, #4723) [Link] (3 responses)

So what is your proposition for a better wording? If you leave the space empty the current memes will just fill it. Actually your new thread title helps the propagation of what you dislike!

The idea to convey is that once GPL is adopted for a piece of software, it cannot be changed back, only expand the GPL realm as the software grows.

Here are a few adjective conveying roughly this idea:
1) disease propagation: infectious, contagious, catching
2) drugs consumption: addictive
3) biological reproduction: fertile, prolific, spawning
4) warfare: invasive

Since English is not my original language, I am convinced better propositions with more positive connotation can be made.

Properties of the GPL leading to wider use

Posted Oct 13, 2008 16:06 UTC (Mon) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]

The better word is "copyrighted". None of the restrictions of the GPL are any greater than any other standard non-licensed copyrighted work. The GPL simply adds to what you can do with a copyrighted work, it does not take anything away. So debated the poor use of the term viral if you will, but it neglects the primary point, this "viral nature" is not a GPL specific feature, but a copyright specific feature.

So it's silly to say that the GPL is viral unless you are saying it as an extension of the fact that any copyrighted work is viral. If you insist on using the term viral, simply apply it to copyright and the way it applies to derived works. Point the finger in the right place, at copyright. The GPL takes advantage of this feature of copyright law just like almost any other copyrighted work, especially proprietary software, does!

Properties of the GPL leading to wider use

Posted Oct 13, 2008 18:53 UTC (Mon) by Felix.Braun (guest, #3032) [Link]

Good point, that I was propagating the meme myself :-) I should have been more careful :-)

Anyway, my main point is, that what you discribe is not a property of the GPL or even GPL'd software. It's the lazyness of people who shy away of re-inventing the wheel. People who moan that the GPL is viral are just too lazy to do all of the work themselves. They want to base their work on work done by others and claim the end result as their's to do as they whish.

Nothing in the GPL prevents them from doing all the ground work, coming up with their own solutions to age old problems long solved by some other piece of code. Nothing except their own lazyness. That is not bad at all. As we all know the correct mix of lazyness and hubris lies at the heart of all innovation ;-)

However, it strikes me as pretty disingenuous to start whining that all the people how have come before you, whose work you are building on, somehow force you to choose the GPL. The the GPL "infected" your work without your consent. That the GPL is doing something.

In fact, all the GPL does is to pander to a very powerful human trait: lazyness. The GPL allows you to stand on the shoulders of giants, or, more specifically, those giants allow you to use their previous work by means of placing the fruits of that labour under the GPL. You are by no means forced to do that. So if we'd have to label the GPL by some adjective, I'd say it is "seductive" because it attracts lazy people who like to innovate and allows for that lazyness through the exchange of ideas.

Not "viral". Try "Protective" (vs. "permissive").

Posted Oct 16, 2008 18:36 UTC (Thu) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link]

A common term for GPL-like licenses is "protective"; in contrast, BSD-like licenses are often termed "permissive".

For example, see: http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/floss-license-slide.html.

LK2008: The values of the Linux community

Posted Oct 13, 2008 14:27 UTC (Mon) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (7 responses)

So what is your proposition? Infectious, self-propagating, contaminating, ...?

The problem with terms like viral, infectious, contaminating, etc. is that they imply that other software can be brought under the GPL just by associating with something currently under the GPL. That just isn't true, which makes those terms wildly inappropriate. Code only needs to be GPLed if it is a derivative work of another program that's GPL licensed. A better description of that would be "inherited".

LK2008: The values of the Linux community

Posted Oct 13, 2008 15:17 UTC (Mon) by lmb (subscriber, #39048) [Link] (6 responses)

It is a bit more than that. It trumps most other licenses when GPL'ed code becomes embedded into a project. I personally think that "contagious" actually describes the behaviour quite well. Or, if you prefer a better spin, "pervasive" ;-)

Genetic metaphor

Posted Oct 13, 2008 16:18 UTC (Mon) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (5 responses)

I would describe the GPL as being dominant, while the BSD license (and similar licenses) are recessive. The analogy isn't 100% perfect- real organisms inherit half of each parent's genes, so they have a chance of receiving the recessive gene from a heterozygous parent, while software projects inherit all of their parents' licenses- but it's reasonably close.

I think that it also does a good job of highlighting the philosophical differences between permissive and copyleft licenses. The whole point of permissive, BSD-style licenses is that the code is supposed to be mixable with anything out there. That only works with a recessive license. Copyleft licenses are the exact opposite. Their goal is to be as dominant as possible so that no other license can replace theirs.

Genetic metaphor

Posted Oct 13, 2008 22:31 UTC (Mon) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (3 responses)

Oh, I like that one.

Another space of positive terms to explore: tit-for-tat, fair...

Genetic metaphor

Posted Oct 13, 2008 22:41 UTC (Mon) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link]

If you want to get into that sphere, I'd call the GPL (and other copyleft licenses) a "share and share alike" license, while the BSD (and other permissive licenses) is a "gift" license.

Genetic metaphor

Posted Oct 14, 2008 9:55 UTC (Tue) by danielpf (guest, #4723) [Link] (1 responses)

What about "equitable" ? It conveys an idea similar to "share and share alike" in one word, without being negative.

Genetic metaphor

Posted Oct 16, 2008 5:04 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]

"Mutual" might be another suitable term.

Genetic metaphor

Posted Oct 23, 2008 13:30 UTC (Thu) by anton (subscriber, #25547) [Link]

I would describe the GPL as being dominant, while the BSD license (and similar licenses) are recessive. [...] real organisms inherit half of each parent's genes [...] while software projects inherit all of their parents' licenses.

If you don't take all the code, you only inherit the licenses for the code that you take (which actually might, in some cases, be half of the licenses of each parent).

Moreover, if you, e.g., take only BSD parts from each parent, your resulting software can be distributed under BSD, even if the parents have GPL parts and therefore have to be distributed (as a whole) under the terms of the GPL, just like a recessive trait can show up in a child of two parents expressing a different, dominant trait.

So your analogy is pretty perfect.

viral comparisons considered harmful

Posted Oct 23, 2008 12:50 UTC (Thu) by pdundas (guest, #15203) [Link]

Sure there are aspects of how the GPL works that resemble the way a virus propagates its DNA. But there are two objections to the term that have very little to do with how technically accurate the parallels are.

The term has negative connotations. Just making the comparison sounds like a criticism - one that could be a barrier to use of both the code and the licence.

The metaphor is ambiguous. If you say the GPL is viral, people will assume a whole load of baggage that comes with viral, and start to imagine that it will "infect" far more than it does. This is a gift for opponents of open source and free software, and another barrier for less-aware potential users of the licence and the software.

Basically, the metaphor confuses more than it explains. SO whatever its technical merits, it's confusing and unhelpful in the real world.