What's with the move to MIT over AGPL for utilities?
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If you're developing software for a platform that doesn't allow users to replace dynamic libraries (game consoles, iOS, many embedded/commercial systems), you won't be able to legally use any GPL or AGPL libraries.
While I strongly agree with the motives behind copyleft licenses, I personally never use them because I've had many occasions where I was unable to use any available library for a specific task because they all had incompatible licenses.
I release code for the sole purpose of allowing others to use it. I don't want to impose any restrictions on my fellow developers, because I understand the struggle it can bring.
Even for desktop programs, I prefer MIT or BSD because it allows others to take snippets of code without needing to re-license anything.
Yes I understand that means anyone can make a closed-source fork, but that doesn't bother me.
If I wanted to sell it I might care, but I would have used a different license for a commercial project anyway.Sorry, I'm not much of a software dev so bear with me:
If the libraries are GPL licensed, is there a problem? Unless you're editing the libraries themselves.
Now if the application is GPL licensed and you're adding functionality to use other libraries, please push upstream. It helps the community and the author will more likely than not be happy to receive it
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What improvements are you thinking of? I can see that reasoning with something like the Linux kernel where there's a lot of complex and integrated code, but ultimately individual coreutils commands are really simple. There's very little you can do to extend something like
ls... And if you do, you can just make your ownsuperlscommand and not have to deal with any licensing restrictions.With regards to AGPL vs GPL, none of the coreutils programs have network connectivity, so I'm not sure what the network requirement actually adds?
Personally, I don't think the problem is the risk of companies not contributing back... I honestly wouldn't mind if they don't contribute and instead they just use the GPL software as-is, without making any changes to it.
In my mind, the problem is that I cannot trust that a piece of non-copyleft software that's provided by a company actually does what I expect it should do, and does not have extra bits doing things I do not want it to do. Soft of like Google Chrome, for example.
When I see, for example, that Apple or Microsoft Widnows include a copy of openssl with the OS, how can I be sure they are not adding their own sort of malicious spice into it?
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Sorry, I'm not much of a software dev so bear with me:
If the libraries are GPL licensed, is there a problem? Unless you're editing the libraries themselves.
Now if the application is GPL licensed and you're adding functionality to use other libraries, please push upstream. It helps the community and the author will more likely than not be happy to receive it
Any linking against GPL software requires you to also release your source code under GPL. AGPL allows you to link to it dynamically without relicensing, but as explained, there are platforms where dynamic linking isn't an option, which means these libraries can't be used if one doesn't want to provide AGPL licensed source code of their own product.
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Sorry, I'm not much of a software dev so bear with me:
If the libraries are GPL licensed, is there a problem? Unless you're editing the libraries themselves.
Now if the application is GPL licensed and you're adding functionality to use other libraries, please push upstream. It helps the community and the author will more likely than not be happy to receive it
Using a GPL library will require you to re-license your entire project as GPL, regardless of whether you made a change or not.
LGPL is a bit better, because it allows you to dynamically link the library. But you're required to provide a copy of source for the library, and any users must be able to swap the built library with their own copy.
Eg; you can use an AGPL-licensed .dll in your closed-source windows program, because users can swap that .dll easily.
You can't do the same for a ps5 game because users aren't able to replace any files that the game uses.
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I"m with you on copyleft, but if I had any connection to the project and felt the need to add a reaction emoji, it'd probably be a "thumbs-down" as well.
It's not because I'm against the GPL, but because of the way the GitHub comment is written.
It doesn't even say "you should use the GPL", it says "you MUST say GNU doesn't agree with you". I'm perplexed.
Now, I respect the idea of GNU, but the way GNUers in general go about behaving themselves is perfect to alienate people, and this GitHub issue is a prime example. I don't get it.
If people don't know about GNU, tell them. Nicely.
If people have misconceptions about GNU, there's nothing wrong with fixing them. Again, nicely.
The problem is, whenever I encounter GNU and however much I agree with them on key issues (which is at about 90%, my main gripe with them being Freedom 0), they just have a knack to get me, someone who is with them on most issues, annoyed at them. I can clearly see how someone who isn't as alligned with them as I am gets equally annoyed and avoids GPL and GNU like the plague just to fuck with 'em (while fucking over everyone, including themselves). Not to mention ones into the libertarian stream, since you yourself covered that pretty well.
What the GitHub issue you linked that I keep coming back to shows is this GNU herd mentality of fucking over others unintentionally and in turn fucking over everyone. While they're clearly better than the "libtards", they still end up doing the same mistake.
There is another issue on their tracker that was opened many years ago about relicensing to GPL, but it kind of became one of those things where a bunch of people came in and discussed it back and forth to death with no resolution.
I remember the lead developer of the Rust version of Coreutils gave a talk about the project once and he addressed the licensing question by essentially saying (paraphrasing), "I don't care about this. So I just picked one." You'd think someone so involved with open source as that guy (seriously, he has a hugely impressive pedigree) would care, or would at least give a justification.
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Altruism towards shareholders, not the open-source community
And they are mutually exclusive, in your eyes?
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Apple makes the source code to all their core utilities available? Nobody cares but they do.
Why do they?
They are BSD licensed (very similar to MIT). According to the crowd here, Apple would never Open Source their changes. Yet, in the real world, they do.
Every Linux distro uses CUPS for printing. Apple wrote that and gave it away as free software.
How do we explain that?
There are many companies that use BSD as a base. None of them have forked the BSD utilities.
Why not?
"Commercial" is not the opposite of free/libre. In fact, GPL licensed software can be "taken commercial" with a guarantee that it will remain libre, whereas BSD-licensed software doesn't have those guarantees.
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And they are mutually exclusive, in your eyes?
In this case, yes. If you were altruistic toward the community, shareholders could instruct devs to use it anyway so it works out for both groups. Doesn't work the other way around
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Why do they not care? And why would they avoid GPL?
Why do they not care?
Because, for many of them, they don't have any reason to. In other words, privilege. Copyleft licensing is a subversive, anti-establishment thing, and software engineers are predominantly people who benefit from the established power structures. Middle/upper class white men (I'm included in that category, by the way). There's basically no pressure for them to rock the boat.
And why would they avoid GPL
Because many of them are "libertarian" ideologues who have a myopic focus on negative liberty (as opposed to the positive variety).
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Why do they not care?
Because, for many of them, they don't have any reason to. In other words, privilege. Copyleft licensing is a subversive, anti-establishment thing, and software engineers are predominantly people who benefit from the established power structures. Middle/upper class white men (I'm included in that category, by the way). There's basically no pressure for them to rock the boat.
And why would they avoid GPL
Because many of them are "libertarian" ideologues who have a myopic focus on negative liberty (as opposed to the positive variety).
Look, I understand if your boss tells you to not write Open-source/only use MIT so they can profit off of it later on. But for the people who have a choice, why wouldn't they? I don't see how it hurts their bottom line.
I'm middle class and here I am raging on Lemmy about software licenses LMAO
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In this case, yes. If you were altruistic toward the community, shareholders could instruct devs to use it anyway so it works out for both groups. Doesn't work the other way around
How does a corporation using it obstruct independent developers from using it under the same license? I don't see a compelling case for them being mutually exclusive
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Look, I understand if your boss tells you to not write Open-source/only use MIT so they can profit off of it later on. But for the people who have a choice, why wouldn't they? I don't see how it hurts their bottom line.
I'm middle class and here I am raging on Lemmy about software licenses LMAO
Yeah, but you and I aren't really representative of all software people. Most of them just want to grill.
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Any linking against GPL software requires you to also release your source code under GPL. AGPL allows you to link to it dynamically without relicensing, but as explained, there are platforms where dynamic linking isn't an option, which means these libraries can't be used if one doesn't want to provide AGPL licensed source code of their own product.
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Yes, sorry
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I would understand if Canonical want a new cow to milk, but why are developers even agreeing to this? Are they out of their minds?? Do they actually want companies to steal their code? Or is this some reverse-uno move I don't see yet? I cannot fathom any FOSS project not using the AGPL anymore. It's like they're painting their faces with "here, take my stuff and don't contribute anything back, that's totally fine"
Its simple: its to exploit it in a corporate setting. I license under MIT because a lot of my things are of small convenience, but never without debating the ethics of why I am licensing it.
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How does a corporation using it obstruct independent developers from using it under the same license? I don't see a compelling case for them being mutually exclusive
Because most corporations do not contribute their changes back if it's MIT/BSD licensed
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Yeah, but you and I aren't really representative of all software people. Most of them just want to grill.
I understand. I can't argue against wanting to earn money and be told to do something. I just wish that those that have a choice would take the extra minute to use GPL
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Its simple: its to exploit it in a corporate setting. I license under MIT because a lot of my things are of small convenience, but never without debating the ethics of why I am licensing it.
I understand that if your boss tells you to write MIT/Proprietary code, you do so. I just wish that the ones who had a choice would use GPL
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I would understand if Canonical want a new cow to milk, but why are developers even agreeing to this? Are they out of their minds?? Do they actually want companies to steal their code? Or is this some reverse-uno move I don't see yet? I cannot fathom any FOSS project not using the AGPL anymore. It's like they're painting their faces with "here, take my stuff and don't contribute anything back, that's totally fine"
Bruh instead of all this speculation, you guys could have just looked it up.
https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/discussions/4358#discussioncomment-8027681
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Its simple: its to exploit it in a corporate setting. I license under MIT because a lot of my things are of small convenience, but never without debating the ethics of why I am licensing it.
The author explicitly states that this is not the reason.
https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/discussions/4358#discussioncomment-8027681
