
The time has come to stand up for the GPL - tobltobs
http://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-appeal.html
======
esaym
So many people hate on the GPL. I personally like. It will protect your
freedom as an open source developer. It is a good thing.

~~~
spopejoy
Agreed. I can't help but be depressed that anti-GPL FUD dominates convos on
HN. I mean, my own work has been disrupted by GPL being "inconvenient" but I
will still defend it. My life has been enriched by the great software written
under it, and the fact that it continues to thrive under this terrific
license.

~~~
Karunamon
Is that a function of the software, or of the license? (And more importantly,
can that difference be quantified?)

BSD/MIT is pretty well thriving, too. You probably use OpenSSH every day :)

The more permissive licenses always seemed the way to go, to me. I'd rather
people contribute out of personal desire to, rather than legal obligation.
That, and the GPL always seemed a bit too communist (in the sense of implying
that other people have a moral right to your work) for my taste.

~~~
bad_user
Does it really matter?

If a software author wants for people to use/distribute his software under a
specific license, that's his prerogative.

And the GPL is a truly free and open source license, it does allow you to use
it commercially and for whatever reason, it does allow you to create
derivates, all it asks is that in case you redistribute a derivate, you must
also give the source-code on request. It's not even an EULA, it's just a
copyright license.

And btw, compared to BSD/MIT, the GPL also contains a patents grant (implicit
but powerful enough for version 2, explicit for version 3). And unfortunately
in this universe, the big companies contributing to open-source also have
really big patents portfolios, therefore I always look suspiciously at code
licensed with BSD/MIT. And unfortunately patent trolls are a reality.

If you prefer more permissive licenses, then go for the Apache 2.0 ;-)

~~~
Karunamon
_If a software author wants for people to use /distribute his software under a
specific license, that's his prerogative._

We're discussing the merits of particular licenses, particularly their impact
on the software world, so this is kind of tautological, don't you think?

In any case, I was not aware of that difference between Apache and BSD, so you
have my sincere thanks for pointing that out. I've got a few things on Github
to modify methinks...

~~~
bad_user
Well, I wanted to point out that as far as open-source goes, it has a pretty
good definition and in the larger scheme of things, the actual open-source
license used does not matter, all that matters is to get people to contribute.

But people contribute when they've got reasons to do so and many people
believe in copyleft. And the GPL is an interesting case, because it happened
because its author hated copyright, so he decided to turn it on its head and
use it to his advantage. And in a world in which copyright (and other IP laws)
keep getting worse, copyleft gets even more relevant.

To the issue of whether copyleft did any good versus MIT/BSD, well, would have
Apple open-sourced WebKit if it wasn't for KHTML's LGPL license? I'm inclined
towards no, but truth is, we'll never know.

On GCC on the other hand, its authors not only used GPL, but actually made it
hard in the actual code for proprietary extensions to happen. This might have
been good 15-20 years ago, when the landscape was dominated by proprietary
compilers, but now I consider that we're better off with LLVM taking off.

------
alok-g
If use of GPL code causes more risk to the business than the costs/risks of
developing in-house, then the corporation should choose such path. Nobody is
forcing them one way or the other. If they use GPL, they have used a benefit
that open-source community has provided them which they do in exchange for
backward contributions that are intended to help other people/corporations
using the same GPL code-base as well.

I like to believe that corporations would generally agree to the above, though
some employees may accidentally violate open source licenses or other forms of
IP without realizing (and thereby potentially putting the company's business
or own IP at risk). Making employees aware of the licensing issues would help.

Interestingly though also, people go through such corporate IP training
treating it as bureaucracy. Elsewhere too, I see people copying things from
the Internet (e.g., images, music) without adhering to copyright laws. People
click on "I agree" without reading, sign employment agreements without having
slightest idea of what they says, and so on. I have myself tried to educate
people about these several times on Hacker News.

Not to defend VMWare here by any means, fixing/mitigating the bigger problem
would require increasing general awareness of IP issues at forums like HN and
elsewhere, such that the corporations can sanely honor the IP licensing
without high costs of employee training and maintaining a sizeable legal
department.

It also seems to me that lawyers at big corporations can also help by making
the legal processes easier. They are often so risk averse (to save their own
back, not necessarily for the benefit of or on behalf of the organization)
that they won't approve even reasonable IP requests sent their way.

~~~
joshyeager
The problem is that no one really knows what constitutes "safe" use of GPL
code. Even in a highly-technical OSS-friendly community like HN, there are
many different interpretations of what the GPL's restrictions actually mean.
You can see this in action in these VMware threads, where there are strong
arguments on both sides about whether VMware is violating the GPL.

That uncertainty plus the viral nature of the GPL means that there's no way to
know for sure that you won't be forced to open your whole codebase at some
point in the future. That's more risk than a proprietary software company is
willing to take.

The only way to resolve this problem is to get legal decisions like this one.
One way or the other, this decision will clarify the picture slightly. If we
add enough other decisions, maybe someday we'll have clarity.

Until then, my company is solidly in the "Absolutely no GPL" camp.

~~~
lambda
There is a pretty clearly defined set of safe behaviors under the GPL. If you
do not link to a program, run it in the same address space as your proprietary
code, or use any internal data structures of that program, that is safe.

No one can force you to open your whole code base. They can only make you
choose between opening the parts that do the unsafe things listed above
(linking, running in the same address space, utilizing private data structures
via some kind of shim that is supposed to work around the GPL), or they can
force you to stop distributing the GPLed software.

    
    
      Until then, my company is solidly in the "Absolutely no 
      GPL" camp.
    

It's so stunningly easy to use GPLed software properly, and there are
thousands of companies doing it. Just don't link it to your code, or try to do
some kind of hack that avoids linking it while giving you all of the same
benefits of doing so.

The problem with VMware is that they have been pushing all of the boundaries;
rather than just taking the easy road and doing known safe things like
ensuring that there's a clear separation between GPLed code and their code, or
just releasing their code that is linking to the GPLed code.

~~~
joshyeager
How does that help if the code we want to use is a library? A recent example
was an image manipulation need. We found a great library that met all our
requirements, but was GPL. Our other options were an inferior MIT-licensed
library, an inferior commercial library, or spending the time to write our
own.

If the thing you want to use is a DLL, how do you use it without linking to
it? Writing some sort of external process and using IPC to talk to it might
fulfill the letter of the license, but it's more work and less robust, and
still violates the spirit of the GPL.

In the end, we picked the MIT licensed component and worked around the issues.

~~~
foobarqux
Your real complaint is that you can't use the GPL without the conditions
imposed by it, not that those conditions are confusing or surprising.

------
masamune__
Please correct me or feed me link if I'm wrong, but I can't just
donate/support this case if they don't elaborate more on VMware side's story.
What has exactly happened? LWN's article sounds somewhat, well, 'unbalanced'.

In previous thread :

vmkapi?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9153716](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9153716)

is kernel's source really 'built'?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9155251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9155251)

------
copsarebastards
Ugh, "but nobody cares"? That's not in the original article. Please don't
editorialize in HN headlines.

That said, it's vital to the future of free software that we keep legal
precedent aligned behind the GPL. I donated and I encourage other people to
donate as well.

------
tobltobs
I removed the "but nobody cares" part. However I think it is still very
disappointing that the SFC has still not enough founding for this case, which
might be the biggest test of the limits of the GPL in a court until today.
Just drink one starbuck coffee less today and spend your money for something
useful.

~~~
shiggerino
Damnit, why do we have to deal with this PayPal bullshit in this day and age?
American banks need to get with the times and let people wire money straight
to an IBAN number. Also, why the hell do they need my address?

~~~
simgidacav
Is there a way of avoiding to make a PayPal account? I would like to
contribute, but I don't want a PayPal account.

~~~
shiggerino
You don't have to make an account. But it's still annoying that you have to go
through an intermediary whose only raison d'être is that banks still suck.
When there is a much more elegant and federated payment protocol out there and
in use outside of the US.

------
mark_l_watson
I just spent ten minutes reading through their web site, and their list of
corporate sponsors is impressive. My question is, what relationship does
sfconservancy have with the FSF? I support the FSF and there seems to be a lot
of overlap.

~~~
jordigh
The two are very similar. Conservancy has a pretty tight relationship with the
FSF. Indeed, co-founder bkuhn is on the board of directors of both:

[http://sfconservancy.org/about/board/](http://sfconservancy.org/about/board/)

[http://www.fsf.org/about/staff-and-board/](http://www.fsf.org/about/staff-
and-board/)

I rather like bkuhn, because he's a lawyer and a free hacker. His opinions on
the GPL should be taken very seriously. I would only trust GPL-cowriter Eben
Moglen himself more than bkuhn on GPL legalities.

The FSF does more advocacy and handles infrastructure for GNU packages. For
example, they handle our GNU Octave donations. Conservancy handles similar
tasks, plus legal services. They handle the donations of the other big project
I like, Mercurial. Oh, and they do the same for git.

I also think bkuhn's writings are saying pretty much the same things that rms
says, but in a different way that alienates fewer people, e.g. here is one on
a fairly recent event you may remember:

[http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2014/11/11/groupon.html](http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2014/11/11/groupon.html)

~~~
paulv
bkuhn is not a lawyer. Karen and Tony are, however.

~~~
jordigh
Oops! Oh well. I'll let my ignorance stand in my original comment instead of
trying to edit myself into looking good. :-)

~~~
nymisunderrated
He has a lot of knowledge in copyright law. In areas related to the GPL,
corporate lawyers don't necessarily match that knowledge.

------
tedunangst
My understanding is this is primarily about driver code. Is that correct?

One way out for VMWare would be to import FreeBSD drivers, although that
wouldn't do the Linux community much good. From what I've read, VMWare does
provide the source for the drivers, but not the core of their kernel, so Linux
would still benefit from any improvements they make. If they switch to another
set of drivers, that won't happen.

I can understand the principle of the position, but given that releasing the
crown jewel core of the vmkernel as GPL seems unlikely, I'm not sure what
actual benefits will be realized here. Something of a Pyrrhic victory.

~~~
masamune__
It's not driver itself but clever module that VMware developed so they can use
linux drivers. (In prev thread :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9153716](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9153716))
But VMK API is not just wrapper for linux drivers. You can specifically write
device driver for ESXI, like GPU :
[https://developercenter.vmware.com/web/dp/sdks](https://developercenter.vmware.com/web/dp/sdks)

According to LWN's article they found linux kernel's source (radix tree,
scheduler)
[https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/635290/e501ce0264c182f4/](https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/635290/e501ce0264c182f4/)

But it's not exactly clear if those codes were actually built and shipped with
product according to 'former employ'
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9155251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9155251)

This is all cluster*uck of wild guessworks unless they elaborate more on
VMware's response or VMware makes formal statements on their position. What a
waste of time

~~~
travem
> "According to LWN's article they found linux kernel's source (radix tree,
> scheduler)" [1].

Presumably when LWN article states "code can be downloaded from VMware's web
site" they got it from the open source tab on VMware vSphere's download page
[2].

[1]
[https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/635290/e501ce0264c182f4/](https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/635290/e501ce0264c182f4/)
[2]
[https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_...](https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/5_5#open_source)

------
belorn
Can someone fix the title? Putting words into sfconservancy mouth like that
only add confusion.

~~~
lucb1e
For the people coming later, the title originally read "The time has come to
stand up for the GPL and nobody cares". Author fixed it as said here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9156839](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9156839)

------
kazinator
Maybe the time has come to stand up _to_ the GPL's insane anti-dynamic-linking
nonsense.

Dynamic linking is mere _use_.

If you say that "this cannot be called from certain kinds of programs", you're
restricting _use_ , not merely _redistribution_.

That is because such programs can be shipped to users without including the
GPLed code (thus without redistributing it), so that the users then instruct
the software to load the GPLed code that they separately obtain.

Any GPLed program which isn't a shared library could be turned into one, and
it could be turned into one by a project which completely complies with the
GPL.

For instance, if I'd like my proprietary program to be able to use Bash
without spawning a process, I can make a public "Libbash" project which turns
Bash into a library (without switching the license to LGPL, which I have no
right to do).

In my proprietary program, I can test for the presence of Libbash on a system,
and use dlopen or LoadLibrary to use the thing if it is present, otherwise
fall back on spawning an external process. If I do this, the crazy FSF zealots
think I'm a violator, even though I didn't ship a single line of GPLed code
with my program.

So, whereas the jury is out on P = NP, but to me, it is clear that GPL = LGPL.
:)

~~~
foobarqux
What would be the point of the GPL if you could just bypass it by dynamic
linking?

~~~
kazinator
If the GPL is regarded as inapplicable to dynamic linking, then its purpose is
the same as that of the LGPL.

Independently of the linking issue, the GPL prevents redistribution in non-
source-code form.

It ensures that users have access to the source code of the covered work, and
can modify that code, share the modifications, and build the code to produce a
component which replaces the one which the proprietary program uses.

Continuing with the fictitious "Libbash", it means that users can patch or
upgrade their "Libbash". My proprietary program will use whatever version they
have installed, just like it will use whatever version of /bin/bash they have
installed. If I were to statically link "libbash.a" into my program, then
there would be a violation: users cannot upgrade or replace that. _And_ , of
course, it necessarily must be shipped with my program, being an inseparable
part of it, so I cannot avoid redistributing.

Dynamic linking is no different from command line invocation. Having it
embroiled in the licensing rhetoric is a pointless mingling of C-and-Unix
technology concepts with freedom concepts.

~~~
foobarqux
Just so I understand, you don't think the GPL should exist or be used, and
should be replaced by the LGPL, correct?

~~~
kazinator
Rather, I think the difference between them hinges on _use_ restrictions. They
should both be replaced by a license which is simply silent on the issue: a
license which simply forbids the redistribution of the Work in such a way that
it is combined into a single image with incompatibly-licensed works, but
permits every conceivable use.

By the way, I think even static linking is fair, if the program is distributed
as separate images, and only linked as a part of use. (Which is why the LGPL
is silly.)

That is to say, suppose we have a "Libbash" library version of Bash. I could
ship my program such that when the user installs it and runs its wrapper
program, it statically links itself prior to execution. If it finds a
"libbash.a" on the system, then it statically links that. Otherwise it falls
back on linking to its own "libbash-stub.a" which works by spawning a process.
Since I didn't redistribute any part of Bash, I cannot possibly be infringing
on any copyright.

According the LGPL (if that were the license), I would be infringing because
of the specific linking technology that is identifiable as "static". (Though
it is _de facto_ dynamic by being delayed as long as possible, happening on
the user's target machine).

Yet note how the user has full rights over "libbash.a". The user can update to
a new version or make local modifications, and rebuild this. When the user
runs my program, it will notice there is a newer "libbash.a" and re-run the
static linking steps.

~~~
nymisunderrated
From the point of view of copyright, I think this scenario may not have the
results you want: the user is effectively preparing a derivative work. In
fact, your wrapper is.

Preparing a derivative work is an exclusive right of the copyright holder,
meaning they can prevent it or place conditions on it. It's not only
distribution.

Now, no one (afaik) in the free/open software communities will focus on the
user here, they may focus on the wrapper/Libbash writer: if the work you're
creating is a derivative work, then it is within the scope of copyright of the
parts.

------
EpicDavi
> VMware, a company with net revenue of over $1 billion and over 14,000
> employees...

Wow. I did not know they were _that_ big.

------
johnward
I'm torn on this VMWare issue. On one hand I want GPL to be upheld. On the
other hand if they win it will mean the end of most corporations using GPL
code (possibly any open source licensed code that isn't as liberal as MIT or
something). These megacorps are not going to expose themselves to a risk like
this. I know from experience as we already are removing OSS that we feel could
be a liability and replacing it with solutions that in some cases are not as
good technically but legally less of a risk.

IT won't be good for the OSS ecosystem to have thousands of devs all the
sudden stop contributing at their day jobs when the code is replaced.

~~~
Karunamon
Perhaps this comment comes from a position of ignorance, but what's all this
about "risk"? Complying with the GPL is simple. If I understand correctly,
VMWare wouldn't have been in trouble here if they'd have just put a link in
their docs to the effect of "ESX distributes Busybox, the source for which can
be downloaded here (link)".

And even if you screw up and forget the link, the lawyers don't descend on you
like buzzards - you get tapped on the shoulder and asked to fix it, which is a
pretty simple matter too. The lawyers don't come out unless you stall and act
in bad faith like VMWare has done.

~~~
danieldk
_If I understand correctly, VMWare wouldn 't have been in trouble here if
they'd have just put a link in their docs to the effect of "ESX distributes
Busybox, the source for which can be downloaded here (link)"._

This is about more than Busybox. Their 'vmkernel' proprietary code seems to
rely heavily on code from the Linux kernel, up to the point where it may be a
derived work:

[http://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/linux-vs-
vmkernel_...](http://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/linux-vs-
vmkernel_en.png)

In other words, their hypervisor could violate the GPL.

Of course, that does not change the point. If you want to benefit from GPL-
licensed code, you also have to play by the rules. If the rules are never
enforced, companies will systematically violate the license, as we've seen
with many Android OEMs.

~~~
joshyeager
This chain of comments illustrates the reason that companies think the GPL is
risky. Even in a highly-technical OSS-friendly community like HN, there are
many different interpretations of what the GPL's restrictions actually mean.
That uncertainty plus the viral nature of the GPL means that there's no way to
know for sure that you won't be forced to open your whole codebase at some
point in the future.

~~~
rwmj
Suppose I grabbed a copy of the sources of NT, and then started modifying it
and released a product based on that, without getting licensing from
Microsoft. Do you think people would be "oh, this is why using Windows is
risky .. there are many different interpretations of what the MSFT license
means"? Of course not.

~~~
Karunamon
There's a difference between "not having a license" (in which case copyright
applies, in which case you lose, simple), and having a license who's terms are
ambiguous and not fully legally tested.

------
sheepdestroyer
I gave, if you care you should too.

------
dang
Discussed yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9151799](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9151799).

------
vondur
Unfortunately, this will come down to who has the better resources with regard
to the legal costs involved. If VMware decides to really fight this in court,
they may prevail, regardless of truth. IBM had an army of lawyers that were
able to fight of the SCO case regarding Linux code coming from AIX. I don't
know how great the resources that the Software Freedom Conservancy has.

------
valevk
Can I send them Bitcoins?

~~~
dalke
No. See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8705036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8705036)
from 90 days ago :

> I don't see in there all the accounting configurations you'd need to
> integrate [a bitcoind installation] with Conservancy's accounting system,
> nor all the legal research to figure out how it impacts Conservancy's Form
> 990 filings, nor all the workflow code to make sure transactions are auto-
> imported, identified with people who want to be identified, so they can be
> sent their t-shirts.

I believe there are people who will convert it for you and forward the results
to SFC.

~~~
lucb1e
> I believe there are people who will convert it for you and forward the
> results to SFC.

If anyone wishes to trust me (does karma count?), I could do this. Any coins
to 16ctFcjpXJSuLSfX23sdPve3eLFGd17mco sent within 7 days of this post (so from
2015-03-06 until 2015-03-13) will go directly to the VMWare suit by the
Software Freedom Conservancy. Market price is used from bitstamp. If you want
a confirmation, email me the source address at sfcvmwaredonations@lucb1e.com
and I'll message you how much I donated exactly in dollars.

------
putzdown
I confess I've never paid much attention to GPL, and when I think about this I
find one particular reason. I don't understand the harm. What bad thing
happens when the GPL is not obeyed? I think I understand that the answer is
that your generously donated code (Christoph's in the article) may then be
taken into private hands and used to benefit a commercial company. Is that the
harm? But if so, what's the harm? You donated your code, didn't you? I'm
asking in all sincerity: what specific asset or benefit have you lost when
someone takes your GPL code and uses it in their commercial product?

The article seems to get upset about this event: "They took Christoph's code
from Linux and modified it to work with their own kernel without releasing
source code of the resulting complete work." So that's the harm? But how is
that harmful? How does that hurt Christoph or anyone else?

Perhaps the answer is: "Christoph worked so hard on it, and gave such
expertise and so much time, and now his work is providing benefit to others
with no further benefit to himself." I would certainly agree in general that
if you work hard on something and someone else steals your work and benefits
from it instead of you, then this is a clear and deplorable harm. But if you
give your work away so that people benefit from it in general, then you have
agreed that your sole benefit is not at issue and that you don't expect
compensation for the work. If someone then uses the work for their own
financial benefit, or modifies it without giving you the changes back, what
has that deprived you of? Surely that's not taking away anything that would
have been coming to you had they not done it. Is it?

Where's the harm?

~~~
mattcwilson
Do you consider plagiarism and/or freebooting to be harms? If so: that's the
harm here. If not, why not?

~~~
shiggerino
It's worth noting that plagiarism is a separate concept, and not really a
legal issue (unless of course you are bound by contract not to plagiaries,
which I'd imagine most academics and journalists are in their employment
contracts). This is also why the MIT license needs an attribution clause.

Karl Fogel proposed an experiment, that legislators introduce a bill proposing
a right to attribution, essentially making plagiarism illegal, to gauge the
media industry's reaction. His prediction was that they would balk at the
proposal.

------
ceronman
I believe the donation counter bar is not working in real time. I just donated
and it didn't move. So don't say that nobody cares, I think a lot of people
care. Give it some time.

I encourage you to donate now!

------
jbandela1
I think long-term GPL days are numbered. Corporations are going to see that
the code is not worth the politics. Take a look at GCC and the whole debate
about exporting an AST. Once there was a suitable alternative (clang) with a
more liberal license, companies flocked to it, and clang is now eating GCC's
lunch. One can speculate what would happen if Apple really decided to push the
BSD kernel like they did clang. I suspect, that a lot of companies doing Linux
development, would start contributing to that BSD once it had reached a
certain level of parity with Linux.

------
tempVariable
Donated. Please do so as well.

------
frequent
+10$

------
orf
I just donated $10. If there is nothing to stop large companies completely
ignoring the GPL then what good is it?

~~~
igl
I just donated $15. If there is nothing to stop large companies completely
ignoring the GPL then what good is it?

~~~
meira
I just donated $20. If there is nothing to stop large companies completely
ignoring the GPL then what good is it?

~~~
ownagefool
I just donated $25. If there is nothing to stop large companies completely
ignoring the GPL then what good is it?

~~~
aorth
I just donated $25. If there is nothing to stop large companies completely
ignoring the GPL then what good is it?

~~~
pyrois
I just donated $30. If there is nothing to stop large companies completely
ignoring the GPL then what good is it?

~~~
jjaredsimpson
I just donated $20. If there is nothing to stop large companies completely
ignoring the GPL then what good is it?

~~~
epc
I just donated $250. If there is nothing to stop large companies completely
ignoring the GPL then what good is it?

------
ocdtrekkie
It's kinda necessary you enforce your licensing terms, but man, I wish people
would realize that GPL is an extremely nasty thing.

~~~
jerven
It's rather nice compared to VMWare's commercial licensing terms.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I'm speaking in reference to truly free licenses like Apache and MIT.

------
tacos
"Either way, it's beneficial to our entire community to find out what the
judges think."

Bold and inaccurate statement. There's a 100% chance that it won't be
beneficial at all to "the entire community."

Also, the judges in the fancy courthouse aren't any less prone to error than
the ones sitting ringside at boxing matches.

Which is why cooler heads have prevailed on these matters for so long.

All sides (copyleft, non-copyleft, and proprietary) have a lot to lose and the
unresolved tension was largely keeping things in check. Until the FSF chimes
in I'd be hesitant to encourage this with financial support.

~~~
jdjb
How exactly is the unresolved tension keeping things in check? The untested
nature of how far the GPL can hold up in court is exactly why we see
violations of the GPL so flagrantly. It's exactly why violators of the GPL are
willing to let this go to court (if there was ample precedent of the GPL being
upheld it is reasonable to assume most corps would choose to settle issues
like these before they escalate to a law suit).

If the GPL is never proven to be upheld (at least to the point where most
legal corporate accepts it) by the courts then it is a meaningless licence
that only matters to free software advocates and geeks.

~~~
tacos
Legal documents aren't tight programs rigidly followed to by a computer.
They're rough sketches that Judges are given enormous latitude to interpret.

Several bad things could happen here, not the least of which is that people
avoid the GPL for new projects while this plays out.

Agreements are just that -- agreements. The tension that both sides know that
they can seek judicial relief in the event of a dispute arguably is the entire
basis of civilization.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisprudence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisprudence)

------
chappi42
>> isn't the combined works and/or derivative works question a legal grey
area?

>We don't think so, but this case will let the court to decide that question.

I don't think a judge is able to decide it. A grey area cannot be black or
white.

\--

25 years ago I heard a RMS speak and it seems to me the whole freedom movement
is unable to move and/or adapt. The same old (now) boring words again and
again. And meanwhile we have App distribution models (iphone, google play,
SaaS) which are much more closed/dangerous then waht we ever had. Abundant ad
spamming and data grabbing. FSF did not help one yota and their extremism made
them weak. GPLv3 divided instead of fortified.

What shall I think of RSM which not even uses smartphones? How much more
beside your shoes could you be today?

~~~
nske
On one hand you agree with RMS on the existence of a problem (">> which are
more closed/dangerous than what we ever had"), on the other hand you are
criticising him for not doing enough things right or being detached from
reality (well, I believe back in the 80s many people would think that the
expectation of a license like GPL being as successful as it is today, would be
detached from reality).

The problem with this (correct me if I'm wrong) is that you neither seem to
suggest an alternative course nor care to act yourself towards a solution.
RMS, on the other hand, does and most would agree that his actions have
yielded a net positive effect in today's ecosystem.

~~~
autoreleasepool
By your logic, nobody is allowed to criticize RMS and his tactics unless they
have a vested interest in providing an alternative to the GPL and FSF.
However, I would argue that the failure of the FSF and RMS to adapt to the
mobile and Internet centric world is a valid criticism in its own right;
notwithstanding the personal achievements and plans for improving freedom of
the person who wrote it.

As a side note, the strength of the cult of personality around Richard is
always striking to me. He gets away with doing and saying things that would
seem absolutely insane if anyone else in the software community did them. For
example, forgoes all normal Internet usage (instead he fetches html files to
his email), no longer programs, doesn't own a cellphone, did not know that
lldb was a debugger, etc...

Yet, we are still supposed to beleive he is capable of producing modern and
relevant solutions. I'm sorry, but Richard is out of touch. He is stuck in the
past. His achievements should no doubt be honored, but someone else needs to
take over.

------
zak_mc_kracken
Just let the GPL die of its own death, there are countless licenses out there
that are much more reasonable.

I've worked at a lot of companies these past 20 years and in every single one
of them, the GPL was simply banned. You were not allowed to touch any software
that used that license, and sometimes, the ban extended to even more
reasonable licenses like the LGPL.

And for good reasons.

These days, releasing a software with a GPL license is pretty much a guarantee
that your code will never become popular because nobody with a sane mind and a
minimal understanding of software licensing will want to touch it, let alone
corporations.

~~~
thomasahle
I understand why cooperations that plan on making the free software part of
their proprietary software wouldn't want to touch it.

Why wouldn't everybody else?

~~~
zak_mc_kracken
Because the GPL restricts the freedom of anyone who incorporates your code.

Pick Apache or a BSD license, you have the same guarantees of access to the
source code and you're not restricting the freedom of people using your code.

~~~
shiggerino
Restricts what freedom? If there indeed is a meaningful restriction, you
should be able to articulate it in words.

~~~
Sanddancer
The freedom to profit from code in the same way as the author. Oracle, for
one, has done marvelous things in ensuring that their JVM is the only one that
people use by GPLing it and convincing IBM to stop contributing to the more
open Apache Harmony project. Additionally, the same enterprise can do things
with MySQL that no other vendor can, again putting other entities at a
distinct disadvantage. The GPL is very weaponizeable if you want to ensure
competitors are always a step behind you.

~~~
shiggerino
How is Apache Harmony more open? Easier to get in extensions without going
through all the committees? You can do that with a fork of the OpenJDK too,
nothing in the GPL preventing that.

As for MySQL, I don't see how the existence of a proprietary version of MySQL
is somehow the GPL's fault. The users would be even more at a disadvantage if
the proprietary version was the only one that existed and there was no free
version, so the existence of the GPL version is a net benefit for everyone.

Not that it's a particularly good idea to buy a proprietary license or even
contribute code to Oracle. PostgreSQL will treat you much more fairly. It
doesn't require copyright attribution from their contributors, it's governed
by a 501(c)(3) charity in the US and a similar non-profit in the EU rather
than a company that only looks out for itself.

There is nothing wrong with making a profit with software, but signing an
expensive restrictive EULA for a database is just a bad deal, whether you're a
small startup or a major corporation.

