I've been reading about that guy recently. He seems to be underappreciated in the free software community, yet he has done a lot for it and has some fair points.
"GPL fans said the great problem we would face is that companies would take our BSD code, modify it, and not give back. Nope—the great problem we face is that people would wrap the GPL around our code, and lock us out in the same way that these supposed companies would lock us out. Just like the Linux community, we have many companies giving us code back, all the time. But once the code is GPL'd, we cannot get it back."
Do you agree, Holla Forums? Are GPL and proprietary software the two sides of the same coin? Is his driver policy adequate in times where all that matters to most people is if their OS supports everything? >inb4 bsd >inb4 cuck license
gnu/linux is gpl and it's the best thing to happen to it according to linus
Brayden Kelly
He was lectured by Stallman to license it under GPL, and that was the key to its exponential growth. But he didn't relicense it under GPLv3, so I'm not sure about your claim.
Benjamin Turner
*GPL fans said that great problem we would face is that companies would take our BSD code, modify it, add malicious features and give it back as binary executable.
Theo isn't technically bad. But his understanding of licenses seems limited. A great fucking example of that is the MINIX kernel in the intel ME who subjects the world world When he says If a company use GPLv3 software and you ask then the source code they HAVE to share it it's in the license to the contrary of the MIT/BSD. What he says his wrong. Honestly I would like to know what event made Theo have these opinions on the GPL (besides the shit feuds with RMS).
Two things are important for a company to give back code: The first is having good relationship with the company and the people who introduced free software (which GPL autists doesn't have). The second is the license.
Joshua Martinez
I understand his argument, but if you think that it is a problem, you picked the wrong license. Maybe he should go with LGPL!
I don't really think he has issues with people wrapping BSD code up in GPL projects. I think it's a response to people who think he should use GPL instead of BSD.
Lucas Johnson
Maybe what he meant was that once a piece of software gets GPL'ed, it cannot switch licenses anymore and all the software it's used in MUST be released under GPL. Yes, you can get the source code, but you cannot use it anymore in your program which is licensed under BSD, so technically you're locked away from it. It does a great job for protecting free software from corporations like apple and microsoft, though. Maybe AGPL/LGPL is the solution.
Zachary Mitchell
The GPL is a cuck license too because forkers can cuck you out of your own project. The QPL and the Gnuplot license are the anti-cuck licenses.
Jeremiah Butler
I think he needs to cut down on the free pizza.
Dominic Ramirez
[citation needed]
Adam Cook
. True for GPL software. That is not correct It is true that a GPL license can't be changed (besides another GPL like the LGPL). But a piece of BSD license is compatible and doesn't have to be under the same license to be shipped.used, the GPL just ask for a license to be compatible with it and the most used license are compatible. gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html I don't know where this rumor comes from but I see it quite frequently (especially in the hardware world). The GPL doesn't ask for a software that is shipped with it to be GPL it just ask to be compatible. If a piece of compatible license is in a GPL project the license of the piece of software doesn't change it's still under the same license has it was but it's indirectly covered with part of the protection of the GPL grant because it's part of X software project. Corporations just want to have control over the user that's why they choose permissive licenses. If corporation like google just let people own what they bought and have control over the software they couldn't force datamining and mass spying. It's all a question of money and not freedom. Why do you think the linux kernel is still under GPLv2 ? why do you think google purged every piece of GPLv3 program in android ? why do you think that coreutils isn't use in android ? If the linux kernel was under GPLv3 google couldn't force DRMs to a certain level. If the linux kernel was under GPLv3 google would have to let people be able to change it. Android is the perfect example that loopholed/permissive licenses are always used in a bad way. What I don't understand is that google could still do all these things with a GPLv3 (except DRM) they could datamining and spy on people except those who are aware and could remove all the bad features.
AGPL is only for special purpose softwares. LGPL is more for temporary compromise than long term use. LGPL software can be included in non-free software has long has the non-free software project lets the users have the 4 freedoms on the piece of LGPL software that's included in the non-free project. For example if MS uses a LGPL firewall in Windows the user must be able to read/modify it's source code, execute a modified version of it and of course share the LGPL firewall. Of course people must use the v3 of the AL/GPL if they want to cover DRMs, tivoization and patents issues.
Levi Reyes
The page you linked says the following
Can you take my BSD code combine with yours and release it under GPL? Yes. Can I take the resulting code and merge back? No.
Not sure that's what I'd call compatible.
Eli Murphy
But that's exactly what happened. Apple dicked over FreeBSD with Darwin, WINE got jerked around so much that it eventually ditched the cuck license, everyone in industry using OpenBSD for routers instead of Linux is doing so because they don't want to release their kernel modules (I'm in this industry and get to see this), etc..
Kevin Miller
please continue the division and conquer tactics
they're both anti freedom and thus not preferable in theory, but it's not like you can't just mash two licensed pieces of software together and call it a day isn't that the point? if your BSD code becomes a dependency, then you may have control over software that doesn't release source code aka 'business technology'. getting your foot in the door of a corporate dependency tree is a good strategy for dosh. corpcucks still don't trust freedom since they rely on handouts, fraud and tax breaks, so if they need enticing with BSD or ISC baitcode, then I don't see the problem. Business pays for advertising, advertising determines use, and use good because unused software tends to be abandoned
have a gander at Ted Unangst, he's a real beefy mothertrucker
Michael Rivera
So what you are saying is that everything must be GPL3 to prevent corporations from free loading from FOSS? Sony uses FreeBSD for the PS4 like Apple does.
Angel Cox
This is really the Rei vs Asuka of Holla Forums. Except there's a clear winner here.
Julian Stewart
lol
Evan Torres
BSD/MIT/X11/Other-"Weak-Copylieft"-Licenses are just one step above the public domain which is what you would want to use if you want your work to be as widespread as possible. Good luck getting your shit standardized with GPL license. If you wrote something that you want others to use, if you won't bother defending it in the court or if you simply don't give a shit about "We must secure the existence of our code and a future for copyleft software." then you should use anything but GPL.
Brody Wilson
And if you don't want your code to be exploited commercially you can release it anonymously without any license (Or a joke license like WTFPL). Corporations would not touch stuff like this with a ten foot pole for fear of surprise lawsuits.
Charles Wright
WTFPL is so permissive it technically grants the developer less rights than public domain. It doesn't even have an AS IS clause. Do not use it, not even for joke programs.
Samuel Murphy
FSF should approve obsd too as it won't allow any blob in kernelspace without recompiling. Also fsf host packages for them, so it would be logical.
Joshua Cruz
GPLv3 and v2 isn't the same compatibility wise. Typical Google argument. He uses gcc and will for most supported platforms as clang is the same shit with worse support.
Matthew Price
Impossible because copyright laws works with GPL.
Relicensing is possible if all author accepted it. There are GPL'd software with proprietary option too. Most "open source" company is too retarded for this "mind trick" though.
Multi licensing with gpl is possible. It's damn common for large projects. Also android isn't under gplv2 despite using/used linux and busybox.
