From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.lib.musl.general/3227 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Rob Landley Newsgroups: gmane.linux.lib.musl.general Subject: Re: High-priority library replacements? Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:45:12 -0500 Message-ID: <1367041512.18069.170@driftwood> References: <51796DB1.3090601@eservices.virginia.edu> Reply-To: musl@lists.openwall.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; DelSp=Yes; Format=Flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1367041528 19697 80.91.229.3 (27 Apr 2013 05:45:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 05:45:28 +0000 (UTC) Cc: musl@lists.openwall.com To: musl@lists.openwall.com Original-X-From: musl-return-3231-gllmg-musl=m.gmane.org@lists.openwall.com Sat Apr 27 07:45:33 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: gllmg-musl@plane.gmane.org Original-Received: from mother.openwall.net ([195.42.179.200]) by plane.gmane.org with smtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1UVxwu-0006Df-CO for gllmg-musl@plane.gmane.org; Sat, 27 Apr 2013 07:45:28 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 13872 invoked by uid 550); 27 Apr 2013 05:45:27 -0000 Mailing-List: contact musl-help@lists.openwall.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: Original-Received: (qmail 13864 invoked from network); 27 Apr 2013 05:45:27 -0000 X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=google.com; s=20120113; h=x-received:date:from:subject:to:cc:in-reply-to:x-mailer:message-id :mime-version:content-type:content-disposition :content-transfer-encoding:x-gm-message-state; bh=Y/M9YfacwWX1V5lX0RxgX0pBrXay0disIH53hbWRTcw=; b=B/4OqvIknxoVLS5+3ftKuQhqsqC3rEFZ1Lc8qIDpULdEYgEfBp1tt0kt5a2Z5Acn5+ 0bhFxfcc7E8+1g0x/hBQQF0XKaZPCu69aqxHakBxHfDs5zOHUxAfgnT6HkdgcZtcmwxG mvV5BxLpUKZCy6SWtnKXYI/ppKncsQz5n/vqhCTTkXLpfhk8otvI9oo+j3czCmIckigp LCfl3dhxi85ChbPzAuwv5wrkPAwuLl7Q2pZJj+bWAAru8Wd0dOWWZ09wtCvPRtq4Ukew 4NQYXYqzI6WcwXGUn2SBYQD79ixFeEh5/1bcZ9NtO22z7wwOKaYg81ijyk6MHBo3Yjns NzGA== X-Received: by 10.50.57.74 with SMTP id g10mr3574166igq.10.1367041515213; Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:45:15 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <51796DB1.3090601@eservices.virginia.edu> (from zg7s@eservices.virginia.edu on Thu Apr 25 12:53:53 2013) X-Mailer: Balsa 2.4.11 Content-Disposition: inline X-Gm-Message-State: ALoCoQnh7GC5UB76+zS6dQ7WelxoCoTFgJ3hwr7fFNhpKrOgM4jfiJjmCAZmjjzgXstNYlO8tS0f Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.linux.lib.musl.general:3227 Archived-At: On 04/25/2013 12:53:53 PM, Zvi Gilboa wrote: > Ironically, much of the current thread is about the need to create > alternatives to commonly-used GPL'ed libraries, which in itself =20 > reminds > of past (and present) efforts to create open source alternatives to > proprietary libraries and software products. Unfortunately the FSF poisoned copyleft in 2006. The GPL was a category =20 killer synonymous with copyleft... until GPLv3 came out and there was =20 no longer any such thing as "The GPL". Today Linux and Samba can't share code even though they implement two =20 ends of the same protocol. QEMU is caught between wanting Linux driver =20 code to implement devices and gdb/binutils code to implement processors =20 and it can't have both. Licensing code "GPLv2 or later" just makes it =20 worse: you can donate code to both but can't accept code from either =20 one. Programmers are not lawyers, we're not _good_ at how licenses interact. =20 The GPL was a terminal node in a directed graph of license =20 convertibily, where all a programmer had to care was "is this =20 convertible to The GPL or not"? If it is, treat it as GPL, if not avoid =20 it. There was no interaction, there was just The GPL. The FSF destroyed =20 that, leaving a fragmented incompatible pool, and people's attempts to =20 _fix_ it with Affero GPL or GPL-Next or other viral licenses just =20 fragments it further. Copyleft only worked with a category killer license creating one big =20 pool. With multiple incompatible copyleft licenses, copyleft _prevents_ =20 code sharing because you can't re-use it or combine it in new projects. In the absence of a universal receiver license, non-lawyer programmers =20 looking for someting simple and understandable are switching to =20 universal donor licenses. BSD/MIT or outright public domain. This shows the GPL falling from 72% market share in 2009 to 58 in 2013: https://lwn.net/Articles/547400/ Eben Moglen, author of GPLv2 and GPLv3 (Stallman is not a lawyer, =20 Moglen is) recently lamented the decline of copyleft but doesn't seem =20 to understand why: https://lwn.net/Articles/547379/ As far as I can tell the FSF has alienated all the young programmers. =20 The most popular license on Github is not specifying a license at all, =20 taking the Napster approach of civil disobedience and waiting for the =20 intellectual property system to collapse. Ten years ago the GPL would =20 have appealed to them, but since GPLv3 shattered the ecosystem it does =20 not. That's why Android's "no GPL in userspace" policy (if you add GPL code =20 to your userspace, you can't use the Android trademark advertising your =20 product) actually makes _sense_. > Zvi Rob=