From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.lib.musl.general/3229 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Zvi Gilboa Newsgroups: gmane.linux.lib.musl.general Subject: Re: High-priority library replacements? Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 09:05:08 -0400 Message-ID: <517BCD04.4070209@eservices.virginia.edu> References: <1367041512.18069.170@driftwood> Reply-To: musl@lists.openwall.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------000602050204050808080902" X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1367067924 14225 80.91.229.3 (27 Apr 2013 13:05:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 13:05:24 +0000 (UTC) To: Original-X-From: musl-return-3233-gllmg-musl=m.gmane.org@lists.openwall.com Sat Apr 27 15:05:29 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 1UW4od-0000Iv-6K for gllmg-musl@plane.gmane.org; Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:05:23 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 21701 invoked by uid 550); 27 Apr 2013 13:05:22 -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 21693 invoked from network); 27 Apr 2013 13:05:21 -0000 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130329 Thunderbird/17.0.5 In-Reply-To: <1367041512.18069.170@driftwood> X-Originating-IP: [71.206.170.124] Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.linux.lib.musl.general:3229 Archived-At: --------------000602050204050808080902 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 04/27/2013 01:45 AM, Rob Landley wrote: > 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 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 killer synonymous with copyleft... until GPLv3 came out and > there was no longer any such thing as "The GPL". > > Today Linux and Samba can't share code even though they implement two > ends of the same protocol. QEMU is caught between wanting Linux driver > code to implement devices and gdb/binutils code to implement > processors and it can't have both. Licensing code "GPLv2 or later" > just makes it worse: you can donate code to both but can't accept code > from either one. > > Programmers are not lawyers, we're not _good_ at how licenses > interact. The GPL was a terminal node in a directed graph of license > convertibily, where all a programmer had to care was "is this > convertible to The GPL or not"? If it is, treat it as GPL, if not > avoid it. There was no interaction, there was just The GPL. The FSF > destroyed that, leaving a fragmented incompatible pool, and people's > attempts to _fix_ it with Affero GPL or GPL-Next or other viral > licenses just fragments it further. > > Copyleft only worked with a category killer license creating one big > pool. With multiple incompatible copyleft licenses, copyleft > _prevents_ code sharing because you can't re-use it or combine it in > new projects. ... which apparently is the source of widespread confusion. To illustrate this, go to google.com (with auto-complete enabled), and type /including bsd/... > In the absence of a universal receiver license, non-lawyer programmers > looking for someting simple and understandable are switching to > universal donor licenses. BSD/MIT or outright public domain. Another balanced license is the LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL), which also effectively governs cases in which a copyright holder has abandoned his/her project, or can no longer be reached. > > 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, > Moglen is) recently lamented the decline of copyleft but doesn't seem > to understand why: > > https://lwn.net/Articles/547379/ > > As far as I can tell the FSF has alienated all the young programmers. > The most popular license on Github is not specifying a license at all, > taking the Napster approach of civil disobedience and waiting for the > intellectual property system to collapse. Ten years ago the GPL would > have appealed to them, but since GPLv3 shattered the ecosystem it does > not. > > That's why Android's "no GPL in userspace" policy (if you add GPL code > to your userspace, you can't use the Android trademark advertising > your product) actually makes _sense_. > >> Zvi > > Rob --------------000602050204050808080902 Content-Type: text/html; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
On 04/27/2013 01:45 AM, Rob Landley wrote:
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 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 killer synonymous with copyleft... until GPLv3 came out and there was no longer any such thing as "The GPL".

Today Linux and Samba can't share code even though they implement two ends of the same protocol. QEMU is caught between wanting Linux driver code to implement devices and gdb/binutils code to implement processors and it can't have both. Licensing code "GPLv2 or later" just makes it worse: you can donate code to both but can't accept code from either one.

Programmers are not lawyers, we're not _good_ at how licenses interact. The GPL was a terminal node in a directed graph of license convertibily, where all a programmer had to care was "is this convertible to The GPL or not"? If it is, treat it as GPL, if not avoid it. There was no interaction, there was just The GPL. The FSF destroyed that, leaving a fragmented incompatible pool, and people's attempts to _fix_ it with Affero GPL or GPL-Next or other viral licenses just fragments it further.

Copyleft only worked with a category killer license creating one big pool. With multiple incompatible copyleft licenses, copyleft _prevents_ code sharing because you can't re-use it or combine it in new projects.

... which apparently is the source of widespread confusion.  To illustrate this, go to google.com (with auto-complete enabled), and type including bsd...

In the absence of a universal receiver license, non-lawyer programmers looking for someting simple and understandable are switching to universal donor licenses. BSD/MIT or outright public domain.

Another balanced license is the LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL), which also effectively governs cases in which a copyright holder has abandoned his/her project, or can no longer be reached.



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, Moglen is) recently lamented the decline of copyleft but doesn't seem to understand why:

  https://lwn.net/Articles/547379/

As far as I can tell the FSF has alienated all the young programmers. The most popular license on Github is not specifying a license at all, taking the Napster approach of civil disobedience and waiting for the intellectual property system to collapse. Ten years ago the GPL would have appealed to them, but since GPLv3 shattered the ecosystem it does not.

That's why Android's "no GPL in userspace" policy (if you add GPL code to your userspace, you can't use the Android trademark advertising your product) actually makes _sense_.

Zvi

Rob

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