On 8/18/07, Christopher Murtagh <..hidden..> wrote:
On Saturday 18 August 2007 13:47:32 Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> As a core member, if it were up to me, we would ditch GPL all together.
Fortunately IMO, we're not able to do so without a total re-write of the
software.
On the other hand, we *could* go LGPL and make it entirely LGPL at 2.0. The work as a whole would be GPL until the last GPL code would be out. Since we are beginning a rewrite anyway....
> I don't subscribe to the ideology present within it nor do I drink RMS
> brand kool aid.
Ok, sorry, the 'kool aid' remark does go beyond simply stating your point of
view, as you are branding the people who like the GPL (myself for one) as
cultists and delusional. I may be delusional, but I don't belong to any cult.
The GPL v2 license was a good license for many purposes. The GPL v3 undermines that pretty substantially though I would not be opposed to doing new code as GPL v2-only if we could be assured that dependencies wouldn't move on us.
> Does that mean that I am anti FOSS software? Hardly, in fact you would
> be hard pressed to find a larger advocate. What is does mean, is that I
> am a realist and I am pragmatic about it.
I'm a big fan of the GPL for these exact same reasons. The GPL is the reason
why there is so much corporate support for the Linux kernel.
I used to think so. I now think it is because BSD was always pretty fragmented and political while Linus was very good at getting community involvement. I do think the GPL helps, as does the fact that Linux is GPL v2-only (a path I would prefer as opposed to GPL 2 or later if we could be assured of our dependencies).
The big problem now is:
In the past, GPL v2 or later meant GPL v2 period. Now it means GPL v2 *or* you may upgrade the license to an incompatible and potentially problematic GPL v3. If I don't want to upgrade there is no reciprocity when you upgrade the license to my work and start making changes.
If the kernel
was using the BSD license for example, IBM, HP, SGI, etc. would all have to
worry that one of their competitors would come up with the 'Next big thing'
(tm) and be able to run away with the milk, the cows and the farm to boot.
Funny. Tell this to the PostgreSQL community or the Apache community. IBM does contribute code back to Apache iirc.
The GPL is what protects everyone from this - it puts all the companies at
the same level, and it turns the software (the OS anyway) into a commodity
rather than something they can hold everyone for ransom with.
Reference implementations *should* be BSD licensed. That is what the license is designed for. Sometimes reference implementations grow into big players in the market (PostgreSQL and Apache are both examples of this). I would suggest considering LGPL though if we wanted to, we *could* release components under BSD licenses where we *wanted* to release a reference implementation for other programs to build on regardless of license..
Now, having said that, I don't see any particular reason at the moment to
move to GPL v3. It's new, and it rarely pays to be an early adopter unless
you're doing cutting edge stuff - and frankly there's nothing cutting edge
about accounting or simple web apps. So, I think we're best to stay the
course and let the GPL v3 take hold (or not), discuss the option as something
to consider (or not) for the future and leave it at that.
If we go with the GPL v3, I would like to suggest we have further discussions relating to what other permissions we might need to add for portions of the code. In particular, POS interfaces need not display Appropriate Legal Notices, IMO and we should grant a license exception. It is easier to address questions now when the contributors to the new codebase are few than it will be when we are forced to make hard decisions about upgrading.
Best WIshes,
Chris Travers