On Thu, Dec 28, 2000 at 11:07:47PM +0200, Stanislav Malyshev a.k.a Frodo wrote:
> With our GPLed software the matter is pretty complicated. Generally, GPLed
> software is referred to as a "free software". But, in fact, it's not free
> at all, in the common meaning of the word "freedom". You cannot use it in
> any project whose views on software licensing is not the same as RMS's.
> And "use" here includes interoperability, by RMS views, i.e. linking with,
> etc. See RMSs commentaries on readline library.
That's a common misconception. It should have been obvious, but
somehow never is, that no amount of licensing trickery can make one
program be considered a derivative work of an unrelated program. And
the GPL doesn't attempt to, either. Likewise, no program can
"contaminate" other programs and change their license, whether or not
you link them together. What the GPL is saying that you cannot
distribute someone's GPLed code as a part of a larger program unless
you give users at least the same rights they would get were the
program GPLed. So you can take GPLed Linux drivers and use them in
FreeBSD, because the amended BSD license gives users more rights than
the GPL. But you cannot use them in AIX. I think that is reasonable to
many authors, who would not want their products to be used by
proprietary products. If you think otherwise, use a different license
for your own code. If you want to use others' GPLed code in more
restricted programs, go ahead and ask the authors. I fail to see why
this makes you so furious.
Also, nowhere does the GPL limit "interoperability". Only use code as
part of another program. Whether or not you consider an executable and
a dynamic library accompanying it two parts of the same program or not
is a different issue. GPLv3 intends to clarify this and other points.
> Some commercial companies
> explicitly prohibit their workers even to touch GPLed software or enter it
> into the campuses. Not because they hate free software so much - but
> because current copyright system can make all their code "derived work"
> just because some of the developers took a look into GPLed code.
I've heared similar stories, and even worse ones, told about
proprietary products. It is true that the legal system is confused by
new challenges to the old "intellectual property" laws, and that
several bad judgements where lawyers' ridiculous claims won cases
caused companies to become worryingly paranoid. All this has literally
NOTHING to do with the licensing of code. The only reason why
companies are more worried about GPLed programs than about proprietary
programs is that with GPLed code there is a risk of some employees
actually reading it.
> That's
> not exactly how I understand "freedom". Recently, I start to think that if
> people would know and think a bit more on RMSs interpretation of GPL
> (which is pretty much of "you cannot touch it unless you are with us in
> GPL") this license probably won't get so popular. GPL became yet another
> modern myth.
Not true. See above about using GPLed code with non-GPLed code.
People who don't want to restrict the use of their code in proprietary
programs or with somewhat more restrictedly license code should not
use the GPL, and usually don't. For example, most of Gnome is under
the LGPL (beats me why KDE chose the GPL while opposing it so
badly). But I think there are many people who want to contribute to
free software and not necessarily to proprietary software, and that
exactly is the reason for the GPL. I can't see what your problem is
here, except for the linguistic definition of "free".
> Also, this copyright business got really out of proportion. I cannot just
> take some "free" software and use it, I need to check license and all
> legalese and get almost a degree in law to understand what's written
> there. And I saw a number of times that people had to reimvent the wheel
> and reimplement existing "free" code just because it was GPLed. I'm not
> talking here about commercial software, I'm talking here about open source
> project that happen to disagree with RMS on how to license their own
> program products. Is it really useful for anyone? I doubt it.
No, you don't have to. If you want to put your code under the LGPL, or
the public domain, or the amended BSD license, or whatever, you are
free to do so and are free to combine your program with any GPLed code
you can lay your hands on.
(I don't know what projects you are referring to that had to reinvent
the wheel, but I gather they were either misinformed about the GPL's
restrictions, or specifically wanted their project to be forked into
proprietary products, like the BSDs do.)
- Adi Stav
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