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Comment by drcube | Hacker News Reader

>I think the point of the GPL is to utilize the copyright system to ensure access to source code for everyone, not to simply increase freedom.

According to many, including the FSF, GNU, Stallman and myself, increasing access to the source code for everyone is increasing freedom. In fact, it's freedom number 1. "The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms_%28software%29#D...

> The slavery quip doesn't really make sense, because in that analogy the source code is the slave.

No, it's about freedom for people in both cases. The lack of source code would be analogous to the chains of slavery. Not equivalent, mind you, but analogous. A software user is less free when he or she cannot inspect or modify the software that runs on their machine.

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> According to many, including the FSF, GNU, Stallman and myself, increasing access to the source code for everyone is increasing freedom.

Once released freely, the source code never stops being free, so I don't really know what they're talking about in terms of "freedom". MIT licensed code is almost infinitely free, it will never stop being free, and nobody can take it away from you.

It seems to me that they're interested in forcing other people's source code to be free.

When some corporation sells you some proprietary software, the consumer has the FREEDOM to choose if he wants to fork over his cash in exchange for it.

When the proprietary developer encounters some piece of GPL software, he's being forced to comply with it, even if it's still his own decision whether or not to incorporate the code in his project.

Ah, language.

(TL;DR: nobody is forcing anyone to accept the GPL. The GPL offers you a deal - passing forward the four freedoms is just the price of using the library.)

The GPL does offer a deal, but its dishonest to call it 'freedom'.

The GPL 'freedom' is not that of freedom from licence conditions, it's about the freedom(s) given to the end user(s) through to these licence conditions.

Personally I've always thought that it would be better if they just used the term 'rights' which is what the GPL conditions actually grant the end user, I can't say I find the wording 'dishonest' though, just a poor choice.

The license grants rights and imposes limitations. One of those limitations prevents users from mixing code freely.

Users already had the right to not use proprietary products; what the GPL has actually done is to take away their right to use your code with a proprietary product.

As such, you've granted users fewer rights as compared to liberal open source licenses, not more.

Users -- those who are actually interacting with a running version of the software -- lose nothing with the GPL. On the contrary, their rights to the code are secured.

Developers -- those who modify and redistribute the software, in binary form or otherwise -- do indeed have restrictions designed to protect the rights of users.

So yes, the GPL does impose restrictions in specific cases to secure rights in the general case.

> Users -- those who are actually interacting with a running version of the software -- lose nothing with the GPL. On the contrary, their rights to the code are secured.

They've been denied the 'right' to use proprietary extensions to the software. Those extensions may provide more benefit to the user than the open source software alone: see also, Mac OS X.

That's no less real a 'right' than the 'right' to have access to the source code, which is something they've never lost because open-source always remains open-source, and they remain free to only use open-source software.

> So yes, the GPL does impose restrictions in specific cases to secure rights in the general case.

Those rights are already secured, because nobody forces users to use proprietary software. If they only want to use software where code is available, they have every right to do so.

You are, once again, either misunderstanding or willfully misrepresenting everything that's being said. Users aren't being denied anything, because proprietary software doesn't exist under the GPL. Developers and distributors do lose the chance to keep their code closed. The GPL protects users, not developers.

You seem to think downstream developers have an entitlement to release proprietary software, even if it goes against the wishes of the original authors. News flash: devs aren't forced to use GPL'd software, either. If you want to keep your software proprietary, you're free to use something under another license, or write something under your own copyright.

Really, it's not even about being "open source" per se; the motivations of the GPL go much deeper than simply making the code available. But you obviously don't agree with those, from the other thread.

Are users of GPL software able to combine it with proprietary plugins?

Plugins are where it gets weird. Technically there should not be proprietary plugins at all with the GPL, but it might depend on the interface or manner of linking (eg, would a HTTP-based "plugin" API be considered a derivative work?). For some cases, licensing the original software under LGPL may be sufficient to support proprietary plugins.

Ultimately it's a judgement call by the original author and what use-cases or freedoms he/she wishes to support. Hopefully they've thought that far ahead, though. It's not an easy question for the majority of the population that doesn't quite lean as far as RMS does.

Yes. The GPL doesn't restrict usage, only redistribution.

Yeah I guess this is why it's okay to ship binary blobs independently from the kernel.

> The GPL protects users, not developers.

The users can already choose to not use proprietary software, so what is it protecting them against? Themselves?

> You seem to think downstream developers have an entitlement to release proprietary software, even if it goes against the wishes of the original authors ...

No, I just believe that the GPL is intellectually dishonest. It's about controlling other people's means of production, with the end-goal of creating a communist ecosystem in which it's essentially impossible to not participate due to inherent market entry costs.

The users can already choose to not use proprietary software, so what is it protecting them against? Themselves?

It's simplistic reasoning to ignore the social effects. For example, non-copyleft free software is extremely vulnerable to the EEE strategy, since any proprietary vendor can take the code and re-release it with extra or changed features under a proprietary license, which might almost extinguish the original software for lack of interest, forcing the user to have to choose between the Free version or the "upgrade", which is actually compatible with everyone else's.

No, I just believe that the GPL is intellectually dishonest. It's about controlling other people's means of production, with the end-goal of creating a communist ecosystem in which it's essentially impossible to not participate due to inherent market entry costs.

What happened to the person choosing to not use the software? Suddenly when it's the poor proprietary developer, he's being controlled by the bad copyright holders?

And how is the GPL intellectually dishonest? Replacing proprietary software by giving free software developers an advantage is an explicit goal of the GNU project. How is it dishonest?

In any case, you're fighting the wrong windmill. It's not the GPL that gives anyone such power, it's copyright. It's that government-granted monopoly that allows control over other people's means of production. The solution to your problem is simple: fight for its elimination.

> And how is the GPL intellectually dishonest? Replacing proprietary software by giving free software developers an advantage is an explicit goal of the GNU project. How is it dishonest?

The usual explanation is "four freedoms" and giving users freedom.

Leveraging network effects to create a communist shared ownership of the means of production is the honest explanation of the GPL, and that has nothing to do with 'freedom', and everything to do with network-enforced Marxist ideals.

> * It's that government-granted monopoly that allows control over other people's means of production. The solution to your problem is simple: fight for its elimination.*

I have no problem with copyright, and I don't want to forcibly eliminate the GPL. I'd be happy for it to die an honest death after careful and rational consideration by the industry.

The usual explanation is "four freedoms" and giving users freedom.

No, that's what all Free Software does. The GPL is an hack to extend them as widely as possible, by giving Free Software an advantage over proprietary code.

Leveraging network effects to create a communist shared ownership of the means of production is the honest explanation of the GPL, and that has nothing to do with 'freedom', and everything to do with network-enforced Marxist ideals.

There's no ownership here, only State granted monopolies. Property is an institution for allocating scarce resources; copyright is a government granted privilege designed to "promote Progress". The GPL is a way of defusing the crony system that takes away people's control of their own property - their machines. You're seeing Marxism where it doesn't exist.

On a related note, it's interesting to think that the USSR eliminated private property, yet they established and kept copyright - with fairly extensive terms, in fact.

I have no problem with copyright

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" ;)

(By the way, I'm honestly sorry you're being downvoted. I find the attitudes of these cowards who downvoted based on disagreement rather disgusting.)

I downvoted him this time. Not only because I disagree, but also because espousing misinformation of that sort is genuinely damaging -- it's downright wrong, and calling something communistic carries a lot of negative connotations (whether justified or not).

But the worst part is, that argument sounds plausible at first glance. The marginal cost of data distribution is near-zero, and we've hit information post-scarcity. Reconciling that with traditional economic models is awkward. RMS/GNU already carry enough baggage, and without understanding their motivations, it's very easy to attach incorrect labels to them and their goals. You've been very eloquent in describing those, so thanks.

Well, then I think you should've replied and wrote that when downvoting.

Personally, I don't think downvoting is the appropriate response. Particularly, I don't think it would have the desired effect, since someone who might be affected by the supposed misinformation is unable to understand the reason behind the downvote, so they might make the same assumption that I did.

No, it's just a different perspective on freedom.

  "[A]ll men may be restrained from invading another's rights and from doing harm to
  one another, and [this] law of nature... which wills the peace and preservation
  of all mankind... is... put into every man's hands, whereby everyone has a right to
  punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree as may hinder its violation" 

  -- John Locke, Second Treatise of Government

It's not just the code itself, but also derivatives thereof. Eg, no one would argue that iOS is free in any sense of the word.

There are many, many reasons for wanting the ability to inspect, modify and compile code yourself. The GPL secures those rights in perpetuity, while other licenses are more lax towards those particular rights. So, for example, you'd be losing that freedom by using BSD-derived iOS.

Basically the GPL is designed to protect users of the software, not developers of the software.

Those rights are already secured in pepetuity. Your code, once released as opensource, is always opensource.

If users don't want to use code that contains proprietary modifications to your code, nobody is forcing them to -- your opensource code hasn't disappeared.

But the rights in question are those of the end user, and these rights include that of recieving the source code of the actual binary containing GPL licenced code, which will include any (possible) modifications of said GPL code.

This is in my opinion the main attraction GPL has for developers, as they as 'end users' are given the right to any source code modifications done to their original code.

Users already have that right with liberally licensed open source code. If they don't want to use proprietary extensions for which they can't acquire the source, that's fine; nobody is forcing them to.

>Users already have that right with liberally licensed open source code

No they don't have the right to the source code of the actual binary they recieve under liberal licencing.

Sure they do, if they choose to only use binaries provided by those that also provide source code. Which is their choice.

Which is what GPL guarantees, binaries which is guaranteed to provide source code.

Which is why developers who wants to guarantee this right to end users for the code they release, choose to licence their code under GPL.

Only copyleft style licences guarantees this right to end users, so if you are a developer who wants your users to have this right secured (which has a practical benefit for developers as they as end users of modifications to their original code, are guaranteed the source code of those moddifications), you will use copyleft style licencing.

> Only copyleft style licences guarantees this right to end users ...

That's just blatantly false. Distribute your binaries with source. Or distribute them with an offer of source.

There, problem solved. Heck, may your binaries non-redistributable without source.

Either way, users have the option of using/distributing your binaries, or not. You've given them nothing they didn't already have.

>That's just blatantly false. Distribute your binaries with source.

No it's not, do you know what a 'guarantee' is? Unless the code in question comes with that as a _condition_ there is no _guarantee_.

If you guarantee that your binary has source, it has source. Guaranteed.

If users only want binaries that guarantee they have source, they can insist on only downloading/acquiring binaries from people that guarantee they provide source.

If you as a developer want to ensure that users of your code or modifications thereof will have access to that source code (end user which often includes the original developer himself) permissive licences does NOT _guarantee_ that.

Only way to guarantee that is to make it a condition for using the code in question, which is exactly what GPL does.

Do we really need to continue this dance of yours?

As the copyright holder of a piece of code, I can use the GPL to ensure my users won't ever have to wonder about the provenance of my bit of code, no matter where it ends up. When developers adopt the GPL, it should be a conscious decision to protect those rights for future users.

The goal isn't for code to be open source Just Because. Take a moment to consider the motivations behind the FSF's definition of free software, as linked above by drcube. RMS has been talking about this for 30 years.

I don't think anyone in the industry isn't aware of RMS' paternalistic and communistic motivations.

You clearly misunderstand his goals and those of GNU/FSF -- that is evident from every single one of your posts on this article, despite all these people trying to explain it to you. Not going to continue here; have a good evening.

I'd argue quite the opposite, I think I understand them quite clearly, and I think the facts speak for themselves in terms of how much grief the GPL and GPL incompatibilities have caused our industry.

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