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Comment by damien | Hacker News Reader

Yep, all of their technical reasons have pretty much been debunked. The reason for Mir's existence is mainly about project control. As Matthew Garrett mentions[1], they likely need that control for Ubuntu Phone to be able to relicense the code to keep their hardware partners happy.

[1] http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/25376.html

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This is why I think licenses such as AGPL and GPLv3 are hurting open-source (and Free Software). The intentions behind them are good, but in practice they are used in parallel with commercial licenses that have nothing to do with open-source.

Wayland is not under such licences. It uses the MIT license.

I think bad_user is talking about Mir: it's licensed under GPLv3 [1].

My point was more that license was no reason, Wayland already has a good license. Mir is first under a different license to then require a special CLA to be able to license it differently. In Wayland everyone has the same rights.

I am in complete agreement with you. I don't see any reason for Mir other than Canonical choosing to go their own route in an attempt to persuade businesses to buy commercial licenses for it.

It's more direct and clear to state the real problem. The real problem isn't the AGPL or the GPLv3, as both of those licenses can be very good in the right context. The real problem is copyright assignment to companies like Canonical, as in practice that is equivalent to dual licensing where the second license is "let this company do whatever the fuck they want".

As I said, the intentions are good, but in practice these licenses are used as an actual incentive for companies to purchase the commercial alternative for redistribution.

But that's only true for a small minority of GPLv3 software. The exact same small minority that requires copyright assignment to a for-profit corporation.

Saying "licenses such as AGPL and GPLv3 are hurting open-source" is complete and utter FUD. A non-FUD way of saying it would be something like, "copyright assignment to for-profit corporations hurts the free software movement".

If there is no copyright assignment to a mischievous corporation, then GPLv3 is practically strictly superior to GPLv2 in terms of software freedom.

There is nothing wrong with dual licensing, even RMS has said:

"I've considered selling exceptions acceptable since the 1990s, and on occasion I've suggested it to companies. Sometimes this approach has made it possible for important programs to become free software."

His reasoning is that selling proprietary licenses to otherwise GPL'd code is reasonable since it enables companies to do the same thing that they would be able to do if a project was dual licensed with GPL/MIT. Since he does not consider MIT/X11 style licenses wrong, merely inferior, he concludes that selling GPL exceptions is reasonable:

"When I first heard of the practice of selling exceptions, I asked myself whether the practice is ethical. If someone buys an exception to embed a program in a larger proprietary program, he's doing something wrong (namely, making proprietary software). Does it follow that the developer that sold the exception is doing something wrong too?

If that implication is valid, it would also apply to releasing the same program under a noncopyleft free software license, such as the X11 license. That also permits such embedding. So either we have to conclude that it's wrong to release anything under the X11 license -- a conclusion I find unacceptably extreme -- or reject this implication. Using a noncopyleft license is weak, and usually an inferior choice, but it's not wrong."

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions

Well, I think RMS is wrong. The fact that these licenses cannot be used in certain contexts, such that commercial licensing is justified, does hint to them not being really open.

Here's a quote by Linus Tolvards, when discussing GPLv2 versus GPLv3:

GPLv2 in no way limits your use of the software. If you're a mad scientist, you can use GPLv2'd software for your evil plans to take over the world ("Sharks with lasers on their heads!!"), and the GPLv2 just says that you have to give source code back. And that's OK by me. I like sharks with lasers.

> does hint to them not being really open.

And what does "really open" mean?

Software licenses exist to define situation the author can live with, and which ones he would be unhappy about. Some authors:

Do not care at all (WTFLicense).

Demands attributions, and would be unhappy if someone else falsely claim authorship of the authors software (MIT/BSD).

Demands that companies not go and backstab customers and sue them over patents for code they themselves have redistributed (Apache).

Demands the same as all above, but also that users get the source code of the program that they have bought/received. (GPLv2)

Demands the same as all above, but that users can actually use modified version of the source code. (GPLv3)

Demands the same as all above, but adds a clause about users of web services are equivalent to customers who buys software in the store? (AGPL)

So I must then ask, which one is the "really open"? Only WTFlicense? Only BSD/MIT and above?

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