An Interview With Orkie

[Hooka]

Hello All
I've spent a bit of time interviewing Orkie about his GP2X adventures in coding land, and you can all check it out here! Sorry to Orkie for being a bit late releasing this and such, life can be a B!@+ch to keep on schedule Better late than never, and I have to admit after reading this I'm quite hyped for Open2X's release...

Have a good one
TJ Hooka

 

[Alex.]

Your interviews are always very good and informative reads, thanks a lot Hooka

 

[SiDCrAzY]

Great interview Hooka and Orkie

 

[bomb_dog]

Thanks for that, it was an interesting read.

 

[triksR4rabits]

nice interview as always, thanks Hooka!

 

[sehs33]

Great interview Hooka, and good luck in your exams Orkie.

 

[sam fisher]

Great interview Hooka, and good luck in your exams Orkie.

I have the same exams, and do I get good luck? NOOOOOOOOOOO, I dont

 

[sehs33]

And best of luck to you too Sam, You owe us a new firmware replacement now

Edit: I will be satisfied with a new issue of GPxile at least

 

[sam fisher]

Fair enough.

 

[Nova]

Edit: I will be satisfied with a new issue of GPxile at least

In which case, you need to wish me good luck in my exams.

 

[reaper79]

Thanks for the interview guys. And good luck on everyone's exams. I'm sure glad those years are behind me... exams are tough when hung-over.

Reap

 

[starpause]

great interview =) thanks for sharing hooka! i'm really excited for open2x as well ... mystery that it be!

 

[purple_goat]

Edit: I will be satisfied with a new issue of GPxile at least

In which case, you need to wish me good luck in my exams.

good luck then!

 

[TyBO!]

Thanks Hooka and Orkie. Very interesting read... I can't wait for Open2x now.

 

[DBH]

Good luck to all of you kiddies with your exams

 

[Simon]

His thoughts on GPL are hilarious. If you dont like the GPL, dont use GPL licensed code! Sure there are plenty of libraries you cant use, but the same is true of proprietary stuff.

What he's saying is 'I wish the authors of libmad licensed it under MY terms'. The world doesnt work like that buddy

 

[sam fisher]

His thoughts on GPL are hilarious. If you dont like the GPL, dont use GPL licensed code! Sure there are plenty of libraries you cant use, but the same is true of proprietary stuff.

What he's saying is 'I wish the authors of libmad licensed it under MY terms'. The world doesnt work like that buddy

It does if you are Orkie, now move along *Pushes Simon Out The Door*.

 

[Orkie]

His thoughts on GPL are hilarious. If you dont like the GPL, dont use GPL licensed code! Sure there are plenty of libraries you cant use, but the same is true of proprietary stuff.

What he's saying is 'I wish the authors of libmad licensed it under MY terms'. The world doesnt work like that buddy

This kind of reaction is exactly what irritates me the most about the GPL and had you actually bothered to read it properly you would've found that I've already addressed your point. And I'm not saying release it under my terms, I'm suggesting that libraries should be free for anyone to use, otherwise it's a waste of effort - the way I see using the GPL for libraries is like trying to force a religion or a set of moral values upon somebody. I'm not suggesting the code of the libraries themselves shouldn't remain 'free' (note the use of quotation marks ) just that it's detrimental to everybody in the end if people can only use a really awesome library if they choose a specific license for their code.

I'm sure you wouldn't object to people debating the ethics of abortion (as long as they don't force you to get involved) so why should you object to me putting forward my point of view regarding a software license? Both are 'moral' opinions. And just because the world isn't like something, does that mean we shouldn't discuss a potentially ideal scenario? Yes, I think people are always going to get murdered, there's no point discussing ways of preventing this happening...

To everyone else, thanks .

 

[Coder]

His thoughts on GPL are hilarious. If you dont like the GPL, dont use GPL licensed code! Sure there are plenty of libraries you cant use, but the same is true of proprietary stuff.

What he's saying is 'I wish the authors of libmad licensed it under MY terms'. The world doesnt work like that buddy

This kind of reaction is exactly what irritates me the most about the GPL and had you actually bothered to read it properly you would've found that I've already addressed your point. And I'm not saying release it under my terms, I'm suggesting that libraries should be free for anyone to use, otherwise it's a waste of effort - the way I see using the GPL for libraries is like trying to force a religion or a set of moral values upon somebody. I'm not suggesting the code of the libraries themselves shouldn't remain 'free' (note the use of quotation marks ) just that it's detrimental to everybody in the end if people can only use a really awesome library if they choose a specific license for their code.


Personally, I use the GPL. I like the idea that others can use parts of my code if they want to, but only if they share in the same way that I do. I don't want people taking my hard work and not giving anything back and I get quite annoyed when someone comes along and says that they should be allowed to.

Like any license, the GPL is designed to give the author some measure of control over how his creation is used once it leaves his tender embrace

Software authors like me choose the GPL because it puts restrictions on you, we want you to share just like we did. If you refuse to share, why should we?

If a GPL'd library is awesome, it's because someone spent a lot of time and effort making it that way, which in my eyes is even more reason to respect his wishes with regards to the license he chose.

 

[Orkie]

You haven't actually said anything that in in disagreement with what I actually said in the interview. Read it and you will see I have no problem with the GPL for applications really. It's libraries I don't like the GPL being used for - the LGPL is in my opinion more than adequate for protecting your code whilst allowing me to release my code truly for free.

I know I'll never actually win any of these arguments because there are so many more GPL-likers than BSD-likers, but like I keep saying (though nobody seems to spot this) my only issue with the GPL is the linking.

And clearly I do respect the library author's wishes by not using them and letting their good code go to waste in a situation where it would really be on benefit. libmad is just an example I use because it's something that I've had to contend with recently, but because it is licensed under the GPL, the GP2X community as a whole suffers because Open2x can't use it for MP3 decoding. Sure I can release a version with it built in and let people break the GPL themselves when they run applications that link to it that aren't GPL-ed, but that is a bit unfair, forcing people to break it just because some license is fashionable at the moment.

I also like how people assume I personally am affected by the GPL-ing of code and seem to like the fact they've 'got one up on me'. The fact is, the GPL doesn't affect me directly in most cases, but those who make use of my stuff. I nearly release the vast majority in the public domain or under the BSD license, which you can't dispute are 'free' so I avoid GPL libraries like the plague. It angers me that I, a programmer, also have to act as a lawyer because some people feel the need to force their licenses upon me. At the end of the day, how many people could actually afford to take somebody breaking the GPL to court? I certainly couldn't so I just save myself the hastle.

This wasn't addressed at you directly Coder, I realise you were talking in a more general sense for most of that. I don't say I should be able to take anybody else's code but if it is a separate entity like a library, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to use it. If it were a separate binary running as a daemon it'd be fine, so why not linking?