Dont u love the open source community?
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diligentcircle
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https://www.youtube.com/embed/S76pHIYx3ik?feature=oembed
Yeah, I don't see what's so off topic, Wally.
Linux-SWAT
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Well, people choose.
If i want to make my work secret, i'm free to do so.
If i want to open it, i'm free to do so.
The open source community is generally more friendly than the ones around proprietary software, ie. games.
For example, just look at some starcraft forums, you will see it's about violence, insults, bully, etc.
I play SC since 1998/99 so i know what i'm talking about ^^.
If i want to make my work secret, i'm free to do so.
If i want to open it, i'm free to do so.
The open source community is generally more friendly than the ones around proprietary software, ie. games.
For example, just look at some starcraft forums, you will see it's about violence, insults, bully, etc.
I play SC since 1998/99 so i know what i'm talking about ^^.
diligentcircle
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Are you saying that games are the only proprietary software, or that games are the only proprietary software that communities get built around? http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/e.g.html
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Linux-SWAT
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I meant, "e.g. some games" because i had SC/BW in mind.
Thx for the link, i always employed "ie." as "for example", which is incorrect.
Thx for the link, i always employed "ie." as "for example", which is incorrect.
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sswam
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What I really love is public domain software, because I can re-use it freely. MIT/BSD licensed software comes a close second, because it is free to re-use with minimal conditions (attribution, quoting the licenses). Any open source software is valuable, because I can read it, learn from it and copy the ideas.
The "Free software" copy-left licenses kind of annoy me.
The GPL is too bossy. There are some good ideas, but it forces them, and so takes away the users' and developers' freedom compared to many other open source licenses. The GPL does not trust me to contribute my code back to the community, so it forces me to release my code under the GPL.
But that requirement comes with a curse, the terrible incompatibility curse of the GPL. It's more or less intentional, but unacceptable for me. I can mix public domain, BSD and MIT licensed code freely together. But if I try to put some snippet of GPL code into the mix, suddenly my whole program must be released as GPL'd copy-left. I cannot release it with a more liberal license. Because of the GPL's bossy attitude, I cannot re-use GPL code without giving up my freedom.
The free software / open source arguments are a bad joke. The "free software foundation" and their GPL puts odious restrictions on re-using parts of their software. They take away a developer's freedom. Many other open source software licenses truly allow free re-use. And yet, the "free software" people have a fit if we don't use their terminology!
I don't want to argue about this, I'm just putting my opinions out there. You can love the GPL, it has some advantages; but for me the disadvantages are too great.
The "Free software" copy-left licenses kind of annoy me.
The GPL is too bossy. There are some good ideas, but it forces them, and so takes away the users' and developers' freedom compared to many other open source licenses. The GPL does not trust me to contribute my code back to the community, so it forces me to release my code under the GPL.
But that requirement comes with a curse, the terrible incompatibility curse of the GPL. It's more or less intentional, but unacceptable for me. I can mix public domain, BSD and MIT licensed code freely together. But if I try to put some snippet of GPL code into the mix, suddenly my whole program must be released as GPL'd copy-left. I cannot release it with a more liberal license. Because of the GPL's bossy attitude, I cannot re-use GPL code without giving up my freedom.
The free software / open source arguments are a bad joke. The "free software foundation" and their GPL puts odious restrictions on re-using parts of their software. They take away a developer's freedom. Many other open source software licenses truly allow free re-use. And yet, the "free software" people have a fit if we don't use their terminology!
I don't want to argue about this, I'm just putting my opinions out there. You can love the GPL, it has some advantages; but for me the disadvantages are too great.
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diligentcircle
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Erm, what? All of those are compatible with the GPL.
sswam
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The GPL is not even compatible to itself (versions 2 and 3).
Linux code is GPL2 only, and cannot be used in GPL3 projects; and vice-versa.
What a colossal failure this is for the GPL and Linux.
The GPL can take code from permissive-licensed projects, but it's a one-way street.
Apache and *BSD cannot and do not use any code from Linux, they would have to change their license to the GPL.
This is the kind of ridiculous shit that results from using a restrictive license such as the GPL.
In some ways it's worse than a commercial license, because it is not so obvious that it sucks,
and commercial licenses do not attempt to infect your code.
What's especially bad about the GPL is that it pretends to give you all these great freedoms,
whereas it is really placing lots of restrictions to prevent re-use in commercial projects.
Those restrictions also prevent re-use in other free projects.
I can respect people who prefer the GPL, but I don't agree with that choice.
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kasp
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I doubt I could have a casual conversation with Linus Torvald anytime soon either. I think the barrier you are looking at in that regards is scale. Of course the people behind a small project are easier to access than the people behind a project with millions of users. After all I am sure in Bill Gates early days it would have been incredibly easy to have a conversation with him. If Bill Gates and Linus Torvald got active with forums that is all they would ever be doing and they still would only reply to a fraction of the users.
Games are more competitive and proprietary software has a larger chunk of the market so you are bound to see more of the scum of the internet. Plus I would say open source gamers tend to be older and open source games themselves are usually more casual.
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diligentcircle
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The normal way to license GPL programs is as "version X or any later version". Programs licensed under "version 2 or later" are compatible with version 3 of the GPL. Linux, the kernel, is just licensed under the GPL v2. They also didn't do copyright assignment, hence why they can't change it. But in the grand scheme of things, it isn't a "colossal failure". It's just an inconvenience.
First off, what real bad effects have resulted from the GPL? All you've said is that permissive works combined with GPL'd works become completely under the GPL, but how does this affect anybody?
Second, the GPL doesn't "infect" code. If you combine code under a permissive license and code under the GPL, that whole work goes under the GPL, but the code that was under the permissive license is still under the permissive license.
Third, proprietary licenses, less restrictive than the GPL? Are you kidding me? Most of these licenses don't even allow you to copy, redistribute, modify, or study the program. Heck, EULAs often actively tell you that these activities are forbidden or restricted. Have you even read the shit in these licenses? Even if the requirements of the GPL for redistribution are bad (and I disagree on that), there is absolutely no way that proprietary licenses which don't even allow you to redistribute, or at best only allow verbatim redistribution (something the GPL also allows by its very nature), are better than the GNU GPL.
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The goal of the GPL is very clear: it goes further than public domain or other permissive licenses in that it ensures that the software will always remain Free. Permissive licenses are nice, but they have an important weakness: anyone can take it, improve it, and re-release it as proprietary software (for which they might e.g. hand out the compiled binaries for free, but not the sources). The original software at some point can no longer be found because everyone is using the improved proprietary version anyway. Depending on your point of view, that may or may not be a problem. It's clear that from the user perspective, even though the permissive license allows them to do more, in the long term, a copyleft license ensures that their freedoms are preserved while a permissive license includes the freedom to revoke those freedoms which may or may not turn out to become a problem.
The GPL doesn't limit the freedom of developers in any way, except by limiting their choice of license when they re-use GPL'ed code. If you would allow people to take GPL'ed code, modify it a bit, re-release it as, say, public domain, then the copyleft chain is effectively broken because now anyone can take the public domain code, modify it and release it as proprietary software.
So yes, if you want to have no limitations whatsoever, and want to keep your options open to make a commercial release at some point, then it's better to use a permissive license. On the other hand, if you want to really "contribute to humankind", then the "viral" nature of the GPL copyleft means that you give up your freedom to take away other people's freedoms, ensuring that in the long term, it remains Free. I like that.
The GPL doesn't limit the freedom of developers in any way, except by limiting their choice of license when they re-use GPL'ed code. If you would allow people to take GPL'ed code, modify it a bit, re-release it as, say, public domain, then the copyleft chain is effectively broken because now anyone can take the public domain code, modify it and release it as proprietary software.
So yes, if you want to have no limitations whatsoever, and want to keep your options open to make a commercial release at some point, then it's better to use a permissive license. On the other hand, if you want to really "contribute to humankind", then the "viral" nature of the GPL copyleft means that you give up your freedom to take away other people's freedoms, ensuring that in the long term, it remains Free. I like that.
diligentcircle
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The original copyright holder can relicense under a more permissive license if he/she wants to, it's just that nobody does that because it would eliminate the whole purpose of the GPL, no matter what your purpose was. Then there's confounding factors like many copyright holders being around, which is why Linux can't get its GPLv2-only problem fixed (they would need to go through and get consent from every single person who has ever contributed to Linux in order to make it GPLv2 or later, not exactly practical).
pmprog
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Feedback, yes, input, not always
Have you counted the number of Linux distributions there are these days? IIRC, you are allowed to use GPL'd code in your commercial projects, it just means that you have to be able to provide your code. We have an Excel library called Flexcel at work, it's commercial, but you get the source code. Don't think it's GPL license, but it's the same kind of thing.
Also, isn't SDL under the GPL? Not all SDL games are GPL'd, as long as the library is dynamically linked and can be replaced seperately, you don't need to open your whole codebase.
diligentcircle
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Just providing the source code isn't enough. You have to provide the source code for the program under the GPL in its entirety. But I should point out that this does not prevent commercialism; you can have commercial free software. It prevents nonfree programs derived from GPL'd programs. Commercialism with free software usually involves a different business model from distributing the program for a fee, such as service (you can distribute copies for a fee, but it isn't going to be as effective as with nonfree programs since anyone else has the right to redistribute the program gratis).
One other thing that can be done, and this has been done for Qt as well as others, is to release the program under the GPL and sell exceptions to it. This goes against the purpose of the GPL, but the Free Software Foundation considers it acceptable for freeing nonfree programs because the effect on software freedom is comparable to permissive licenses, which are not bad.
No. SDL is under the LGPL or zlib license. I don't know about the zlib license (I gather it's a permissive one, but I don't know), but the LGPL is like the GPL, but allows nonfree programs to link to it dynamically (e.g. as a library).
comradekingu
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