Re: [dev] arrow in the knee because of the GNU GPL???

From: Philip Rushik <prushik_AT_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 06:33:17 +0900

On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 5:30 AM, Kurt Van Dijck
<dev.kurt_AT_vandijck-laurijssen.be> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 03:21:01AM +0900, Philip Rushik wrote:
>> > The GPL inforces that the codebase stays free.
>>
>> No, all free licenses enforce a continually free codebase. If I
>> release under MIT or BSD, that code that I release will always be free
>> and there's nothing anybody else can do about it.
>
> Your opinion is about static code.
>
>>
>> GPL tries to control what other people do with code they wrote.
>
> Any license controls what other people can or may do with the code.
>
>> In my opinion that's kinda f'ed up. GPL does not protect your code, any
>> license will do that,
>
> In my understanding, GPL enforces that derived work of your code
> will still be free to its users. This covers 2 major aspects:
> * One cannot repackage or modify GPL software and make it non-free
> I think that is a guarantee that your code will _stay_ free,
> even after modifications.
>
> * People that are not using the software, have absolutely no rights.
> If I modify my linux kernel on my system, even Linus himself has
> no rights to see.
> Strictly speaking, only users of my computer that runs that kernel
> can force me to give the sources.
>
> Am I wrong in this?
>

I don't think you quite understood what I meant. All licenses control
what people can do with your code, yes, I didn't say anything to the
contrary. I said it tries to control what people do with _their_ code,
not your code.
If someone mades a modification, that modification is something that
they wrote, not you, GPL takes away that that person's right to their
own creation (their "modification", which is their own work). Nobody
can take your code and make it non-free under a MIT/BSD license, they
can only make their modifications non-free. That's the problem with
the GPL, (in my opinion), it has no effect on your code, but only on
"modifications", which are NOT your code.

And the whole thing about non-users, of course, but that doesn't
really affect anybody, and I don't think it's ever been part of the
argument.

Regards,
--Phil
Received on Wed Jun 25 2014 - 23:33:17 CEST