Re: [dev] GPL free Linux

From: Alessandro Pistocchi <apukfreelance_AT_gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2018 14:39:13 +0100

Sent from my iPhone

> On 12 Nov 2018, at 13:29, Hadrien Lacour <hadrien.lacour_AT_posteo.net> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 11:25:44AM +0000, Alessandro Pistocchi wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On 12 Nov 2018, at 10:05, Hadrien Lacour <hadrien.lacour_AT_posteo.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sun, Nov 11, 2018 at 09:43:12PM -0700, Anthony J. Bentley wrote:
>>>> Markus Wichmann writes:
>>>>> Why would you do something so pointless? First of all, licences only
>>>>> matter if you plan on redistribution, so most here won't care. Second,
>>>>> all the GPL demands is that you distribute the source, which any good
>>>>> distribution should do, anyway, right?
>>>>
>>>> GPL also demands that you not combine the code with GPL-incompatible
>>>> terms, even if those terms are free themselves. A ridiculous requirement
>>>> that violates the spirit and practice of free software.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Even if this discussion is pointless, I'll humour the list; attacking the
>>> methods and not the goal (which is to eradicate proprietary software) without
>>> proposing an alternative methode is at best fallacious.
>>>
>>> On the other hand, I'd like to ask why would someone use a non copylefted
>>> license? Almost all the time (especially for applications, not libraries), the
>>> main reason is intellectual masturbation, not a concrete goal like GPL's one.
>>>
>>
>> I think I wrote I am ok with GPL applications ( and in fact I am using them ).
>>
>> I just want people to be able to do proprietary software no questions asked.
>>
>> Some of my users may not know anything about copyleft and do stuff that is wrong without knowing it and I don’t want this to happen to them.
>>
>>
>
> Then you're honest, at least. GPL (and copyleft in general) is indeed for those
> who despise proprietary software and will exert some effort to at least try to
> remove it (that obviously includes not allowing them to use your applications).
>

Yes, I am honest. I generally like the idea of having open source software but at the same time I am in favour of leaving the choice to the people with what they may want to do with their own software and the GPL/LGPL poses limits that are not always acceptable.

Also, I would like open source to be relatively simple to modify because that is the reason for having open source in the first place I think.

There are several pieces of open source software that are quite hard to go through due to complexity that are not really necessary and that’s what I like about suckless.org projects.

I am sorry, I did not know that you guys were so inclined towards making proprietary software irrelevant. I respect that and I really meant nothing wrong. I think it’s a very valid effort.

My idea is to create a system where people can really choose what they want from this point of view: if they are going proprietary that’s cool, if they go open source that’s cool too, as long as they don’t try to force everyone to go open source as well.

For example I use a lot macos and iOS for work but I also know that these systems are too closed in many ways for my taste. I am not an apple fanboy.
The Linux kernel uses the
GPL 2 in a very good way and they intentionally have exceptions for user space and they intentionally say that
GPL2 is ok for them but GPL3 is not. I have seen a talk about this where Linus was talking about licensing and funnily enough his opinion was pretty close to mine.
Received on Mon Nov 12 2018 - 14:39:13 CET