I can't resist. A fable: Richard Stallman, author of the GPL, is like Karl Marx. Well meaning, pissed off, and a little nuts. GPL says use all my code for free, but if you do, you must make all your code free too. Much gazing at the word 'use'.
Martin Mickos is like Vladimir Lenin. He saw how many people liked Richard's licence and gave it an evil little twist in exchange for a kingdom. He was the CEO of mySQL who established Dual Licensing: you can use our awesome database for free if you make your code available for free, OR you can pay me for my awesome database and keep your code private. Developers clicked the free licence. The people who paid the developers received a call from a mySQL salesperson. More gazing at the word 'use'. Checks written. Larry Ellison is like Joseph Stalin (going with Isaacs here). He saw how great Lenin was doing and simply killed him, or paid him off our story. When Oracle bought Sun it bought mySQL too and Martin walked away very wealthy. Larry loved the model that Martin created. He found it much more lucrative if one dispensed with any pretense of helping human kind and simply added an army of bloodthirsty lawyers. Oracle now licenses Java, Solaris, and mySQL this way. Free! Open Source! Stallman, unlike Marx, has endured the sad misfortune of living to see his beautiful idea twisted into the weapon of his enemy. Node thrives because its leaders share a few simple values, established by Ryan, articulated by Isaac, and backed by the daily work of the core team and the module community: simplicity, transparency, performance. Given these values the community has chosen to bypass all the GPL free beer drama and settle, by convention, not fiat, on the MIT licence. No surprise. The MIT license is a lot like node: small, clean, effective. In the real world Isaac is of course right. If you depend on it prepare to own it. With the exception of the GPL / Dual Licence trick, or really big projects like Android where you prepare from the outset to fight Larry in court, the specific terms of which open source licence you choose rarely matter. Far more common and important, as in this case, is the motivation, or lack thereof, of the people behind the code. George On Saturday, December 1, 2012 8:56:59 PM UTC-8, Paweł Marzec wrote: > > Hello! > > Angel, You are right: the license solely doesn't propel/develop any > project, > and every one could be down. > > I'm not telling that I have oracle's knowledge ;) -> so I expect a lot > of criticism. > > Maybe, > somebody with more/less expirence than I have, > would share the memories/facts that choosing > GPL or MIT or BSD or whatever open like license > is the major/minor factor > for project to be better equipped/prepared > in case of 'disturbances'... > > Maybe > it is the question to be post elswere > > Maybe > it shouldn't be pin to hook.io, > but story of it (hook.io) and it's thread here have symptoms > to me that choosing license type could/should be important... > > Regards > Paweł Marzec > > Wiadomość napisana w dniu 2012-12-01, o godz. 22:32, przez Angel Java > Lopez: > > > Hi people! > > > > Sorry, Pawel, I missed your point.... The story of this thread > > (hook.io deleted, someone could republish, etc...) would be the > > same, being hook.io licensed GPL or MIT. AFAIK, hook.io was not > > closed to be continue with internal development, but abandoned. > > > > And I don't get your point with "but survives most of the > > disturbances, with the first one doesn't.". GitHub is plenty of > > project that "survives most of the disturbances" that are MIT > > licensed. Node.js is an example. > > > > Sorry if this mail feeds an maybe-offtopic discussion. > > > > On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 6:23 PM, Paweł Marzec <[email protected]<javascript:>> > wrote: > > Hi! All below is IMHO: > > > > I've observed, by reading the comments, that understanding the > > problem wake up - it arised!. > > > > There is a big diffrences between open licenses. > > > > Like between MIT & GPL for example > > > > the first one (MIT) guarantees the freedom to be used in all > > aplication, the freedom to code & to decomplie & to decompile > > & even to be transformed to closed project (by some company > > interested to invest some money to open project it's the decision key) > > > > But the second one (GPL) guarantees to keep the freedom of project > > and freedom of apliances. (as long as you keep it public), > > but it guratnees also to keep the freedom of the project by itself! > > It forbids to be closed by anybody! As long as they have something > > to be published and given back to society! > > > > The first one (MIT) has the big virus counter (it is attractive to > > yound developers as a leverage to be) > > But the second one is less viruses in short time, but survives most > > of the disturbances, with the first one doesn't. > > > > So, please take a while and understand where you invest you efforts! > > > > None of these two licensens has any money related restrictions!!! > > > > The restictions are only in freedom related aspects! > > > > Think! > > > > Regards > > Paweł Marzec > > PS: Don't disturb the free beer with freedom, or even worse: the > > freedom in exchange of free beer! > > > > Wiadomość napisana w dniu 2012-12-01, o godz. 19:59, przez Isaac > > Schlueter: > > > > > > Ro, > > > > I think that Nuno and Martin really covered all that needs to be said, > > and I don't want to echo what they've explained very nicely. But I do > > want to point out that what you're seeing is indeed a cultural > > difference between open source and proprietary worlds. In effect, > > with liberally licensed open source software, you have the *option* to > > take ownership of your code. In the proprietary world, that is not > > the case. > > > > If you are depending on a bit of software that someone else wrote, > > whether it's a database or operating system or just some little > > library or javascript thing, you are accepting a bit of risk, in > > exchange for some value. The risk is that the author might move on > > and not care about this thing any more, or might take the project in a > > direction that doesn't benefit you. The value is that you get to use > > what they have built, at a much lower cost than building it yourself. > > (Often it's free in terms of $$, but there's also the cost of learning > > how it works, etc.) > > > > I'm biased, but this is based on seeing how this goes in the real > > world, and being on both ends of getting burned by these things. > > > > In the proprietary world, you can find yourself in a situation where > > the bulk of your system is in fact owned by Microsoft (if you're > > lucky!), or worse, by a company like Oracle[1], which is explicitly in > > the business of "extracting value" from their users. Or, you may be > > married to a company run by someone you know and trust, and then one > > day, they retire, and the person who follows them runs things very > > differently. > > > > Switching from one platform to another is usually prohibitively > > expensive. Proprietary vendors know this, that's how they can raise > > prices to exorbitant levels once you're using their platform. The > > general MO is to sell these platforms with the promise of support > > contracts and such, and to tell horror stories about how open source > > projects get abandoned. > > > > But proprietary software projects get abandoned as well! Just ask the > > Solaris or MySQL users how much support they're getting from Oracle, > > or how much innovation they're seeing in those software projects. On > > the other hand, their free spin-offs (Maria and Illumos, respectively) > > are seeing a lot of innovation and have a much more active community > > support network. For that matter, compare the experience of sharing > > code with other users in .NET or iOS vs Perl or Node. Proprietary > > systems tend to destroy communities, by polarizing them into "the > > provider" and "the users". > > > > Open source communities by necessity acknowledge the reality of > > project abandonment, because we can't ignore it. We don't have a > > company buy a project and then slowly squeeze all the life out of its > > trapped users; the developer says, "Ok, I'm doing another thing now", > > and that's that. If someone wants to take over, they do. (Usually > > this is one of the users who depend on it, perhaps someone who was > > *already* helping find/fix bugs.) If no one cares, then it dies > > peacefully. > > > > --i > > > > [1] If it seems like I'm picking on Oracle unfairly, it's only because > > they're the most evil software company I know of. LIke any large > > organization, there are a lot of good people working there, and some > > of them are doing good work; but as a whole, the company is clearly > > evil. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are also not blameless or purely > > good, but I think that all three at least are trying to be a net > > benefit for the software industry. > > > > -- > > Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ > > Posting guidelines: > https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > > Groups "nodejs" group. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected] <javascript:> > > For more options, visit this group at > > http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en > > > > -- > > Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ > > Posting guidelines: > https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > > Groups "nodejs" group. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected] <javascript:> > > For more options, visit this group at > > http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en > > > > > > -- > > Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ > > Posting guidelines: > https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > > Groups "nodejs" group. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected] <javascript:> > > For more options, visit this group at > > http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en > > -- Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ Posting guidelines: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nodejs" group. 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