Agreed. I over simplified in a bid to type less on this puny phone. What I am saying is that if you licence under GPL then you reduce adoption. Here are a couple of examples:
Want to resell a CMS that includes ExtJs (this is where GPL can hurt free software and be weaponized by asking for a commercial licence) on its GPL licence. See Pimcore. Want to include a lib in a PHP extension (in this case it hampers even opensource, but lets not go down the free software vs open source route). I agree and don't use most GPL code where it will be harmful to me. There is an additional problem with it though; I don't know what my code/product might evolve into in the future and then whether GPL will come back to bite. So I avoid it and that is where adoption rates get affected. I am a fan of permissive licences for this reason and would encourage anyone to adopt such a licence. If you don't want to then thats fine, but it is also fine if I don't use your code. :-) In the interests of disclosure: I have GPLed code myself before. I don't any more though. On Apr 13, 2012 7:41 AM, "Bruce Clement" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 6:25 PM, Simon Holywell <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Jochen and Jonathon, >> >> This is my primary bug bear with GPL: >> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL >> >> > The referenced question explains how the GPL requires that programs linked > to GPL software must be covered by a compatible licence. > > This is a deliberate design decision in the writing of the GPL, it's to > ensure that code released under the GPL can't be tied up with other > software that would prevent it being used under the GPL. > > On the other hand, it's only people you give the code to who have the > right to use it under the GPL. I don't understand why it should be a > problem to give this to a customer who probably only has a thin shim on top > of a large GPL code base to be able to pass that on. > > If you have a use case where you don't want to allow your customers to be > able to modify and on-sell the changes they've paid for, then the answer is > simple, don't use GPL covered code as the base of your product.. > > Interestingly enough IBM, Sun (although not Oracle) and other large > companies have had no problem releasing code under the GPL and even > Microsoft[1] has done it, however albeit grudginly. > > Bruce > > [1] > http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/072009-microsoft-linux-source-code.html > > -- > Bruce Clement > > Home: http://www.clement.co.nz/ > Twitter: http://twitter.com/Bruce_Clement > Directory: http://www.searchme.co.nz/ > > "Before attempting to create something new, it is vital to have a good > appreciation of everything that already exists in this field." Mikhail > Kalashnikov > > -- > NZ PHP Users Group: http://groups.google.com/group/nzphpug > To post, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe, send email to > [email protected] -- NZ PHP Users Group: http://groups.google.com/group/nzphpug To post, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected]
