[kwlug-disc] Permissive vs copyleft licenses

[Paul Nijjar]

In reflecting about this more: 

- gcc was the killer application that enabled the FLOSS movement. It
  provided a gratis way to build software, and the software it built
  did not have to be licenced under copyleft. I wonder if this is not
  part of the reason Linux won out over the BSDs.

- The GPL is a defensive license that worked well in the 1990s. The
  danger then was that Microsoft and other proprietary companies would
  slurp up BSD software. The GPL made software unslurpable by those
  proprietary companies, so people who were against Microsoft
  (remember those innocent days?) had something to rally around.

  But the world has changed. It has become cloudier. The new threat is
  Amazon, which found ways around the GPL by slurping up software and
  running it on its own servers, but keeping additions proprietary.
  The AGPL was one attempt at thwarting this, but it did not work. So
  the new defensive position is the one taken by MongoDB and Elastic:
  license their code so that you can access the source and get the
  binaries for gratis, but make it so that you cannot take the code
  and create a competing product. FLOSS purists hate this one simple
  trick, but if you think of FLOSS as a set of defensive strategies
  against corporations slurping up the competition, it makes sense. 
  What you lose from this approach is the FLOSS purists, and
  contributions from your competition. 

Don't get me wrong. I shamefacedly admit that my own loyalties have
always been towards the commons and the pro-social side of software,
because apparently I am a communist who wants to be poor for his
entire life? But I think the pragmatics of FLOSS have shifted the
other way.

As to why I do not think the GPL model of "make contributions in your
spare time" works: 

- It leads to software you cannot trust, because the founders graduate
  university or lose interest or have to pay rent all of a sudden.
- It means that software gets written by those with extra time on
  their hands, when we really need software written by people with a
  diversity of life experiences.
- Having people take and take from your product and give nothing back
  is a great way to burn people out.

On the other hand, I am also unhappy with the solutions we have
developed to give people incomes while developing software. So there
is no pleasing me. 

- Paul

On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 11:40:52PM -0500, Paul Nijjar via kwlug-disc wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 04:12:00PM -0500, Mikalai Birukou wrote:
> > 
> > > But it seems easier to attract
> > > contributors (in particular, contributors with deep pockets) for
> > > BSD-style licensing.
> > 
> > And here I ask for actual examples were big co have contributed.
> 
> Apache Lucene?
> OpenSSL? 
> Postgres?
> pfSense (and therefore FreeBSD)?
> clang, of course.
> 
> In terms of end-user applications, neither style of open source
> license won. SaaS won instead. The desktop software model has passed
> its heyday. 
> 
> In terms of how small projects can become successful big ones: you
> need to grow a community of contributors somehow. 
> 
> 
> - Paul
> 
> 
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