After decades with no apparent change in arguments or hope for resolution, I find the whole debate elitist and entertainingly stagnant. Reminds me of candy <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0QpPNcT-J4> advertisements <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJLDF6qZUX0>. As is common in religious debates, the two sides tend to come from different mindsets and don't even get what the other is saying. I find the two approaches complementary rather than in opposition. Want to do it for the improvement of society? Great. Want to do it to improve efficiency, reduce bugs and involve a broader talent pool? Also great. Just do it. By and large the paths are the same. What has more-recently astounded me about the binary nature of the debate is that it has ignored a third aspect that challenges the other two -- cloud-based software. The GPL does not require you to release your modified source if you don't redistribute your code at all. A cloud service thus can use software under even the most "viral" licenses without worry because the result is only actually executed on computers wholly under its control. While people still argue about closed MS-Word versus open LibreOffice, they ignore Google Docs -- Is that open or closed? Can its developers incorporate GPL software while wholly circumventing the FSF's social goals? This paradigm needs to be addressed but IMO has been largely ignored for an assortment of reasons. - Evan On 13 July 2017 at 09:37, Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 05:44:51AM +0200, ac via talk wrote:
On Tue, 11 Jul 2017 17:09:55 -0400 (EDT) "D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk" <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
I found this article interesting and useful <https://opensource.com/business/16/11/open-source-not-free-software> This guy disagrees: <https://meshedinsights.com/2017/06/07/free-vs-open/>
imho, it is semantics / point of view..
my own pov (ymmv): Truly free and truly open is everything BSD licensed (including my own BSD released code/projects/software) my GPL etc licensed software is open, and free if you are only a user, but not so much free if you are a dev, etc. :)
The goal of GPL is the freedom of the source code, and hence the freedom of future users of the source code. It is not the freedom of someone to decide to deny others the same freedom, unlike the BSD license where the receiver is the one that is most free to do what they want. So yes the GPL gives each user less freedom in the interest of giving all users that same level of freedom in using the code.
Different goal.
-- Len Sorensen --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
-- Evan Leibovitch Toronto, Canada Em: evan at telly dot org Sk: evanleibovitch Tw: el56