"The GNU General Public License is one of the most widely used software licenses - and, undoubtedly, the most misunderstood. Some of this misunderstanding comes from hostile propaganda, but some also comes from a lack of experience in licensing issues on the part of both lawyers and lay users, and the use of standard language in conventional end-user license agreements that are unthinkingly coupled with the GPL. In all cases, the confusion is frequently based on misreadings, rumors, secondhand accounts, and what is convenient to believe."
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-06-19
Member since:2005-07-06
Depends on if it is part of the work or not. I personally see that as a good thing. If you make it part of my GPL work then I have the right to your work the same as I gave you the right to mine. If it is not part of the actual work then it is not automagically GPL.
By that logic, if you take my public domain/MIT/BSD/etc.-licensed library and make it a part of your GPL work, shouldn't I have the same rights to your work as I gave you to mine?
More important is the fact that the GPL is -- by design -- incompatible with even a renamed version of itself (apart from the upgrade clause, which is subject only the FSF's whims). If one wishes to remove the attributions to RMS's puppet organization, for example, and rename the license the Free Public License (FPL), one will find that FPL code is GPL-incompatible and GPL code is FPL-incompatible to the degree that that not even object code from the two can be linked together. Indeed the GPL is the most monopolistic and viral of all possible licenses. (Thankfully the LGPL doesn't quite fall prey to this insanity.)
Member since:2005-07-06
By that logic, the commerical Delphi license is carcinogenic, in that I'll be made to pay if I copy any of the source of the RTL or VCL into my own apps.
The fact is the vast majority of licenses require some form of renumeration for the product or service they provide. Generally this is money; in the case of the GPL the only requirement is that you release your derived software in such a way that its users can benefit from it as much as you did from the original GPLed work. This means it can be under any GPL-compatible license (not just the GPL itself).
Frankly, that's not particularly onerous. If you don't want to do that, go to the copyright holder and ask them if you could pay them a fee to release it under a proprietary license: that's perfectly okay (assuming they've been careful about copyright assignation) and allowed.
I have very little time for the ignorant ingrates who complain about how unfair the GPL is, and demand a BSD world where they can do whatever they want with other people's hard work and never contribute anything back. Good software is hard work, and the GPL acts to ensure that people don't see their hard work abused.
Edited 2006-08-30 19:53
Member since:2006-01-17
I didn't say the GPL is unfair, I said it is blocking it self from other OSI approved licenses. It is the GPL that is keeping it self walled off. The other OSI approved licensed code has obviously made its source code availible for free use. So the GPL code benefits from the other OSI licensed code. The GPL project would have complete rights to distribute all of the code. So code still remains free, its just that the files that are licensed under the other OSI approved license still live under its own restrictions.
Member since:2006-02-11
Member since:
2006-01-17
1. The GPL is viral
The idea that any software that comes into contact with GPL-licensed software also becomes subject to the GPL seems to have originated with Craig Mundie, a senior vice president of Microsoft, in a speech delivered at the New York University Stern School of Business in May 2001. Since then, David Turner reports, many people have come to believe that even having GPL software on the same computer brings other software under the license. In extreme cases, Turner says, this belief has lead to bans on all GPL software at some companies.
This misunderstanding stems from section 2 of the current GPL, which states only that modified versions of GPL software must also be licensed under the GPL. However, the section clearly states that if a program "can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then the GPL does not apply to it" and that being on the same "storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License." As Fontana points out, the definition of a derivative work could be clearer -- and should be in the third version of the license -- but the general principle is unmistakable.
The GPL is viral, though to a lesser extent that portrayed by microsoft. If I include a file that is under another OSI approved license into a project, the file must be made GPL, thus its viral in that way. And that is what is holding it back from cool features in OpenSolaris. If GPLv3 made an exception that it could bind with other OSI approved licenses without forcing the foreign code to be under the GPL, things would be a lot easier.