Re: The sad decline of copyleft software licenses? :(

[Marinus Savoritias]

On 9/28/20 6:33 AM, Jean Louis wrote:
> * Pen-Yuan Hsing <penyuanhsing@gmail.com> [2020-09-28 05:48]:
> > > I cannot see there possible violation of the GPL.
> > >
> > > You can use R and make R programs which are proprietary. You can have
> > > bash shell and have shell scripts which are proprietary. You can have
> > > proprietary program producing automatically shell scripts executed by
> > > shell, whereby such shell scripts would be proprietary. I do not vouch
> > > for proprietary software, as free software has a lot to do in the
> > > world. But that is how it is, the GPL license have been designed in
> > > such a way to allow such usages of software.
> >
> > I agree with the points you made. However, I must apologise if I mislead
> > you, because I *did not* claim that the proprietary software Brodgar
> > violates the GNU GPL of R. Like I said in the example, the Brodgar homepage
> > specifically has a highly visible section telling you why it does not
> > violate the GPL. The point I am trying to make with this example is not of a
> > GPL violation. The bigger context of my argument is that copyleft licenses
> > are better than permissive licenses, because permissively-licensed free
> > software has a higher risk of being used in proprietary software. The
> > Brodgar example is to illustrate that even with a copyleft license such as
> > the GPL, there is still a way for GPL-licensed free software to be used with
> > proprietary programs without violating the GPL. If that can be done, then it
> > is *even easier* for permissively-licensed free software to be exploited by
> > proprietary software. The whole example was meant as an argument that
> > copyleft licenses are at least better than permissive ones, even if copyleft
> > is not perfect and might have loopholes.
>
> Sure that GPL program may be invoked automatically by proprietary
> program.
>
> But that capability is not abuse, and never was. It is feature of the
> GPL, you may use the program how you wish, you see? As a feature, that
> should be benefit, not disadvantage.
>
> GPL program may be used for crime, smuggling, nuclear missiles, drug
> sales, and other destructive actions. But that is still a feature of
> free software, and not disadvantage. You may use it for whatever
> purpose you wish, that includes invoking it by proprietary
> software.

Depends how you look at it. Being able to use GPL for purposes of war 
gives freedom to the privileged people who do the war. But what about 
the people who are actually being attacked? Do they have Freedom with 
your license? Shouldn't we at least try to protect these people from 
being attacked?

Or are we too far into our own privilege that we don't care that our 
software can be used to hurt others?

That doesn't sound free to me. That sounds like whatever benefits us 
more without caring about others.


> > Denver Gingerich's response suggested that it is entirely possible Whatsapp
> > negotiated a custom license from Open Whisper Systems to use the Signal
> > implementation to bypass the GPL altogether.
>
> Well, in their documents they say they use GPL, maybe among millions
> of users, nobody asked for the sources.
>
> > > I do not share opinion that they are even more dangerous from
> > > perspective of user freedom.
> >
> > Are you referring people or licenses not being more dangerous?
>
> Licenses.
>
> Because permissive license already gave source code and permission for
> you to use the free software. From perspective of user freedom, users
> got freedom that way.

For now. What happens though if it is made closed source though?

You didn't protect the user in that case. You protect your own self 
interests like corporations do. We shouldn't require from the user to 
check the hundreds of packages they have installed just in case 
something became closed source.

And also when people contribute they expect all changes they made to be 
used for FOSS software. What is the point of contributing somewhere when 
anybody can take the code and close source it for their own benefit at 
any time?

That doesn't sound like Free Software either to me.

> > I don't understand what you're trying to communicate here. I think it's
> > pretty clear that the creation and spread of proprietary software would be
> > easier if free software uses permissive licenses instead of copyleft
> > licenses.
>
> I am saying it does not matter, you are getting free software
> too. OpenBSD is mostly licensed that way, but I enjoy the free
> software as OpenBSD, not proprietary. It does not matter.
>
> Finally, GPL software can also be made to proprietary, which does
> happen, so it is violation, you cannot practically do much, but it can
> be made into proprietary. License alone is preventing only ethical
> software authors not to abuse it, those not ethical will abuse it
> anyway
>
> Making any proprietary software is abuse. Yet license alone will not
> stop companies abusing it, be it GPL or MIT-similar license. I guess
> there is no such thing any more as MIT license, it is better to say
> MIT-similar or MIT-like.
>
> It is like guns, you need a license for gun, but bad boy need not
> license, is free to use a gun in any country.

There is a history of companies complying with the GPL. Saying that 
licenses don't help is misinformation.

Sure there will be violations. But these are the minority. The whole 
Linux and Browser and Phone situation proves it. The sole reason we have 
something even remotely close to FOSS on our phones with Android is 
because of the GPL. If Torvalds had used MIT for the kernel we wouldn't 
have Android today.

Licenses do help. And laws do help. That is why we have them. EU has 
proper gun laws and the guns are way less.

> > I have never claimed that those who apply permissive free software licenses
> > to their code are competitors nor was I implying that.
> >
> > However, I am arguing that once a person creates a piece of software, and if
> > that person cares about perpetuating user freedom, choosing a copyleft
> > license would be a better way to achieve that goal. That's why I find the
> > decline in usage of copyleft licenses a sad thing.
>
> OpenBSD developers and FreeBSD developers, and many others, don't
> share that opinion, it is thus better working together in creation of
> free software.
>
> I do not see decline of copyleft licenses, and I have given you
> example that you are looking into wrong statistics of Github
> only. Github is no measure for GPL.
>
> If you wish to measure how many people eat bread in Austria, you
> cannot enter the single McDonalds restaurant and measure it, you need
> to measure all the country.
>
> Did you measure https://sourceforge.net/ ?
>
> Did you measure Bitbucket, Gitlab, private, FTP sites, non-GNU
> Savannah, and GNU Savannah or Launchpad?
>
> Without proper measurement of statistics, the GPL is not in decline
> for me. Because so far nobody have shown real statistics.
>
> If you are speaking only of Github, then I think all this discussion
> should be relevant only for Github, it should be maybe discussed on
> Github actually.
>
> If you speak of global GPL usage, I have no good statistics, what I
> see and observe is that more and more software is released under GPL,
> and I am observing it for last 21 years, so my feeling my be
> subjective, yet that is my feeling.

Your feeling is valid. But its not reality I am afraid.

Github is the biggest software site on the planet right now. So the 
numbers are not that far off from the statistics Github gave.

Marinus Savoritias

> Jean
>
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