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

[Marinus Savoritias]

On 10/1/20 2:21 PM, Jean Louis wrote:
> * Marinus Savoritias <marinus.savoritias@disroot.org> [2020-10-01 12:06]:
> > > 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?
>
> It is not up to us to decide who is just or unjust. Think about that.

Why do you decide if proprietary software is unjust then? Deciding what 
is just and unjust selectively is hypocritical.

Plus if you think that war or nukes or the other things you mentioned 
are not necessarily bad then it makes me question whether you care about 
people at all outside of your bubble.

> When you give money or receive money, that money was maybe used for
> illegal activities, like it was most probably in hands of dirty
> people, or criminals, drug dealers or child traffickers.
>
> It is not up to us to judge who uses the software and for which
> purpose, including to limit usage of software for any purpose.
>
> When you sell water, you don't limit who is to drink the water based
> on their character, same with money, food, and also same with free
> software.

If you are privileged enough to not care sure. But if somebody has 
created a program that can be used to hurt people and they do nothing to 
stop it then I will do everything in my power to speak against it.

If you created a program that you know may be used then you are 
complicit too. You knew what you were doing but you didn't stop it.

Don't compare water to Software please. Water is natural nobody created. 
It is necessary for everybody. There is no alternative.

> > Or are we too far into our own privilege that we don't care that our
> > software can be used to hurt others?
>
> Free software was always like that. You can use it as you wish.
MIT and the likes permissive licenses sure. GPL is not though. It has 
restrictions because it understood unlimited freedom for one person 
limits the freedom of the other.

Your freedom ends where my freedom begins.

> > That doesn't sound free to me. That sounds like whatever benefits us more
> > without caring about others.
>
> Please compare it to other more necessary things just as I explained,
> the water.
>
> Let us say emergency department in hospital, do they care if bad
> person like criminal was shut and hurt? They do care, they don't look
> into whys and justice.

This is such a weak argument. So you are comparing something you 
created, a program, to water?

1. Water is neccessere for everybody. There are no alternatives. You 
can't own it. Your Software is your creation though.

2. As I have said above. Software is your creation you decide what 
happens to it the minute you give a license. If you know it can be used 
to hurt people and you do nothing you are complicit.

Are you basically denying that you have any responsibility in what 
happens with the software you created?

> > For now. What happens though if it is made closed source though?
>
> It is proprietary, it happens. We don't mind, we keep pushing free
> software.
>
> I would not use the term "closed source", as it implies the term "open
> source", and that one was used to hide the free software and is still
> being used for commercial purposes.
>
> Binaries distributed without source or proprietary software is more
> appropriate.
>
> Greatest majority of proprietary software have their sources, they are
> just not distributed unless under some special licenses. So the source
> nobody closed, as their source is still there readable, only for
> themselves, only for authors.

Close source is towards the users always. You can use whatever term you 
want.

> > 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.
>
> I don't get this.

I meant that something can become closed source without warning when you 
use permissive licenses. The user has to check every single package if 
it becomes closed source actively.

> > 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?
>
> Practically, anybody can do that with GPL software as well, only the
> license asks not to do it. And in some countries, the authors probably
> cannot enforce the GPL.

At least they try though to enforce freedom.

> Main purpose is sharing and having free software.
>
> Secondary purpose is enforcing, and that should be done in gentle
> manner, not strict manner. Because by having gentle approach,
> proprietary software such as Linux kernel, could become free
> software. As Linus Torvalds used he GNU operating system tools to
> prepare Linux kernel, after some thinking, and I think it took him
> harder time to think about it, he made it GNU GPL. He heard Richard
> Stallman's talk at his university. Otherwise, Linux kernel was
> initially proprietary software.

At the beginning sure. But you can't always reason with corporations.

> > > 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.
>
> Yes, it helps, but only in cases where you have companies or persons
> exposed in public.
>
> License cannot help you to enforce proprietary software or binaries
> being made out of GPL software, made by bad boys. I see you cannot
> understand this statement, even I gave you example with guns. Guns are
> regulated in many countries, but that implies that only people abiding
> by the law are going to abide the regulation to get a license for the
> gun. Bad boy does not abide by the law, and need not look into any
> license, when bad boy wants it, bad boy will use the gun. You cannot
> do anything about it.

Have you heard about a small thing called police and justice system?

Have you heard how many "bad boys" we have in EU compared to USA for 
example?

> Is there any country in the world where criminals were really
> forbidden to do any crime? No. Crimes are committed anywhere.

What do you think the laws and the police and the Justice system are for 
then? They seem to be doing a good job in a lot of places.

> License terms can be nullified and disrespected anywhere on this
> planet.
>
> > Sure there will be violations. But these are the minority.
>
> I do not know, I have no possibility to verify it. I know my practical
> case when somebody engaged me to make a shell script on  their remote
> servers, and company was selling security software, and they used free
> software to make proprietary software, that is where I gave up. So you
> may not even know which company is selling proprietary software made
> out of GPL software, it is hard to find out.
>
> > The whole Linux
>
> I do not know what you mean with Linux, that is kernel.
>
> > and Browser and Phone situation proves it.
>
> I do not know, explain me what you mean with browsers or phones?

Android and Web Browser

> > The sole reason we have something even remotely close to FOSS on our
> > phones with Android is because of the GPL.
>
> I do not use the term FOSS as it is misleading, it means free and open
> source software, so that uses the term "free" in the context of price
> probably, and "open source" is used originally to hide the true free
> software. Please see
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Open to understand it.
>
> > If Torvalds had used MIT for the kernel we wouldn't have Android
> > today.
>
> Linus Torvalds never intended in the first place to release Linux
> kernel as free software. It was not free. I have verified the first
> version myself. He listened to Richard Stallman talking at his
> university, then he decided to release it as free software. Please
> read here: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#linuxalone
>
> See original Linux distribution server from Finnish university:
> http://ftp.funet.fi/
>
> See the release notes for version 0.12 where you can realize that
> Linus was changing the terms to the GPL:
> http://ftp.funet.fi/pub/Linux/historical/kernel/old-versions/RELNOTES-0.12
>
> Thus Linux was never released originally as free software.
>
> You can see release notes for 0.01 where it clearly says that it is
> not free software, as Linus disallowed selling it.
>
> http://ftp.funet.fi/pub/Linux/historical/kernel/old-versions/RELNOTES-0.01
>
> Android is not free software really, it is bundled with many
> proprietary parts. So I do not know how to praise Android, it is
> mischief project made by Google.
>
> LineageOS is little better, as it removes Google, but does not remove
> all the proprietary software from Android.
>
> Replicant is the best, but does not support many phones such as
> LineageOS.

And how do you have Replicant? Because companies were forced to follow 
GPL. The one that you say "bad boys" don't have to follow.

Imagine that was permissive. We wouldn't have Replicant.

> There are others:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distributions
>
> > Licenses do help. And laws do help. That is why we have them. EU has proper
> > gun laws and the guns are way less.
>
> My friend, laws help to punish somebody or remedy situations, laws do
> not help to prevent the shootings!

Why we don't have shooting here then? Why do I feel safe knowing that 
nobody here has a gun?

> There is no law that can prevent a criminal to conduct a crime.
>
> There is no law that will stop anybody releasing software by violating
> GPL license. You may try to enforce it, but it was neither prevented
> or stopped in the first place. You are coming always too late with the
> laws.
>
> I am now in East Africa, we freely copy and duplicate movies,
> translate them to local languages and make them worse, yet there is no
> company in USA that can prevent this sharing here. We sell movies,
> software, anything digital just as it would be original
> software. Nobody can prevent that practically. One could try, but is
> waste of time for nothing.
>
> You can try enforcing GPL only in civilized countries abiding to some
> standards, but you cannot do nothing in majority of the world, as
> majority of countries are not civilized. Sorry to say, but that is reality.

And? Does it mean that I shouldn't try? Closed source software is more 
than Free Software. Does it mean that we give up there too?

We always try.

> > > 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.
>
> You are mixing the ratio of GPL to MIT and other licenses, and the
> number of GPL software appearing every year.
>
> Free software movement appreciates MIT-like licensed software and we
> are friends, there is no big difference, many GPL programmers will
> also work on MIT software, and many MIT-license-used programmers will
> also work and contribute on GPL software. We do not divide people.

Free Software and Closed Source are already division. We divide people 
there already.

I just don't settle for useless licenses like MIT which anybody can 
close source.

> To say that GPL is in decline by watching ratio of GPL to other
> licenses on GITHUB.COM is misleading and inaccurate statistics.
>
> GPL is in decline if for example 100 software packages were made in
> 2018, but then 80 in 2019, and then 70 in 2020, then you can say it is
> in decline. Even that way is wrong, one would need to count the
> duplication as well, usability or impact of software as well. Does it
> matter? Yes, it does matter to look into statistics properly.
>
> But if you are getting every year more and more GPL software, like
> 2018 you got 50 packages, 2019 you got 60 new packages, 2020 you got
> 70 packages, then GPL is growing, improving, and not declining.
>
> Even looking into ratio of GPL to MIT-like-licenses is imposing some
> race condition, that it is not. You can take many MIT-like-licensed
> software, fork it, and release it as GPL-3 if you wish, you are
> allowed to do so.
>
> See
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
>
> and
>
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesCompatMean
>
> So there is no race condition here, you can get MIT-like-licensed
> software (be careful with exact terms) and release it under GPL-3
> licensed terms, as long as they are compatible.

You still don't say anything about the statistics though. You dodge 
realization that GPL is declining.

Its pretty simple. Numbers. Are they declining in the biggest software 
repository on the planet or not?

Marinus Savoritias
> Jean