Why copyleft?

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Cyao
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Why copyleft?

Post by Cyao »

I see a lot of copyleft stuff firefox, linux, most of the stuff by gnu are all licensed under a copyleft license, but I don't get why the people using copyleft licenses say their software is "free" (And why they use it).

Here is a quote about “Free software” from GNU:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html wrote: “Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.
They say that free software is software that respects users' freedom (and community). But, In my opinion, having the freedom to make the code close sourced is also one of the users' freedom, so why does people think that copyleft licenses are "free"? Also why people like to force people to keep their source open?

And a little off topic question: If I copy like a function from a copyleft source (lets assume GPL licensed), does that also mean that I need to make my code all GPL?
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iansjack
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by iansjack »

The answer is easy. If you don’t like a particular software licence then don’t use any code released under that licence. That’s what I call free - freedom of choice.

The GPL licences work for a lot of people, but nobody is forcing you to use GPL code if you don’t like it.
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by Octocontrabass »

Cyao wrote:And a little off topic question: If I copy like a function from a copyleft source (lets assume GPL licensed), does that also mean that I need to make my code all GPL?
Yes.
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by Demindiro »

My understanding of the GPL is that the freedoms specifically apply to users of the software, not developers.

So if you use the program you are free to do with it whatever you want. If you want to distribute the program you have to respect the license.

The GPL helps give freedom to users by ensuring the source code is available.
Cyao wrote:having the freedom to make the code close sourced is also one of the users' freedom
You can if you keep the (modified) binary for yourself. If you do distribute it you have to provide the modified code along with it however.
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by nullplan »

Cyao wrote:They say that free software is software that respects users' freedom (and community). But, In my opinion, having the freedom to make the code close sourced is also one of the users' freedom, so why does people think that copyleft licenses are "free"? Also why people like to force people to keep their source open?
Well, this gets into the philosophical debate of freedom of the individual vs. freedom of the group. Personally, I do it because I don't want to be ripped off. See, there once was a little kernel called Linux, and a big company I won't name thought it would be a good idea to use that kernel as basis of their new router product. They thought they could ignore the GPL outright. So then a court of law slapped them on the fingers, and they had to release both the Linux source code and the patches they made to it to the public (well, to their customers only, but since they sell to the general public, there is no real difference), and that was the basis for the OpenWRT project.

If you want to use my code in your product, I want to know about it. If you dislike the GPL, we can talk about a commercial license for you, but it won't be free, I can tell you that.
Octocontrabass wrote:
Cyao wrote:And a little off topic question: If I copy like a function from a copyleft source (lets assume GPL licensed), does that also mean that I need to make my code all GPL?
Yes.
See, this is where I get to show off my knowledge gained from too much YouTube by telling you: It actually depends. (If you don't get the joke: Lawyers will always tell you "it depends".)

In this case it depends on what you're copying, how creative it was, and how many ways there are to solve the same problem. Actual copying is not even necessary, it is enough that you had access to the source material before creating your knock-off. If the source material is well-known in the industry, then access is presumed.

Technically, we are speaking about copyright infringement here. In order to prove copyright infringement, the plaintiff has to prove existence of a copyright and that the defendant violated one of the enumerated exclusive rights of the rights holder. So there is already the first avenue of defence: Is there even a copyright here? Remember, you only get copyright on your original expression. Let's say you copied this function here:

Code: Select all

int printf(const char *fmt, ...) {
  int ret;
  va_list ap;
  va_start(ap, fmt);
  ret = vfprintf(stdout, fmt, ap);
  va_end(ap);
  return ret;
}
Let's say it was released under GPL. Well, the declaration comes from the C standard, so no copyright attaches to it (and even if ISO did copyright their stuff, the declaration would be copyright of the ISO, not whoever wrote this function), and the rest is extremely obvious. So one defence is to say that this function does not even have the minimum creativity necessary to be copyrighted. Neither the start nor the end point were creative choices of its author, and everything else exists to glue the two together.

Similarly, if that defence fails, you can make almost the same argument again with a Scènes à faire defence. There are not that many ways to write that function; it is kind of necessary to write it in this way. Therefore you did not infringe.

Finally, if neither of these arguments worked, you can go for the Hail-Mary and try a fair-use defence. That one is tricky, since it is an affirmative defence, so you can only raise it during certain portions of the lawsuit and by doing so, you admit to the act itself. However, that was the plea that got Google out of hot water in the Oracle v. Google decision, so you may be able to show transformative use in some way.

But yes, if copyright does attach to the function you copied, then you need a license to redistribute it or any derivative work, and failing any back-room deals that license is going to be the GPL, and that means you need to GPL everything.
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by eekee »

Cyao wrote:In my opinion, having the freedom to make the code close sourced is also one of the users' freedom, so why does people think that copyleft licenses are "free"?
Many developers who think like you. I'm now one of them; I used to be a GPL enthusiast but I (reluctantly) gave it up as I saw GNU software could be as bad as any other. Open source is not a meritocracy.
Cyao wrote:Also why people like to force people to keep their source open?
I read all the GNU propaganda around the turn of the century, and they seemed to be saying that copy/paste coding was a good thing. :( I think I understood it correctly because, years later, it became clear that a lot of GNU tools were written by people who hardly knew what they were doing.
Cyao wrote:And a little off topic question: If I copy like a function from a copyleft source (lets assume GPL licensed), does that also mean that I need to make my code all GPL?
That's been answered well, but I want to add that I'm a little wary of even looking at GPL source these days. I'm not strict about it though. I'm thinking of modifying a GPL'd editor written in C because my own code isn't in C or anything like C. I'm also thinking it's not terribly likely my code will ever come to the notice of the FSF or anyone else who would care, but perhaps that's not too safe an attitude. I don't know. :)
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by Clover5411 »

Cyao wrote: They say that free software is software that respects users' freedom (and community). But, In my opinion, having the freedom to make the code close sourced is also one of the users' freedom, so why does people think that copyleft licenses are "free"? Also why people like to force people to keep their source open?
That's not quite how it works from Free Software Foundation's POV. I remember reading about this question on FSF's website, but I can't find it. Anyway, here is how they see it: non-free software is inherently evil, so allowing it to continue is also evil. It's the same as allowing other people to commit crimes. Preventing that from happening is also one of FSF's goals. They see free software not as a matter of choice, but as morally required. However, note that FSF is quite radical if you ask me, not every free software advocate is going to agree with them.
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by eekee »

KineticManiac wrote:here is how they see it: non-free software is inherently evil, so allowing it to continue is also evil. It's the same as allowing other people to commit crimes. Preventing that from happening is also one of FSF's goals. They see free software not as a matter of choice, but as morally required.
That is exactly what I remember of the FSF's position. If I refer to GNU instead, it's because I read and absorbed their philosophy before the FSF was founded. (I had few distractions in the 90s.) It's easy for an impressionable person reading their propaganda to adopt the FSF's position as a veritably religious belief.

I've just recalled an entirely practical use for the GPL. If a company wishes to benefit from the advantages of open source but doesn't want their competitors to gain an advantage from taking their code, the GPL is actually a nice choice. It allows other companies to benefit from the code but only if they share the benefit. Does that all make sense? It does in my head. :)
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by Clover5411 »

eekee wrote:
KineticManiac wrote:here is how they see it: non-free software is inherently evil, so allowing it to continue is also evil. It's the same as allowing other people to commit crimes. Preventing that from happening is also one of FSF's goals. They see free software not as a matter of choice, but as morally required.
That is exactly what I remember of the FSF's position. If I refer to GNU instead, it's because I read and absorbed their philosophy before the FSF was founded. (I had few distractions in the 90s.) It's easy for an impressionable person reading their propaganda to adopt the FSF's position as a veritably religious belief.
Yeah, it took me some time to realize FSF was indeed radical. They phrase everything so nicely, so at first... :oops:
eekee wrote:I've just recalled an entirely practical use for the GPL. If a company wishes to benefit from the advantages of open source but doesn't want their competitors to gain an advantage from taking their code, the GPL is actually a nice choice. It allows other companies to benefit from the code but only if they share the benefit. Does that all make sense? It does in my head. :)
Well, then you are among what FSF describes as "open-source supporters." Obviously they're not going to agree with that, because they see free software as a moral issue, not a pragmatic issue. :D
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by t3 »

There are licenses that offer more freedom than GPL. BSD doesn't require derivatives to publish their code. Simply sharing code without a license is also possible, but that will make it legally questionable to use in some jurisdictions. The best reason to keep code open is that it improves in quality over time: open source has consistently been proven to have fewer bugs per LOC. Trusting shady vendors who hire the cheapest contract workers they can find isn't my favorite idea.
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by Solar »

To quote from https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-sou ... nt.html.en:
For the free software movement, however, nonfree software is a social problem, and the solution is to stop using it and move to free software.
I can't really express the amount of disgust I have for this POV.
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by sounds »

I am tolerant of the FSF position. Richard Stallman accurately predicted a lot of things that have since happened.

It makes for fun discussions. :twisted:
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by eekee »

Solar wrote:To quote from https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-sou ... nt.html.en:
For the free software movement, however, nonfree software is a social problem, and the solution is to stop using it and move to free software.
I can't really express the amount of disgust I have for this POV.
I recognize the point of view from my own past. Part of the reason I fell for GNU philosophy was because I was already conditioned to feel similarly. How did I get that way? A combination of many factors. There was my own autism which made it hard to get a balanced perspective on what's good for other people. My ADHD makes it very hard to accept rejection; ADHD brings with it rejection-sensitive dysphoria where dysphoria means an unbearable feeling. (Try reading the story of why Stallman invented the GPL with just those two in mind.) I also had a lot of inappropriate discipline from mentally ill women, possibly suffering from the same illnesses themselves and depression too. " :evil: BE NICE!!! :evil: " Then there was a whole lot of association with older people who shared generously with other common people but complained constantly about the greed of big business and government even when a more careful look showed business and government doing good. Finally, ice this complex poisoned cake with TV and movies featuring individuals working apart from the establishment to correct injustice and look out for the common people. 25 years ago I could have invented the GPL myself, but now it's clear to me that the whole GNU philosophy is founded on mental illness and lack of perspective. I although I suffer from the same illnesses myself, I'm not willing to support the culture which has arisen around them.
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by Solar »

I came from the Shareware / Giftware / Freeware world of the Aminet. People providing (test versions of) their software, without the source, so you could see if it solved whatever problem you might have. You might have had to pay a modest sum after the test period expired, or the author might have asked to send a post card, or it might have been completely free. But what you got was software that had a clear idea behind it, and tried to stand on it's own. There was none of this "fix it yourself if you don't like it" stuff, and the authors took pride in a software well made. I can't help but feel that, from a user perspective, the software of that time was better than contemporary software from other markets. For one, you got proper documentation with that software, because you couldn't offload that to someone else...

GPL basically killed that community. They told everyone that such things as Free-/Shareware were evil, that everybody should program for free, and that you could get payed for providing documentation or support services, which I hold to be an essential part of a good software...
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Re: Why copyleft?

Post by StudlyCaps »

In a theoretical sense I think the FSF represents a kind of ultimate alienation of programmers from their labour. They do all the work, but the economic rewards for that work go to SaaS providers who repackage their products as managed services, large institutions who can afford to maintain their own internal systems built on free software and people like Stallman who are well paid through grants (funded by the aforementioned) to proselytize contribution to free software as a moral imperative to young and impressionable programmers.
It's like a decentralized structure for exploitative unpaid internships that every programmer is pressured to be a part of.

Stallman as a person also comes across as a pompous blow-hard, which makes it hard to take anything he says about the free software philosophy seriously.


From a pragmatic perspective though, there is an advantage to having a large, litigious organization like the FSF in your corner. There have certainly been examples of corporations attempting to abuse copyright law against open source projects and, as I understand it, the FSF will use its resources to protect GPL'd projects. If you want that kind of protection, you really have no other option.
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