The evil Open Source

Ranor · 2006-09-30T00:02:54

Hello :-) I have a simple question for once. In open souce software such as GPLd software are you allowed to study the code and learn from it, possibly use concepts in future code you create without limititions(e.g don't gpl it, maybe even use in commercial application)? Also if that is the case how different must the code be? Some concepts can really only be coded in one rational or a very few ways. After all C++ isn't like the English language that can explain the beauty of a summer day in many different ways. Instead most programming languages are much smaller and "limited" to increase writability/readability.

Games Business and Law Business

Started by Ranor September 13, 2006 12:25 AM

57 comments, last by Null and Void 17 years, 6 months ago

_mark_

1,108

September 15, 2006 04:45 AM

Quote:Original post by Sneftel
Sure-- and I have no problem with them doing that. I just think it ironic that in these circumstances, there's no difference from my perspective between GPL and closed source.

Yes sure, there are some interesting paradoxes, I agree it's not as simple as "open" and "closed".

Quote:
Quote:
Quote:GPL advocates constantly throw up this fallacy. "Having to pay for everything to the big corporations you mentioned" is NOT the only other alternative. The GNU Public License was neither the first nor only open source license, nor is it the least restrictive.
But if there are other OS libraries, then the "little guys" can use those, and it's still not true that the GPL is harming them.

That's the problem, though: There aren't as many such libraries. The viral nature of the GPL, combined with the popularity of Linux, has led to a situation where more library functionality is available from GPLed software than from other "free" licenses.

Okay, so in that case it isn't a "fallacy".

But I still disagree (curious you say "GPL advocates constantly throw up this fallacy" when it's the other way round in this thread...) in that most "GPL" libraries seem to actually be LGPL. Can you give examples of libraries where the functionality is only available in the form of a GPL library?

If there is commercial demand for such a library, why doesn't someone write one and make loads of money? Well okay, commercial closed sourced would still be "viral" of course. Yes, it's true that there are many libraries which aren't available in a source plus binary all for totally free like BSD or MIT - but I don't think the GPL is to blame. Rather you're asking for the moon on a stick, and not everyone wants to do your work for you, without getting anything back ;)

The GPL is a bit of a two way thing - yes, such people want things to be "free", but in order to get there, it requires people who use those free things to give something back.

If the GPL hadn't been introduced, I'm not convinced people would have just released their source as MIT etc, rather many would have kept their source closed because, like you, they would be annoyed if someone used their work and placed more restrictions on it (or indeed, closed it entirely).

http://erebusrpg.sourceforge.net/ - Erebus, Open Source RPG for Windows/Linux/Android
http://conquests.sourceforge.net/ - Conquests, Open Source Civ-like Game for Windows/Linux

Trapper Zoid

1,370

September 15, 2006 05:02 AM

Quote:Original post by mdwh
If the GPL hadn't been introduced, I'm not convinced people would have just released their source as MIT etc, rather many would have kept their source closed because, like you, they would be annoyed if someone used their work and placed more restrictions on it (or indeed, closed it entirely).

It depends a bit on what the motivations of the code writers were. I know a lot of people write libraries purely for fun or practice and would prefer more people to be using their code than resticting its use.

One example that springs to my mind because I'm presently looking at the library is PhysicsFS, which switched from LGPL to the zlib licence due to complications with using the code in console games.

Ranor

128

Author

September 15, 2006 10:10 AM

From reading all this I have concluded that you are allowed to learn from GPLd code.

It is fun to see that there is dislike towards the GPL :-). It is never fun to work on GPL projects and later learn that you might be "infected" yourself, and seen as some sick person who might infect others. I'm glad that was wrong conclusion I had made and that I can continue making programs however I like.

frob

46,221

September 15, 2006 10:18 AM

Quote:Original post by mdwh
Can you give examples of libraries where the functionality is only available in the form of a GPL library?

Sure.

Libraries that have functionality generally available are supopsed to be covered by the LGPL, but libraries that are unique generally use the GPL.

The oft-given example is the FSF's ReadLine library. It has editing capability, input history with the arrow keys, and the familiar unix editing commands like jumping a word at a time with M+b and M+f. It gives the application a professional feel rather than the simple fgets() in C or cin in C++ which don't offer any of that.

A major library is QT with it's dual licenses. You can either pay for it, or get it under the GPL. You can't choose to go with the pay version once you start development with the GPL version, so many great projects end up using the GPL version and become donate-ware.

There are thousands of Linux libraries under the GPL that provide unique functionality, which should be fairly obvious. [grin]

Other pretty popular libraries include PDFCreator (PDF document functionality on Windows), XNap (a P2P framework with Gnutella, giFT, IRC, ICQ and OverNet support in Java), Clam AntiVirus (allows programmatic access to your antivirus software), and many others.

let_bound

488

September 15, 2006 11:14 AM

Quote:Original post by frob
Quote:Original post by mdwh
Can you give examples of libraries where the functionality is only available in the form of a GPL library?

Sure.

Libraries that have functionality generally available are supopsed to be covered by the LGPL, but libraries that are unique generally use the GPL.

The oft-given example is the FSF's ReadLine library. It has editing capability, an input history, and the familiar unix editing commands like jumping a word at a time with M+b and M+f. It gives the application a professional feel rather than the simple fgets() in C or cin in C++ which don't offer any of that.

It isn't forbidden to implement a proprietary, BSD, ... version though. There is no patent on readline or anything like that. Is it work? Yep, and the readline authors did it and ask for something in return. You're free to disagree and write your own. [smile]

Quote:A major library is QT with it's dual licenses. You can either pay for it, or get it under the GPL. You can't choose to go with the pay version once you start development with the GPL version, so many great projects end up using the GPL version and become donate-ware.

Are you saying that there is no non-GPL toolkit out there? Get a toolkit with another licence. You can also buy a proprietary licence of Qt.

Quote:There are thousands of Linux libraries under the GPL that provide unique functionality, which should be fairly obvious. [grin]

Such as? The only one I can think of is readline. Pretty much all the other libraries either aren't GPL or have a non-GPL equivalent. The GNU libc and Guile are exceptions (they're GPL) but they explicitly allow linking to proprietary software. And anyway, there are other libC out there, as well as other embeddable Scheme interpreters.

Quote:Additional libraries include PDFCreator (PDF document functionality on Windows),

I thought PDFCreator was more akin to a virtual printer? There are proprietary equivalents to that (Adobe Distiller, for instance).

Quote:XNap (a P2P framework with Gnutella, giFT, IRC, ICQ and OverNet support in Java),

IRC and ICQ can be handled just fine with libgaim. I've never been interested in P2P, so I don't know if there are libraries out there to handle that.

Quote:Clam AntiVirus (allows programmatic access to an antivirus software), and many others.

There are many non-GPL AV out there. With enough money, I'm sure you can get a SDK.

If your complaint is that there isn't enough BSD/MIT/CMU/... libraries, then fine, but I fail to see how most libraries are supposed to be GPL. Or did I miss something?

frob

46,221

September 15, 2006 11:51 AM

Quote:Original post by let_bound
If your complaint is that there isn't enough BSD/MIT/CMU/... libraries, then fine, but I fail to see how most libraries are supposed to be GPL. Or did I miss something?

Yes you missed a few things. No, it wasn't my claim, it was somebody else's. They asked about commercial libraries, and if there was any functionality in GPL libraries not readily availble under non-GPL F/OSS licenses.

I simply answered one of their questions about the existance of useful GPL-only F/OSS libraries.

You answered the other parts yourself:

>> There is no patent on readline or anything like that. Is it work? Yep, and the readline authors did it and ask for something in return.
>> You can also buy a proprietary licence
>> There are proprietary equivalents to that
>> With enough money, I'm sure you can get

Yes there are alternatives, as I have mentioned several times through this thread. Some stuff has other F/OSS licensed libraries, others have commercial alternatives.

But there are many good pieces of functionality where the only viable option for an individual or micro-business is to use the GPL version. Commercial versions of the libraries can run from hundreds to thousands of dollars, and they would be difficult or too time consuming to write from scratch.

[Edited by - frob on September 15, 2006 12:51:31 PM]

_mark_

1,108

September 16, 2006 01:00 PM

Quote:Original post by frob
Quote:Original post by mdwh
Can you give examples of libraries where the functionality is only available in the form of a GPL library?

Sure.

See let_bound's reply - I wasn't asking for particular GPL libraries, I was asking for cases where the only way some functionality could be implemented was through GPL libraries, and there were no commercial or "more free" open source (LGPL, BSD etc) equivalents.

Quote:A major library is QT with it's dual licenses. You can either pay for it, or get it under the GPL. You can't choose to go with the pay version once you start development with the GPL version, so many great projects end up using the GPL version and become donate-ware.

I'm not sure how they can enforce this? What's the exact wording of their licence?

Quote:But there are many good pieces of functionality where the only viable option for an individual or micro-business is to use the GPL version. Commercial versions of the libraries can run from hundreds to thousands of dollars, and they would be difficult or too time consuming to write from scratch.

So how is this the fault of the GPL? Why is no one criticising the commercial versions for not releasing their stuff under LGPL/BSD/MIT/etc?

Yes, it would be nice if people were to write some functionality for free and let others use that for their closed-source for profit software, but at the end of the day money dosen't grow on trees, and not everyone wants to do that.

More to the point, why is it okay for these "little companies" to write for profit, but not okay for the library companies? Trolltech need to make money too - if they released an LGPL version, they'd go out of business. It's a bonus that they offer people a GPL version as well as the commercial version. If you expect them to work for nothing, why don't you expect those little companies to do the same?

[Edited by - mdwh on September 18, 2006 6:00:39 PM]

http://erebusrpg.sourceforge.net/ - Erebus, Open Source RPG for Windows/Linux/Android
http://conquests.sourceforge.net/ - Conquests, Open Source Civ-like Game for Windows/Linux

thundergunslinger

100

September 29, 2006 10:57 PM

People seem to know here:

I've downloaded PyGame. I'm a total newbie to coding, but want to have some kind of EXE file to get respect here, should I want to ask for help. My current understanding is, that if I don't modify libraries, I can release commercially (my intent is to build up to that). Is that kosher?

Edit: PyGame is supposedly under an LGPL license.

all around the world today, a kilo is a measure;a kilo is 1000 grams, easy to remember

Null and Void

1,088

September 30, 2006 12:02 AM

Quote:Original post by thundergunslinger
I've downloaded PyGame. I'm a total newbie to coding, but want to have some kind of EXE file to get respect here, should I want to ask for help. My current understanding is, that if I don't modify libraries, I can release commercially (my intent is to build up to that). Is that kosher?

Long story short and simple: include the license of the library, make the library's source available to those who receive your program (either with it or separately in a compliant manner), and if you modify it note and date any modifications and license said modifications under a LGPL compliant license.

There are more technicalities, such as the user must be able to modify and replace the library with an interface-compliant substitute, but you probably needn't worry about such things at the moment.

Honestly, I see it as being difficult to mess that up with any straight-forward redistribution of a Python application and its required libraries.

The evil Open Source

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