Another FLOSS project moves to a permissive license to be more "open"
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I made a post in December of 2012 about StatusNet moving from a GPL license to a more permissive one (https://trisquel.info/en/forum/statusnet-identica-and-another-blow-agpl) and now it seems another GPL licensed project is moving away: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Video-js-goes-Apache-with-version-4-0-1861499.html
"The switch from LGPLv3 to Apache is, says Heffernan, because of confusion between the LGPL and GPL; the project has, for clarity, switched to the Apache licence so it can be "open and free to use in all contexts". He notes that this 4.0 release is "simply a jumping off point" and that in the coming year there will be more improvements to performance, multi-platform stability and customisation, such as contributed plugins for features like playlists, analytics and advertising."
We have beaten the copyleft vs permissive debate to death on these forums, but it is sad to see this happen for suc a promising project. I have used Video.js in the past and it was nice that the code was under a copyleft license to spur initial growth. Now I worry that advancements to Video.js that can potentially benefit everyone will be made proprietary by a company that will not contribute back.
What's the problem?
Let's just do fork and GPLize it.
"another FLOSS prоject"
Free/Libre/OPEN SOURCE Software
Apache license is Open Source
The problem is not "there is no gpl version of the program" but "there is an apache licence version of the program".
of course you can gplize it, but an evil proprietary software developer is free to take the code of the apache version and make a proprietary program out of it.
But I don't understand: why do the developers want to do this?
They have only disadvantages?
"but an evil proprietary software developer is free to take the code of the apache version"
No. Because then we will say "You took the code from GPL-version of the soft". Because the code will be have only slight difference.
"No. Because then we will say "You took the code from GPL-version of the soft". Because the code will be have only slight difference."
This would be just a statement without any evidence.
Since there _is_ a version of the sourcecode licensed under a licence which allows making the code proprietary, it's just legal to do it, no matter if there exists a similar version of code with gpl.
Anything else would just be absurd.
I am a translator!
The problem is, if a piece of software is under the Apache (or similar) license, it is perfectly legal to fork it under a proprietary license. Changes can be made, that are secret and there is no obligation to publish the software under a free software license.
This means, the new proprietary version may be incompatible with the old version, pack new features and be proprietary. A good scenario for confusing people and forcing them to switch to a proprietary program.
Licenses like the Apache or BSD licenses allow this. It basically is a disadvantage for the developers, since they will not get any source code of the improved proprietary version in case something like that happens. But some people just enjoy knowing that their work is good enough so that big companies find it appealing to adopt it.
I'd rather call that stealing software than the definition of software theft we are fed nowadays.
The GPL benefits the original copyright holder the most becuase they have total control over the licensing. The copyright holder can change the license at any time and even dual license the code with the GPL and their own commercial license if they wanted to make code proprietary if needed.
That copyright holder can use the commerical license to their advantage if they choose to use the commercial license instead of the GPL to bundle custom and/or proprietary code with the project and give it to a client or another company. The non copyright holding user of the GPL code has to be bound to the terms of the GPL and cannot change the license or make proprietary code with it. This applies if they fork the code as well.
That is why many companies choose to go with a permissive license. They can take open code and do whatever they want with it and not be bound to the terms of the original copyright holder if the original copyright holder chooses to change their terms, licensing or bully them around.
That is why some say the GPL is the most profitiable of the free software licenses. Profit for the original copyright holder compared to the profit of the user who adapts it.
"The GPL benefits the original copyright holder..."
The post is generally true, but don't forget the end-users. It is important to emphasise the gains of the end-users as the benefits of the copyright holder are only a side effect of the user protection, which happens to be at the cost of limitting the intermediate developers. If you put the end-user out of the equation you end up missing the whole point of the Free Software idea.
On topic: Fortunately there seems to be no case of a non-copyleft free program loosing ground to a proprietary fork. ...yet.
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