Anyone interested on a Trisquel Gnu/Linux Forum Android application ?
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Hello everyone,
I would want to know if anyone is interested on an Android application for navigating, reading and answering on the Trisquel Gnu/Linux Forum only using the phone ?
I was thinking of making anything like this but for a lot of forums, and then when I started using Trisquel I thought of creating this (somewhere in the future), but just for this forum, just don't know if this would interest someone :S..
Thank you in Advance for the feedback.
PS: It is the second time I make a post like this with the sensation that this isn't quite the right place to make this so, if I'm right please tell me :D
Having used other forums, I agree such an application might be generally
useful. Since this forum can be accessed as a mailing list, it's
probably easier on a phone than Web-only forums.
Don't use a GPL license and go with MIT or BSD so you have no complications in getting the app accepted in Google Play in addition to F-Droid. I don't want people to think I am anti-GPL because I am going for MIT instead. It's just easier to get into the Apple and Google App Stores.
Never thought of that. I will have a look at the MIT and BSD licences. I was thinking of adding an ad like my other Android Application (BodyIMC, quite a good couple of years that I haven't done anything with that), and reversing 50% of the revenues (since the software would not exist if trisquel wouldn't exit) for Trisquel, but that's not the most important part.
I will start by having a look at the licences, thanks for the advice :D. By the way, why is there problems with using the GPL Licence on Android Market (aka Google Play) ? It is because we need to ship the software with the source code ? But that can be solved with a button for people to download, or another package just with the source code no ?
I know that Apple won't accept GPL licensed apps on their app store just in case you created an iPhone version.
There is GPL-licensed software in Google Play. Besides, users of Android can install software from other sources. By the way, you want to distribute your software through the F-Droid free software repository too.
As for app markets refusing the GPL, I only know of Apple's. It may be that this corporation absolutely wants to be able to take the code for their proprietary products (Mac OS X reuses a lot of BSD code).
If I were you, I would chose the GPL. This is the license that is the most appropriate, at the long term, to grant the users the freedom they deserve. iThing's users that want your application will have to switch to freedom.
Just be careful when using GPL code as there are more restrictions than a MIT or BSD license. Some of the most important and useful software out or in the near future like nginx or openstack or chromium go for a more permissive license for wide adoption.
Each license has a purpose in what you want out of it. Do you not want to make money from it, rely on donations or service plans, and scare away companies from using it? Go with the GPL. Do you want to.give complete freedom in how a user uses the software even if your creation may benefit a.big company and you may make money from it? Go with Apache 2.0, BSD, or MIT.
Oh and btw... F-Droid rocks and the first place I go for Android software. Nice collection of apps of all FSF approved licenses.
Why couldn't I sell an application with a GPL Licence ? I've read the licence "rules" and if I remember right, we only have to give the code when someone buy the application, but this person has the right to do whatever he/she wants with the application and the sources since it is his freedom.
You can, by definition, sell any free software.
Observe that you cannot do *anything* with *any* free software program. For instance, copylefted licenses (such as the GPL) do not allow sublicensing. In particular, you cannot take some GPL code (that you have not written yourself) and integrate it into a proprietary program. You can only integrate it to another GPL-licensed program. Proprietary forks are forbidden, what is, in my opinion, an excellent thing in almost all cases. On the contrary, the so-called permissive licenses (such as the Apache licenses, the MIT license, the BSD licenses, etc.) allow the work to be reused in proprietary software. No permission needs to be granted to do so. This is the fundamental difference between copylefted licenses and permissive licenses, the first distinction that is made when categorizing free software licenses.
For me, as I see it it is a win-win situation. I can create Free Software using the GPL and sell it, and only give the source code for those who buy it, and I know (and allow even if the licence already does it for me), for anyone that got access to the source code (and even the binary version, compiled by myself or not), to do with it whatever he/she wants... but there is the part that comes the second "win" on "win-win", it is because the person that do "whatever he/she wants" with my project, needs to do it using a GPL licence, and if this person doesn't then that person is violating a GPL Licence.
Imagine this on a big scale, if I created a Game Company only based on Free Software, I could play the big company games and do the fallowing :
1 - Make sure that if anyone use my code on non GPL projects then I can take them to the tribunal and solve my case.
2 - If I create a new technology I can patent it, in order to only allow the idea on GPL projects (this is very extreme but that can really help fighting does patents that have been given heartaches to everyone for a while).
With this 2 things, we could have a Working and Valuable Business only based on Free Software, that can help everyone in every way possible, and even making a huge "block" on those that would want to profit without respecting Free Software.
Give the code? The code is the application. The binary is for
convenience. Well if your offer a bad service don't expect your customer
to put up with it like they would stupidly with a proprietary program.
But then they also might have more patience because you gave them
freedom and if your too slow they can try to help you instead of
replacing you but if you charged a huge fee, then I doubt they will be
happy.
On 22/09/12 22:59, name at domain wrote:
> Why couldn't I sell an application with a GPL Licence ? I've read the
> licence "rules" and if I remember right, we only have to give the code
> when someone buy the application, but this person has the right to do
> whatever he/she wants with the application and the sources since it is
> his freedom.
Giving the source when only when someone buy it is in my opinion a way to stay in market without removing the freedoms from the user. And yes, at the moment that they pay they are in the same issues as any other software costumer, the difference is that they have the source code and the right to share it with however he/she wants.
They can build support upon my application if mine isn't good (and make people pay for this), and even, if I somehow disappear from the map, take it and sell it modifying whatever they want like if it was them, but they have to licence it using the same GPL Licence.
By definition, any free software (whatever the specifics of its definition) grants the *users* the freedom to use it as they wish. You are actually talking (one more time) about *developers* profiting from free software under permissive licenses to integrate some or all code to their proprietary software and subjugate their users.
Notice that the most famous GPL-licensed program, the Linux kernel, is obviously far from scaring the companies. Most of its development is funded by them. Notice also that the BSD kernel is both older than Linux and released under a permissive license. Although it obviously has a far narrower adoption, it indeed attracted a big company: Apple. Result: a proprietary operating system that is technically better than Windows, hence more dangerous to the free software cause. Is it positive?
I am a member!
>Each license has a purpose in what you want out of it. Do you not want to make money from it, rely on donations or service plans, and scare away companies from using it? Go with the GPL. Do you want to.give complete freedom in how a user uses the software even if your creation may benefit a.big company and you may make money from it? Go with Apache 2.0, BSD, or MIT.
If you want complete freedom t3g, why aren't you using a BSD based operating system such as FreeBSD?
Why are you still here?
The so called freedom to restrict freedom? yuck what a load of rubbish.
You just want your own private monopoly. Which is unnecessary. GPLv3 and
say you require a fee. Make it easy (Bitcoin!). Use repos, so one's
update experience is not like m$ Dows.
On 23/09/12 09:09, name at domain wrote:
> >Each license has a purpose in what you want out of it. Do you not want
> to make money from it, rely on donations or service plans, and scare
> away companies from using it? Go with the GPL. Do you want to.give
> complete freedom in how a user uses the software even if your creation
> may benefit a.big company and you may make money from it? Go with Apache
> 2.0, BSD, or MIT.
>
> If you want complete freedom t3g, why aren't you using a BSD based
> operating system such as FreeBSD?
>
> Why are you still here?
How exactly BSD is more free than GPL?
Imagine a programmer releasing software with BSD. Then another programmer comes and change 1% of the program and makes it closed source proprietary software. Now how can the original programmer have freedom with the software containing 99% his code? I see he does not have any freedom anymore with that version containing 99% of his code.
BSD - to ninja Code.
I am a member!
Laws are necessary to protect and defend freedom. This is what GPL does. It doesn't just protect your essential twenty first century liberties, it guarantees them.
BSD based licenses are indeed free licenses, but they are not copyleft. So while they do indeed provide freedom for both the users and developers of software, they don't guarantee it. The only thing BSD based licenses guarantee is the opportunity for unjust seizures of power - the power to transform free code into proprietary code.
I understand this thread has now been successfully derailed, but these arguments against the GPL are laughable at best, and malicious at worst.
I don't like all these apps that can be instead done in HTML5 as a
website. Keep it in the web browser. That way I have more flexibility.
The forum is the same as the mailing list right? Then just use good old
email. I guess if the forum is naff to view on a small screen then why
not make a more suitable small screen/mobile/touch version?
On 23/09/12 12:15, name at domain wrote:
> I understand this thread has now been successfully derailed, but these
> arguments against the GPL are laughable at best, and malicious at worst.
I have been tempted to try GhostBSD, but I like the Ubuntu ecosystem with its strong community and supported packages.
I was taking it from the freedom perspective of creating an application that you distribute over the internet that anyone can use like nginx. People love it and one day a company hires you to do a project. With a BSD or MIT license, you can take your application and add proprietary hooks for that company and make it non-free. I know some people say that is custom software even though the "base" code is under a permissive license with proprietary plugins or hooks for that company.
Yes that may fall into a custom application, but also doesn't make the company you created this for freak out that they have to release their code if you put under a GPL license instead of BSD. They may say their modifications give them a "competitive advantage" and being forced to release the code may not be what they want. There are a lot of grey areas with companies regarding the GPL and GPL v3 is especially scary for the lawyers that advise these companies.
As for the people saying that you can sell GPL licensed code, that may work if the people recieving it don't know that they can also get it for free. If they can get for for free with the complete source code, why would they pay $100+ for it? With a custom or proprietary version of your code, they don't have that luxury.
So take a look at where your life is right now. Are you a student or a programmer who relies on donations and are doing this so you can fit in with the bearded evangelists? Choose GPL. Are you trying to make money as a software company either independent or the boss of a big company? Open source the base of your code under a permissive non-GPL license so people of the "community" can fix your issues and beta test that portion for free while you lock up the rest of the code and either sell or license to clients and/or customers.
I am a member!
>So take a look at where your life is right now. Are you a student or a programmer who relies on donations and are doing this so you can fit in with the bearded evangelists? Choose GPL. Are you trying to make money as a software company either independent or the boss of a big company? Open source the base of your code under a permissive non-GPL license so people of the "community" can fix your issues and beta test that portion for free while you lock up the rest of the code and either sell or license to clients and/or customers.
Get a load of this guy.
Free software is not the same as open-source software. By your own admission, you believe that it is acceptable for businesses to lock free code and then subsequently sell licenses "to make money as a software company" and to give them a "competitive advantage".
This is the antithesis of free software. If you want to "lock code", then proprietary licensing would be right up your sleeve.
I've asked you several times, and you keep avoiding the question, so I'll ask again t3g:
Why are you still here?
Open source = free software when using BSD or MIT. If that base application and all of its code is under a free software compatible license, respects it, and stays under it, that software will always be accepted as such. It follows both the rules of the FSF and the OSI no matter how much you piss and moan against it.
You just don't like people having the option to integrate that code into a proprietary application if needed. GPL doesn't give that option and why I said it was more restrictive.
I like posting here because of the sense of community and getting an in depth look at free software ideology in action.
I agree with you here. People should have choice, and we can't force them. But I also understand ahj's point of view, this is Free Software we are talking about, and by this all his freedoms that we love, respect and want so much (if I can say this in this way).
I love to point at the OsX example with the BSD code, they've done a great project, but it is totally proprietary (and "evil" in most cases). So was this a good idea by the BSD developers and lawyers ? Does this benefits anyone else then Apple ? Maybe not... but if it is their believes then we can't make them change. Probably without a licence like that their will be no Apple, and by this, no Apple Products. I agree with RMS when he says that "doing business to survive (by taking freedoms from people) isn't an excuse to be unethical", but what would be our world without BSD and Apple ? Better ? Worse ?
PS: I'm in a total agree with you also on the last point. This community is just fantastic because of that, people who are here know what they want, understand their needs, had made a choice a long time ago, and want to fight anyone trying to remove what they love so much... so it is normal to receive some negative posts sometimes when we say something a little bit "off the line", but once again everything needs to be discussed :D And this is why I love so much this community !
I am a member!
>Open source = free software when using BSD or MIT
Open source = free software when using ANY free software license (i.e. Apache, APSL, MIT, BSD, GPL etc).
Nearly all open source software is free software and vice-versa. The difference between the two is political. Free software aims to make freedom respecting software a social issue, while 'open source' wants to push free software for its convenience and (usually) zero-cost.
>GPL doesn't give that option and why I said it was more restrictive.
But that's misleading.
It's only more restrictive for the developer, not the user. If a deloper wants to transform a free, but not copylefted program, he has the freedom to do so. But he also has the freedom to turn that program into closed, propriety source code. This is an injustice, because it means the developer has control and power over the transformed code, and thus its users. If the users cannot control the program, then it ceases being free software.
If code can have its freedom GUARANTEED through a copyleft license such as the GPL, then the users are guaranteed freedom.
The opportunity for someone to seize code and make it proprietary is not an issue of freedom. It is an issue of power. And non copylefted code potentially enables this power structure to exist.
Would you call a society with laws to defend and guarantee liberty 'less free' than an anarchic one?
Of course those licenses are free software compatible. I apologize for not listing all of them in existience from https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html, but I thought that was implied. Plus I took my laptop with me while using the toilet during that post, so some nitpicky details may have been left out.
The big worry from the pro-GPL crowd is that all of this work will be done under a permissive license and some big company will come by, take all the code, fork it, and never give back to the original project. I do agree that it has happened in the past (Apple with OSX), but the majority of those companies that may use software like jQuery, nginx, or OpenStack don't have the resources or don't want to spend the time to deviate from the main project.
They would rather use the code as is, modify where needed, and contribute code back at their convenience. For example, if a company were to fork jQuery, make minor changes here and there, and pushed it a true alternative, they would have to fight against the original product for not only usage, but developer support. The fork also would try to keep the code up to date in relation to the original project.
You also made a comment where the licenses are the rights of the developer vs the rights of the user. What if you are both? What if you are a user that doesn't know how to decipher or read source code? Do you take away rights of the developer in some idealistic hope that the majority of your users actually will want the raw source code? There are of course hardcore users that require source code and they will always exist. How do you please everyone? You can't.
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"What if you are a user that doesn't know how to decipher or read source code?"
It is irrelevant.
A citizen in a free society may never need to exercise his rights, lest even know about them.
This doesn't mean his rights should cease to exist.
The point is those who want to exercise their rights (whether their technological rights, or civil rights) have the opportunity to do so, without coercion or malice.
No matter the license, the whole concept is to give credit to where credit is due for the author or entity that created the software through a form of copyright. The top of GPLv3 and MIT license have a line for giving copyright to the author.
What is confusing is that the GPL is about copyright and then there's an article at https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html about how software should NOT have owners.
So if software isn't supposed to have owners, why do their own licenses give you the option to say "Copyright 2012 ahj" at the top? Software does have owners or at least one main one that chooses to share with everyone.
> No matter the license, the whole concept is to give credit to where
> credit is due for the author or entity that created the software
> through a form of copyright. The top of GPLv3 and MIT license have a
> line for giving copyright to the author.
I think more people choose these licenses to make the software free for
its users (there are shorter ways to require keeping attribution notices
in nonfree software).
> What is confusing is that the GPL is about copyright and then there's
> an article at https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html about how
> software should NOT have owners.
There is nothing confusing there for someone who reads the whole
article, not only the title.
> So if software isn't supposed to have owners, why do their own
> licenses give you the option to say "Copyright 2012 ahj" at the top?
> Software does have owners or at least one main one that chooses to
> share with everyone.
I have a laptop with a vendor name on it, it's obvious that it's mine,
not theirs. Ownership refers to possesion or control and is completely
artificial in case of digital data.
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"So if software isn't supposed to have owners, why do their own licenses give you the option to say "Copyright 2012 ahj" at the top? Software does have owners or at least one main one that chooses to share with everyone."
This suggests to me that you have a very poor understanding of copyright.
Just because a work is under copyright, it does not make the author the sole owner or controller of their work.
In most cases, copyright is automatically applied to any original work, regardless if it's a novel, a song or a computer program.
Some copyright licenses use the architecture of copyright to mandate legal protection for software from willful obfuscation and malpractice (such as using code in proprietary programs.) These kinds of licenses are called copyleft, because it legally ensures that software remains in the public domain transparent, accessible, and usable.
Without realizing, you are currently making the point of copylefted licenses such as the GPL.
You are writing about the companies that "don't have the resources or don't want to spend the time to deviate from the main project", that "would rather use the code as is, modify where needed, and contribute code back at their convenience". Those very companies do (or at least should) prefer copylefted licenses because they cannot, or do do not want to, make any derivative work under another license (the whole point of choosing a permissive license) and I doubt they would be happy if a competing company would reuse *their* work (as small as it may be) in proprietary software instead of contributing to the community (like they do). That said, I am not saying that contributions to a permissive free software project should be avoided. Just that, unfortunately, those contributions may end up in proprietary software.
Then, you are writing about forks competing against each other. If the original project is distributed under a copylefted license then, by definition, the fork is to be distributed under this same license. As a consequence, it is easy for the original project to integrate the improvements the fork made: just copy/paste. It is as easy in the other direction. Because both projects are free software, the user wins: she can choose the application that is technically the best without having to bargain her freedoms.
Now, if the original project is distributed under a permissive license, then, by definition, the fork can be proprietary. The code can easily flow from the original project to its proprietary derivative (again: just copy/paste), but not the opposite. If the company behind the fork is big enough, the proprietary derivative becomes better than the original free application. Because of that some users, who do not value their freedoms, migrate. The free software project loses market share, then contributions. The gap between the two versions grows and the vicious circle can end up with the free software project dying. The user loses: she has to give up her freedoms to use the application (or, at least, the technically more advanced version of it).
When it comes to modifying an application for a specific customer (your message at 00:27), anybody can do that whatever the free software license (this is freedom 1). And no license forces the distribution of the improved code (freedom 3 is a freedom, not an obligation). The difference between permissive licensing and copylefted licensing only exists when the modified code is distributed: it must be under the same license if the original application was received under a copylefted license; it can be sub-licensed (in particular be made proprietary) if the original application is permissively licensed. So, again, a customer who wants support for a *custom* modification does not (or, at least, should not) make any difference between permissive licensing and copylefted licensing. It is irrelevant.
Customers often do not want their competitors to profit from the work they pay you to improve the application, i.e., such custom modifications are very common. And the programmer can sell the same modification to many companies. That undermines your other wrong argument (at 00:27) that one cannot make money with GPL software because the GPL code is necessarily available for free on Internet. It is not so. And again, licensing does not intervene at all when it comes to custom modifications (a license regulates the *distribution* of a work).
I will not detail why your other arguments (such as pretending that non-programmers do not indirectly profit from the availability of the source code) do not make sense. I believe anybody here (even you) knows that they do not make sense.
Because everyone does that xD Your vision is very right and honest, and even if I don't agree totally with it (at some points), I can't say that it is totally false, and by that I can't do anything else then respect your point of view.
But take any other enterprise as an example... let's say Electronic Arts. They release a game that they called Fifa 13 and they make it for sale at 60$, now my question is... Why people would buy it if they can find it on thepiratebay for instance ? Why would they buy it if a friend can make a copy ? Why would they buy it if there is a lot of modified versions of the game, already cracked, and with more languages then the versions that they can buy at their local store ?
In my point of view this is the same. People know that they can get it for free, so if they can, they will, but now comes the moral situations.. The licences allows this ! But even if it didn't allow that (like the licence used by EA for the example), what would they do ? Until now even with more procedures people are downloading it more and more. And believe me... if EA (or any other company) received donations in a more "open way", then people that downloaded the game "illegally" would give them even 0.01$ just to feel right with themselves... and that would make the enterprise win more than if they were using the "traditional" method, that consists on spending tons on money on "justice against software robbery" that are conducting those enterprises faster into bankruptcy that any "illegal download" or "occasion selling like Ebay".
And we are in a era, where almost everyone is corrupt... any enterprise entering a "corrupted" market with good ideas, and a lot of freedom and make a good point into society.. but this at ONE condition : "They need a good product !".
And with this, I can ensure you that you can have a fully "ethical" enterprise only based on free software.
But once again this is only my point of view. I can be totally wrong.
I am getting sick of this. Just go and read ALL the writings on gnu.org
and fsf.org and if you still don't get it, Read Them again and again and
again. Like I did. Constantly think about it for one mouth. Don't let
your self not take note of other details so all you end up doing is
being stuck on one detail.
The company loses out because then they don't benefit from other
company’s mods. You lose respect from the freedom caring public.
Look at android, do people go to the effort of not paying for apps or do
they just click install? In which case this fear is a load of rubbish!
grrrrrrrr.
Make use of Bitcoin. With this and package management you can have auto
donate. Easy.
On 24/09/12 04:27, name at domain wrote:
> People love it and one day a company hires you to do a project. With a
> BSD or MIT license, you can take your application and add proprietary
> hooks for that company and make it non-free. I know some people say that
> is custom software even though the "base" code is under a permissive
> license with proprietary plugins or hooks for that company.
>
> Yes that may fall into a custom application, but also doesn't make the
> company you created this for freak out that they have to release their
> code if you put under a GPL license instead of BSD. They may say their
> modifications give them a "competitive advantage" and being forced to
> release the code may not be what they want. There are a lot of grey
> areas with companies regarding the GPL and GPL v3 is especially scary
> for the lawyers that advise these companies.
>
> As for the people saying that you can sell GPL licensed code, that may
> work if the people recieving it don't know that they can also get it for
> free. If they can get for for free with the complete source code, why
> would they pay $100+ for it? With a custom or proprietary version of
> your code, they don't have that luxury.
>
> So take a look at where your life is right now. Are you a student or a
> programmer who relies on donations and are doing this so you can fit in
> with the bearded evangelists? Choose GPL. Are you trying to make money
> as a software company either independent or the boss of a big company?
> Open source the base of your code under a permissive non-GPL license so
> people of the "community" can fix your issues and beta test that portion
> for free while you lock up the rest of the code and either sell or
> license to clients and/or customers.
>
This thread is at risk of being hijacked again by Magic Banana, so how about we calm down a little bit? aliasbody took the time to make this thread and is passionate about it, so respect him.
The issue of software adoption comes down to not only how good it is, but how much it can serve the greater good. Let's say you have this amazing and innovative piece of software or video/audio codec that is the best of the best. Wouldn't it be nice if a company like Apple or Microsoft, with their marketshare on phones and computers, decided to use it? What if your open software helped improve and facilitate open communication and digital communication between others and both free and proprietary companies were NOT afraid to use it due to a license? Pretty awesome!!
Do you want it to be used in free and proprietary software? Proprietary software is going to be around no matter how much people complain. Some would say it has grown with the "post-pc" smartphone and tablet market. Do you want companies to use it and use their manpower to help you improve it? Do you eventually want it be standardized? Be VERY careful in the license you choose.
Do you like WebM and Ogg Theora videos in your web browser and Ogg Vorbis for your audio? Guess what... it is under a BSD license and even Richard Stallman endorsed using BSD over GPL so the codec can reach the widest adoption: http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/icecast-dev/2001-February/000005.html
"In response to the change of license, Richard Stallman of the Free Software
Foundation says, 'I agree. It is wise to make some of the Ogg Vorbis code
available for use in proprietary software, so that commercial companies doing
proprietary software will use it, and help Vorbis succeed in competition with
other formats that would be restricted against our use.'"
This is EXACTLY why I originally advised alias to go with a permissive license instead of the GPL. If the Ogg formats were under a GPL license, they wouldn't be in Chrome or Opera and would be iffy in Firefox. Would YouTube still select it as an option and would the W3C still consider it as a standard? No, they would still be niche and we would all lose as a result.
** Here is a summary of some technology off the top of my head that benefit **
Chromium web browser - BSD
WebM's VP8 video codec - BSD
WebM's Vorbis audio codec - BSD
Opus audio codec - BSD
Apache web server - Apache 2.0
nginx web server - BSD
Cassandra database - Apache 2.0
OpenStack cloud - Apache 2.0
Scala programming language - BSD
Mono code libraries - MIT
Ruby on Rails framework - MIT
jQuery JavaScript framework - MIT
Cups printing driver - BSD
YUI framework and components - BSD
Bitcoin - MIT
There are many more and I just listed a few. aliasbody - don't let the people here scare you from using a permissive license. It is your right to have choice and don't let them bully you around.
Here is a resource that I read after the previous post when I did some further research on the licenses: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/bsdl-gpl/article.html#gpl-advantages
Thank your for you support :D I just don't know if showing a BSD page talking badly about GPL is a good solution either xD
I understand your point, and that may me look at the situation in an other perspective. It is clear that GPL states what can and what can't be used with it, and this can be very limiting when creating huge pieces of software.
I just have some questions:
1 - Isn't Chromium based on at least 5 different licences for a lot of code ?
2 - If I created a codec and released it under the GPL licence any browser (even IE) could use it without releasing the code or does it have to be LPGL ?
3 - Isn't there a risk for those BSD drivers that anyone could take them and don't contribute ? (Don't know if this already happened with the Opus driver and Skype).
4 - For a software created from scratch I don't really see a problem with GPL, because anyone can use it, this doesn't have to scare anyone since those that will use it are the users. The only problem that can appear is with Game Distributions Softwares like Steam, Google Play, Apple Store (more this one than any other) etc...
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but even if I agree with your point of view, I think that a young student that creates a Game Company based on Free Software and release it under the BSD licence is giving the keys for anyone to take the software and turn it to proprietary killing my business (I say mine but it can be anyone else), since they have a lot more personal, money and equipment to invest.
> 1 - Isn't Chromium based on at least 5 different licences for a lot of code ?
http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/c/chromium-browser/chromium-browser_21.0.1180.89~r154005-1/chromium-browser.copyright
lists all (and some are probably missing).
> 2 - If I created a codec and released it under the GPL licence any
> browser (even IE) could use it without releasing the code or does it
> have to be LPGL ?
Both answers might be right depending on implementation; most probably
not. If the codec is LGPL-licensed, it would be ok if the user can
change the codec (e.g. when it's in a shared library).
> 3 - Isn't there a risk for those BSD drivers that anyone could take
> them and don't contribute ? (Don't know if this already happened with
> the Opus driver and Skype).
Maybe Apple does this. For codecs it's a lesser problem than having
much media requiring patent-restricted codecs.
> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but even if I agree with your point of
> view, I think that a young student that creates a Game Company based
> on Free Software and release it under the BSD licence is giving the
> keys for anyone to take the software and turn it to proprietary
> killing my business (I say mine but it can be anyone else), since they
> have a lot more personal, money and equipment to invest.
This reminds me of the Netscape vs Microsoft browser wars, although both
browsers were nonfree. (I don't know how game businesses work.)
It depends on the scale of the project and its overall purpose if you have a worry that people will steal. I listed jQuery which is under an MIT license and I am not aware of any major forks. I know there is the unofficial Jqmobi library, but that project's goal is to strip away features not needed on the mobile side for smaller file sizes.
Oh and the Openstack Foundation recently got 10 million US dollars and 5,600 members for Openstack. Yes it may be true that the Apache 2.0 license allows people to "steal its code", but also remember that it wouldn't be as stable and mature so quickly without companies having freedom to add to it.
So what are your alternatives? We have proprietary cloud services by Amazon and Microsoft. Shouldn't we be grateful that an open source and free software alternative exists? One that has the support by major players who are willing to collaborate and give away for free? One that will be in the Trisquel 6.0 repositories so you can deploy with no strings attached?
Pretty exciting ey?
In a big project, for a big company I prefer to know that people could take code but must respect the original licence (and not making my market die in a few days because they have more resources than mine), than seeing a big enterprise taking code and not contributing back.
In reality I am more scared about other enterprises and the need of killing concurrence than users themselves and torrents, free downloads, sharing etc...
But it is possible that I'm looking at this from a bad eye.
PS: Does anyone know the point of FSF for promoting Free Software using Non Free Software (but not exclusively) when it respects the GPL licence ?
If you are using Apache 2.0 and have a NOTICE.txt file, it is not only included with copies of your software, but if someone decides to add code to it, it is required that the NOTICE.txt stays there and ackowledges any previous authors according to section 4d:
"If the Work includes a "NOTICE" text file as part of its
distribution, then any Derivative Works that You distribute must
include a readable copy of the attribution notices contained
within such NOTICE file, excluding those notices that do not
pertain to any part of the Derivative Works, in at least one
of the following places: within a NOTICE text file distributed
as part of the Derivative Works; within the Source form or
documentation, if provided along with the Derivative Works; or,
within a display generated by the Derivative Works, if and
wherever such third-party notices normally appear. The contents
of the NOTICE file are for informational purposes only and
do not modify the License. You may add Your own attribution
notices within Derivative Works that You distribute, alongside
or as an addendum to the NOTICE text from the Work, provided
that such additional attribution notices cannot be construed
as modifying the License.
So what? The Apache 2 license still allows proprietary forks! It only forces the persistence of a file that acknowledges that you have contributed a great deal to the proprietary application the user received. Personally, I would rather not have my name written in any proprietary application!
Funny again. To the sentence:
"I think that a young student that creates a Game Company based on Free Software and release it under the BSD licence is giving the keys for anyone to take the software and turn it to proprietary".
t3g's answer is:
"I listed jQuery which is under an MIT license and I am not aware of any major forks."
Like if one project with no (presumed) proprietary fork (yet) would mean that its license prevents such forks! The sensible answer would be:
"Indeed, this is the difference between permissive and copylefted licenses: the former can be sub-licensed (in particular your work may end up in proprietary software), whereas the latter cannot".
And, then, more FUD: companies have "the freedom to add to" copylefted code too. Take, for example, the world largest free software project: the Linux kernel. Most of the code comes from companies. Yet the Linux kernel is distributed under the GNU GPL license. On the contrary the older BSD kernel, distributed under a permissive license, does not attract nearly as many contributors.
You are entirely right except for the second point.
A GPL code cannot be integrated (even by linkage) to a non-GPL application. An LGPL code can be linked to any other code but the changes to the actual LGPL code must be under this same LGPL license. This makes sense when distributing a library that already exists in the proprietary/permissive world: it cannot be turned proprietary (copyleft) although its adoption is maximized (including by proprietary software that would have otherwise used the equivalent proprietary/permissive library).
If the library includes novel features, then the GNU GPL makes more sense (people who want to use those features will either have to release their applications under the GPL or they will have to redo all developments).
Now, you are talking about codecs. Assuming competing proprietary formats exist, it is a particular area where the promotion of a free format matters more than the code. In this particular case, permissive licensing makes sense (you actually want proprietary software to adopt the free format).
Magic Banana isn't the one who hijacked this thread.
Funny that you consider contradicting *your* points (I have not introducing new topic in the thread) as "hijacking". Like always, you do not answer any of the contradictions and come up with some more misleading statements... what is far less funny.
After reading your post it looks like Stallman himself usually prefers permissive licensing over his own GNU GPL! Let us find out the truth by reading "How to choose a license for your own work" on the FSF website (emphasis is mine):
We recommend different licenses for different projects, depending mostly on the software's purpose. In general, we recommend using the strongest copyleft license that doesn't interfere with that purpose. (...)
There are only a couple of kinds of projects that we think should not have any copyleft at all. The first is very small projects. We use 300 lines as our benchmark. (...)
The second is projects that implement free standards that are competing against proprietary standards, such as Ogg Vorbis (which competes against MP3 audio) and WebM (which competes against MPEG-4 video).
In all other cases, we recommend some kind of copyleft.
(... appropriate uses for the LGPL and the AGPL ...)
In all other cases, we recommend that you use the most recent version of the GNU General Public License (GPL) for your project. Its strong copyleft is appropriate for all kinds of software, and includes numerous protections for users' freedom.
So you take one of the two only exceptions and try to make people believe it is the rule (fainting to ignore that it is an exception and that aliasbody's software does not enter in the area of the exception at all). So to be clear: Stallman or the FSF would certainly not recommend a permissive license for aliasbody's project. They would clearly recommend the GNU GPL.
As for the list of applications distributed under permissive licenses, I do not understand how they constitute any kind of argument. If they do, then I guess it is in favour of the GNU GPL. Indeed this license is, by far, the most popular one (w.r.t. any sensible metric: number of projects, number of lines of codes, number of contributors, etc.). At the FOSDEM 2012 (recording of the talk, slides, complementary material, etc.), John Sullivan gave numbers about the proportion of applications under the GPL family of licenses in the Debian repositories. He found out that, in the current Debian Squeeze repository, "26,271 packages are licensed under GPL family", what represents "93% of total packages". These numbers are constantly progressing (in Sarge, seven years ago, "only" 71% of the Debian packages were under the GPL family). Anyway, as I wrote, I do not see popularity as a valid argument to choose a license.
And, of course, I am not trying to "scare" anybody. Just correcting t3g's FUD (what is exhausting by the way). The choice of a license obviously belongs to the author of a work.
So if I understand this right.
We must prefer a permissive licence for something that needs to be integrated with software, and compete with proprietary software (like codecs), in order for people and developers to use it and promote it at the best without restrictions.
But for anything else that doesn't work "inside" anything (like a software, a game etc...) then the GPL licence is the best for Copyleft work.
That seems right :D
One question, just to know everyone's opinion.
If I remember right, in the freedom for distributing the software, anyone that had access to the software (by buying it for example) can sell it, and do almost anything with the code but respecting the GPL Licence (and by this I mean, not adding something not GPL, or changing the licence, or not distributing the changes if those were made and became public as a binary). So my question is, what is your opinion (as an enterprise), about people having the right for selling your work at a lower price (and this even if you software is already very cheap) ?
This is (in my opinion) a very interesting discussion. I had one today with a friend that doesn't share the same views, and believes that GPL licence is inappropriate for games since it is a different world from the "software world", and even if he understands and respects most of the GPL Freedoms, he doesn't agree with the freedom for any other person to resell the software, because for him, it is like if anyone would take our GPL code and make it under closed sources (almost).
So what is your point of view about this subject ?
The strength of using a permissive license is using it for software that will be used as libraries and be linked to from both free and propreitary software. The LGPL also serves this purpose, but I have read that many lawyers who advise companies tell them to be weary of LGPL licensed software. Even the FSF doesn't fully support LGPL and would rather have you use a full GPL license.
Another strength, as mentioned earlier, is that software or a codec that is under a permissive license is easier for standardization groups to implement as a standard. That means there are no restrictions on the univesal appeal of that standard as it could be put in any software (free or not) and nothing stopping it from being integrated into hardware.
The GPL's strength is if you want the software as a pure suite and all in one package that you want to keep free software. You can implement software under a permissive license becuase technically you are converting software that was once BSD under the same GPL license umbrella as the others.
The FSF fully supports the LGPL and recommends it when it appropriate. Here is its opinion (from the same article as earlier):
If your project is a library, and developers are already using an established alternative library released under a nonfree or permissive license, then we recommend using the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Unlike the case discussed earlier where the project implements a standard, here adoption for its own sake will not accomplish any particular goal, so there's no reason to avoid copyleft entirely. However, if you ask developers who use your library to release their work under a full copyleft, they'll simply use one of the alternatives available, and that won't advance our cause either. The Lesser GPL was designed to fill the middle ground between these cases, allowing proprietary software developers to use the covered library, but providing a weak copyleft that benefits users when they do.
As for the "many lawyers who advise companies tell them to be weary of LGPL licensed software", I want references (from lawyers not working for companies developing proprietary software). But I guess it is just FUD (again).
> We must prefer a permissive licence for something that needs to be
> integrated with software, and compete with proprietary software (like
> codecs), in order for people and developers to use it and promote it
> at the best without restrictions.
>
> But for anything else that doesn't work "inside" anything (like a
> software, a game etc...) then the GPL licence is the best for Copyleft
> work.
Libraries work "inside". Using GPL for the GNU Readline library
resulted in at least one complex program being freed. The FSF doesn't
recommend using permissive licenses for libraries that don't replace
existing nonfree software (codecs do this indirectly;
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html is the source for this
opinion).
> If I remember right, in the freedom for distributing the software,
> anyone that had access to the software (by buying it for example) can
> sell it, and do almost anything with the code but respecting the GPL
> Licence (and by this I mean, not adding something not GPL, or changing
> the licence, or not distributing the changes if those were made and
> became public as a binary). So my question is, what is your opinion
> (as an enterprise), about people having the right for selling your
> work at a lower price (and this even if you software is already very
> cheap) ?
It is possible to receive money from works that can be sold by others,
see
e.g. http://blog.ninapaley.com/2010/11/15/frequently-asked-questions/
for an example. I don't know similar numbers for software (the FSF and
RMS before sold tapes with GNU programs).
There are other ways to get money for writing software; probably all are
hindered by that software not being known.
> This is (in my opinion) a very interesting discussion. I had one today
> with a friend that doesn't share the same views, and believes that GPL
> licence is inappropriate for games since it is a different world from
> the "software world", and even if he understands and respects most of
> the GPL Freedoms, he doesn't agree with the freedom for any other
> person to resell the software, because for him, it is like if anyone
> would take our GPL code and make it under closed sources (almost).
It was discussed here before, software freedoms are useful and needed
also for game software. For game art these freedoms are difficult to
apply, although IMO it's probable that someone in next 100+ years when
it will be copyrighted will make a practical use for it. Free culture
advocates have arguments unrelated to software freedom for sharing such
works.
You did not get the FSF opinion quite right. It is not about preferring a permissive license whenever an equivalent proprietary application exists. It is about preferring a permissive license to push a free format competing against a proprietary one (Opus vs. MP3, WebM vs MPEG-4, etc.). This is a very rare case where it actually is positive for the work to end up in proprietary software.
By definition (freedom 2), free software allows the user to redistribute the work. That includes selling it. So, preventing the user to sell the software makes the software non-free. Free software has absolutely nothing to do with price. Selling free software does not make it proprietary at all.
It is important to understand that, in the IT business, the most common developments are custom developments. The company paying for a custom development does not want to distribute the resulting work (to not help its competitors). As a consequence, it is, in many cases, possible for an independent developer to sell the same work to different companies.
Video games combine software for which the user deserves the four freedoms (for instance to be sure there is no backdoor/spyware/etc. in it) and art. Stallman's opinions on art are different from its opinions on software in the sense that the freedoms of the users are not hurt if she cannot modify the artistic content (she does not achieve a job with it). Anyway, the freedom to redistribute the artistic content must be preserved based on fundamental ethical reasons (sharing is good). As a consequence, and as far as I understood, Stallman does not see any problem with video games whose software is free (say under the GNU GPL) and whose artistic content is released under a more restricted license as long as it allows the redistribution (say the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND). You can hear more about that by watching rms' talk "Copyright vs Community" (you can find it, in English or French, on this website). Notice however that Trisquel (and, I believe, all 100% free GNU/Linux distributions) does not propose, in its repositories, any game whose artistic content does not satisfy the four freedoms used for software. It is a pity in my opinion.
I misused some words but yes I was not totally wrong :D Thank you for explaining me the rest I didn't had already understood.
Just one last question. I know how we can specify a licence for a software (I already have done), but how can we do this for art ? For example, inside a GPL project (game or software) what is the difference between "shareable" PNG and a not "shareable" PNG ?
And as an entreprise, is it a good idea to allow users to "use" our logo ? I mean, isn't this one of the main reasons that we don't have Firefox accepted (beside the non-free addons) ? How Canonical "escapes" from this ?
> Just one last question. I know how we can specify a licence for a
> software (I already have done), but how can we do this for art ? For
> example, inside a GPL project (game or software) what is the
> difference between "shareable" PNG and a not "shareable" PNG ?
Usually such art isn't combined with the program into a single work.
There are free software projects using GPL for art, CC-BY-SA or other
licenses. I think CC-BY-SA is ok unless it's useful enough to have
source for that work or to combine it with programs or documentation.
> And as an entreprise, is it a good idea to allow users to "use" our
> logo ? I mean, isn't this one of the main reasons that we don't have
> Firefox accepted (beside the non-free addons) ? How Canonical
> "escapes" from this ?
Trademarks are a different issue than copyright. It's possible to make
a work freely licensed and trademarked with a more restrictive license,
see e.g. http://www.gnu.org/graphics/heckert_gnu.html. I don't know how
this practically affects user's freedom.
See http://jxself.org/mozilla_trademark.shtml for more details on why
the Firefox trademark licensing makes it nonfree. Canonical probably
can make specific deals with Mozilla which don't make it free while
allow their uses.
You certainly can allow others to use a logo of your new project. There
are various arguments for trademarking them, I'm not convinced that they
are needed. (I have similar opinions on many other legal or otherwise
hierarchical things, there are people more knowledgeable about it.)
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