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Open Source Operating Systems Linux

Linus Loves GPL, But Hates GPL Lawsuits (cio.com) 238

Long-time Slashdot reader sfcrazy writes: During LinuxCon, Torvalds was full of praise for GNU GPL: "The GPL ensures that nobody is ever going to take advantage of your code. It will remain free and nobody can take that away from you. I think that's a big deal for community management... FSF [Free Software Foundation] and I don't have a loving relationship, but I love GPL v2. I really think the license has been one of the defining factors in the success of Linux because it enforced that you have to give back, which meant that the fragmentation has never been something that has been viable from a technical standpoint."

And he thinks the BSD license is bad for everyone: "Over the years, I've become convinced that the BSD license is great for code you don't care about," Torvalds said.

But Linus also addressed the issue of enforcing the GPL on the Linux foundation mailing list when someone proposed a discussion of it at Linuxcon. "I think the whole GPL enforcement issue is absolutely something that should be discussed, but it should be discussed with the working title 'Lawyers: poisonous to openness, poisonous to community, poisonous to projects'... quite apart from the risk of loss in a court, the real risk is something that happens whether you win or lose, and in fact whether you go to court or just threaten: the loss of community, and in particular exactly the kind of community that can (and does) help. You lose your friends."
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Linus Loves GPL, But Hates GPL Lawsuits

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  • How does GPLv2 fit the web server world? Imagine you have a JS library licensed under GPLv2; what will be the implications of using such for the rest of the site's code? I imagine I could use my own GPLv2'd code without much concern, but if anyone else used it, they'd, in principle, have to open up their whole code base after that.

    Or that might not be the case. But then again that *is* the problem as nobody really knows how it works in normal circumstances. Going with BSD is simple because it's a very, very

    • Most js libraries were made to help people develop proprietary JS solutions. The GPL is simply nothing their creators would want for them. Similar to game engines, here people want to use them to develop proprietary games with. Non copyleft licenses are good for these use cases. But in other domains, like the kernel or for compilers, copyleft makes just far more sense, otherwise you'll start accumulating proprietary tiny bits and pieces.

      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        There is no reason you can't make proprietary games based off of (l)GPL code. No games or commercial applications (like Oracle) would exist otherwise. The license of a game engine is completely immaterial.

        Except for RMS, no one uses the strict form of GPL for shared libraries and such.

        • Except for RMS, no one uses the strict form of GPL for shared libraries and such.

          Businesses occasionally use GPL for a library for which they require copyright assignment of any contributions, so that they can use the GPL tactically as a way to encourage their clients to pay them to dual-license the library for commercial use.

        • The problem is just that. Geeks do not know the difference between LGPL and GPL. Yes you can not link under GPL without your program being GPL. Go read the license? The game is in violation of the GPL which I assume was RMS point to get rid of proprietary software.

          Most think they can write an api and GPL and it can be used for all. Not true.

    • I Found it notable Linus felt it important to indicate which version of the GPL met with his approval.

    • Well, unless you are giving out binaries of your code then you don't need to worry. GPLv2 doesn't care about who receives the output of the code, just if you distribute the code or a binary compiled from that code.

      GPL3

      Affero GPL licensed stuff though, if you run a server with it and I get the output, I can ask for the code.

    • by jrumney ( 197329 )
      There is something ironic about getting upset about being forced to open your JavaScript source code for anyone who has access to your website to download and copy.
      • It's not that. I want to open up my code base and let people use it, even commercially. I just want them to release any changes they make to the code I've worked on, not any other code that's unrelated to the code I've worked on. How this works with web servers is far from clear when it comes to using GPLv2 and GPLv3.

        You know, people can't really go and grab someone's code and use it without caring for how it's licensed. I want to provide all of my code under a proper license so that people can freely use i

  • by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Saturday August 27, 2016 @04:11PM (#52782215)
    then soon every greedy capitalist in the software industry would be scalping code and using it in their products and selling it for top dollar and without releasing the source code, people like microsoft, apple, google, oracle, etc... they would all be raping your code for profits if the threat of litigation did not hang over their heads
    • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 27, 2016 @05:33PM (#52782547)

      Yeah, sounds like Linus likes the sausage but is disgusted by how it's made.

    • You mean those greedy capitalists that employee and make products like Cisco, Juniper, PF Sense, MacOSX? All were based on BSD because it was more free and have contributed to everyone both users, venture capitalists, and customers who want to buy. Everyone won.

      Apache and XORG are BSD/MIT and so is Samba. They make great free software you use reading this. I have no problem with Apple, Google, and even MS using these. Visual Studio 2015 community edition has node.js support and so does the MS code editor wh

  • The reason the GPL (or any other licence) is enforced, is specifically to try and exclude people.
    Every community has rules and responsibilities it places on its members, if there are people or groups that actively work against the interests of the community, then they should be excluded.
    The well defined expectations set out by the FSF (4 freedoms) are what define the community, and what separates it from BSD crowd, whos community has not grown to the same extent.
    There is an community around the GPL specific

  • by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Saturday August 27, 2016 @04:28PM (#52782287) Homepage

    The GPL ensures that nobody is ever going to take advantage of your code.

    Is that like how laws against murder ensure that no-one ever gets murdered?

    • Just as we come closer to ensuring no murders when we enforce laws against murder, we come closer to ensuring the software freedom described in the GPL when we enforce the GPL.

      It's telling that Linus Torvalds said "I really think the license has been one of the defining factors in the success of Linux because it enforced that you have to give back, which meant that the fragmentation has never been something that has been viable from a technical standpoint." and hates enforcement ("Lawyers: poisonous to open

      • The fork of the Linux kernel Torvalds distributes contains the "fragmentation" he claims isn't viable—Torvalds' variant of Linux contains proprietary binaries in it. These blobs of code are removed in the fully-free GNU Linux-libre kernel [fsfla.org].

        Hold up now, mr. FSF.

        The kernel that Linus distributes is the Linux kernel, by definition.

        Linux-Libre is a fork for FSF puritans.

  • Linux got a leg up from all the Unix lawsuits, but also from all the commercial Unix vendors vying to be the next Microsoft with strategic incompatibilities.

    And this valid experience obviously colored Torvalds' worldview.

    Linux showed that the benefits of a common foundation far outweighed the marginal dollars lost from lock-in. So much so that if you waved a magic wand and got rid of the GPL restrictions, you'd still have everybody and his brother trying to push changes upstream. Because it's a hell o

    • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Saturday August 27, 2016 @05:28PM (#52782527)

      Lots of entities would share their code in that circumstance because its in their best interests to do so. But a lot MORE companies (especially companies running Linux on all kinds of embedded hardware like routers and phones and tablets and such) wouldn't share if they didn't have to because its in THEIR best interests NOT to share their code.

      Me personally, I think there should be MORE enforcement (via lawsuits if talking directly to the company that is violating the license doesn't work) of the GPL against companies who use the Linux kernel and dont share their code when legally required to.

      Plenty of companies violate the GPL on the Linux kernel and many companies are well known as repeat offenders (taking months or even longer to release the source code corresponding to a new device or a new firmware update, releasing code that is incomplete or wont compile, releasing code that doesn't match the binaries or otherwise not properly following the GPL)

    • by dbIII ( 701233 )
      Not only from there but from Microsoft's inaction.
      I used Xenix in 1988 and it was as awesome as linux was in 1994. If it wasn't for infighting and "not invented here" at Redmond we could have had a wave of cheap *nix workstations on PC hardware that could give Win98 a run for it's money, but in 1990!
  • by iCEBaLM ( 34905 ) on Saturday August 27, 2016 @05:06PM (#52782435)

    ... unless you can, and do, enforce it.

    • If you read Greg and Linus' actual comments in the mailing list, they're not against enforcement. They're against getting lawyers to do the enforcement. They prefer to enforce it by convincing the actual developers (not their employers or their lawyers) to comply.
  • quite apart from the risk of loss in a court, the real risk is something that happens whether you win or lose, and in fact whether you go to court or just threaten: the loss of community, and in particular exactly the kind of community that can (and does) help. You lose your friends."

    Lawsuits always create divisions and force people to take sides. It can be really fun. But it's also probably something you shouldn't do to colleagues and friends because computer science is a small world.

  • The funny thing about humans is that different humans care about different things. (Perhaps this signal becomes harder to detect as an Act III BDFL of a sprawling monoculture.)

    If you regard your code as a means to an end (e.g. authoring a great web site) then perhaps it's a perfectly reasonable stance not to "care" about your code the way Linus cares about his code.

    Licence of the day: Craftspeople with Attachment Disorder. Be there, or be square.

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