Miscellaneous > The Lounge
Understanding the GPL
worker201:
It's not really so much that Apple people don't care about the GPL. It's more like Apple people don't care about licenses. Whereas on the Linux platform they are very serious about exactly what license each bit of software has.
The truth is that I barely understand the GPL, because it is legal mumbo-jumbo. What really matters is the independent and generous spirit behind it. Spending too much time thinking about the license itself is counter-productive, not only to your own enjoyment, but to the strength of the community as well. All this LGPL and MPL crap gets in the way of what open source is really about.
hm_murdock:
Which is precisely what I mean. Apple folks don't mull over what kind of software license a particular proggy carries.
Orethrius:
If I may address one of those issues, the misconception enters practice that open-source means zero profit. This is simply not true; the distributor can, for instance, sell the end-product binary. The sole provision is that the "builder" of said product must provide the blueprints they used to arrive at this end-product. Now, any one of several methods can still be used to ensure that the source is only seen by purchasers of the binary, but the sole legal method under the GPL is to allow anyone to "observe the schematics" so to speak. If this is unacceptable, nobody is under pressure to continue to use the GPL (despite what Stallman thinks), and may switch to BSD or other similar propietary or partially-propietary licences at any point in time.
Kintaro:
I think switching licences eliminates the purpose of the licence and if it is not illegal it should be.
Orethrius:
--- Quote from: kintaro ---I think switching licences eliminates the purpose of the licence and if it is not illegal it should be.
--- End quote ---
How so? I don't see the problem in switching licences later down the road, so long as the prior editions remain under the prior licence. If you retroactively change the licence, that should certainly be (and as "trial ex post facto" comes to mind, likely is) illegal.
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