Microsoft Releases Source For Its GDB/LLDB Debug Engine

[Veerappan]

The GPL licenses add freedoms for the end user by limiting what the developers can do with the code. The MIT and BSDs are focused on the freedoms of the developers. The difference is the intended audience of the code. Since the MIT and BSD is intend for developers it sees more adoption from developers.

This. As a professional software developer, I greatly prefer MIT/BSD, even for projects that i want to release as open-source.... Honestly, even if some company copies/closes my code, they will possibly eventually see the benefit of submitting patches upstream and reducing their maintenance burdon to keep up to date with new features that I introduce.

At work, we sell closed-source software, and we use open-source code for parts of it (yes, obeying the licenses). We can't touch anything GPL due to its viral nature, but if we have enhancements/fixes to the open-source projects that we use, we send them upstream so that everyone can benefit.

[erendorn]

LLDB is open but it's not free, hence the backing of corporations is clear. It can be embraced, extended and extinguished at any time.

Tell me how companies can extinguish MIT licensed code, I'm interested.

[Calinou]

Hell, I bet you could find proprietary licenses that restrict you less than the GPL.

No, that simply doesn't exist. See https://jxself.org/consistency.shtml.

[endman]

The very fact that GPL forces you into "freedoms" makes it less liberal than probably 90% of other licenses. Hell, I bet you could find proprietary licenses that restrict you less than the GPL.

The GPL is like the US constitution.

It does not force poeple into any freedoms. It restricts entities from taking away the freedoms of other people.

The result is it becomes more free then any license (especially permissive licenses) because more people are free. In permissive licenses, freedom is not guaranteed even from the one who gave the permissive license because the BSD literally allows the binary to be released without the source.

[endman]

Tell me how companies can extinguish MIT licensed code, I'm interested.

It's not how companies can extinguish MIT licensed code, it's how the MIT license causes more people to be enslaved by non-free licenses. In MIT license codes, Even the one who sets the license can harm you by releasing the binary without the source because the MIT license literally allows that and even if they release the source, the next generations of modifications are proprietary enslaving people who use them.

In the GPL, the code and all it's version will respect people's freedoms form generations. The MIT/BSD, the code maybe free for the first version and first generation, by new modifications and derivatives will enslave the following generations. Hence, MIT/BSD results in more enslavement and subjugation of humans compared to the GPL which prevents any enslavement and subjugation which is why the GPL is far far more free then the pussy permissive licenses.

[nasyt]

It's not how companies can extinguish MIT licensed code, it's how the MIT license causes more people to be enslaved by non-free licenses. In MIT license codes, Even the one who sets the license can harm you by releasing the binary without the source because the MIT license literally allows that and even if they release the source, the next generations of modifications are proprietary enslaving people who use them.

There is a very simple way to handle proprietary derivates of liberally licensed software: Don't use them!

If companies can't find permissively licensed code they just write it from scratch. Sometimes they publish sourcecode under a permissive license so other companies can pick it up, or they sell copyright licenses in order to boost cross-corporate code reuse to a greater extend.

In the GPL, the code and all it's version will respect people's freedoms form generations. The MIT/BSD, the code maybe free for the first version and first generation, by new modifications and derivatives will enslave the following generations. Hence, MIT/BSD results in more enslavement and subjugation of humans compared to the GPL which prevents any enslavement and subjugation which is why the GPL is far far more free then the pussy permissive licenses.

Then, it is better if proprietary software gets written from scratch, right?

[nasyt]

The GPL is like the US constitution.

It does not force poeple into any freedoms. It restricts entities from taking away the freedoms of other people.

The result is it becomes more free then any license (especially permissive licenses) because more people are free. In permissive licenses, freedom is not guaranteed even from the one who gave the permissive license because the BSD literally allows the binary to be released without the source.

Permissive licenses don't force people to use the proprietary forks or modifications of the software, so if they don't use them they stay free. The GPL can't protect people from proprietary software itself, because GPL can't prevent proprietary software to be written from scratch.

[endman]

Then, it is better if proprietary software gets written from scratch, right?

It's better that proprietary software doesn't get written at all. Same with permissive software.

Permissive licenses don't force people to use the proprietary forks or modifications of the software, so if they don't use them they stay free.

Yes they do. The inherent nature of permissive licenses means that the "free" versions will fall far behind the proprietary version such that people will be forced to use the proprietary version. Example: "Free"BSD "developers" all use Mac OSX.

Also, one can take permissive license and change or replace it as modification. Thus that same code is now proprietary and anyone using still using the permissive copies can be sued.

The GPL can't protect people from proprietary software itself, because GPL can't prevent proprietary software to be written from scratch.

No, GPL makes it harder to write functional proprietary software. The nature of proprietary software draws that attention of mostly unethical businessman and crooks. They can't write their own code. Programmers and engineers tend to prefer copy-left and free software. So the proprietary crooks try to trick people into programming software under licenses that look free but are not. These are all the permissive licenses (BSD, MIT, Apache, NCSA, ISC etc.) and some pseudo-copyleft licenses like the CDDL and APSL.

[nasyt]

Also, one can take permissive license and change or replace it as modification. Thus that same code is now proprietary and anyone using still using the permissive copies can be sued.

This does only work with BSD- and ISC licenses, but not with modern licenses like the Apache license 2.0.
#EDIT: As the right the version with modification is a derived, sublicensed, work. If one removes the original copyrigh notice or the license as modification, he violates condition to retain the copyright notice and the permission notice, thus his right to make this modifications is void.

No, GPL makes it harder to write functional proprietary software. The nature of proprietary software draws that attention of mostly unethical businessman and crooks. They can't write their own code. Programmers and engineers tend to prefer copy-left and free software. So the proprietary crooks try to trick people into programming software under licenses that look free but are not. These are all the permissive licenses (BSD, MIT, Apache, NCSA, ISC etc.) and some pseudo-copyleft licenses like the CDDL and APSL.

On the list of the "pseudo-copyleft", i would add the Mozilla Public License, because CDDL is a modified MPL license. They match the Open Source Definition despite they "look free but are not".

[erendorn]

Also, one can take permissive license and change or replace it as modification. Thus that same code is now proprietary and anyone using still using the permissive copies can be sued.

No. If you aquired the code under the original license, then you are only bound by that license, which still allows you to do whatever you want, including maintaining an distributing your own fork. It's not the code that is important, but how you aquired your copy.
Only the copyright owner may try to revoke your license. It has never been tested in court, is not limited to permissive licenses, and is generally considered not to be possible.