Apple is a fourth-rate laptop vendor. Why should we be following their lead exactly? Because they're magical?
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Matthew Garrett: How-To Drive Developers From OS X To Linux
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Originally posted by Luke_Wolf View PostWe're using "Widely Adopted" different, you only care about the microcosm of Linux, I'm speaking of the macrocosm of OSes in general which makes all the difference in the world.
Originally posted by Luke_Wolf View PostYes GPL projects are fine using Apache or BSD code, but BSD or Apache projects cannot take GPL code even of fixes to their own project without tainting their codebase. While this isn't a particularly common occurrence it does happen (which speaks in favour of permissive licensing), the biggest example being the LibreOffice vs Apache Open Office split.
Originally posted by Luke_Wolf View PostGiven ~20% of their listed userspace changes are just ripping out GNU software and replacing them with BSD licensed software... they do have clear preferences.
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Just to be clear, the original question was why a permissive license was adopted in the first place... and to answer that you need to go back to the time when the license decision was made.
Back then Linux did not exist, GPL did not exist, Windows was at version 1 (basically a demo), and the majority of the target systems ran various versions of proprietary Unix. The fact that things are different today does not affect the rationale for the original decision, unless you're saying that the people working on X in the 1980s should have seen Linus comingTest signature
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If the question was "does X still need a permissive license ?" you could probably make a good case that it does not.
If, however, the question was "would putting X under a copyleft license, even in the past, have made anything different/better ?", the answer is probably "no".Test signature
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Originally posted by Del_ View PostI beg to differ. I simply point out that being adopted across linux distros *is* wide adoption. You seem to believe that adoption by BSD or Unix somehow supports being wide. Those two together accounts for about one medium sized distro in terms of adoption.
In other words how Cross-OS/Platform/Context it is, is how I'm defining wide.
Originally posted by Del_ View PostSo, to find one example of your non-existent problem you turn to Oracle's disgraceful handling of OpenOffice. Good luck with that.
That said I hope you realize that this speaks against the need to copy-left code, not for it. As the sheer lack of hostilely licensed forks means that individuals who willingly contribute don't need that gun to their head. Proprietary developers aren't going to touch anything more restrictive than the LGPL if they don't have to because no proprietary developer wants to risk their code becoming a derivative work. This means you're not going to get any code that way either and if you do it's just going to be a one time dump of code. As a result the only thing you do is prevent people from using it in proprietary code, which some people would argue is the whole point. Other people would argue that the inclusion of proprietary developers using open source code resulting in more developers using it has a higher chance of fixes for the open source code being written and submitted upstream (or at the very least more bugs being reported) that then helps everyone, on top of the benefit of greater standardization on open source code meaning better overall code quality.
Originally posted by Del_ View PostGlad to see they are having fun with their priorities. If I used FreeBSD, I would have preferred spending the limited resources a bit differently.Last edited by Luke_Wolf; 21 May 2014, 05:37 PM.
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Originally posted by bridgman View PostIf, however, the question was "would putting X under a copyleft license, even in the past, have made anything different/better ?", the answer is probably "no".
Like someone else has mentioned, if X were GPL it would bleed through xlib and xcb into any project linking against it. I'm not sure personally of how that would impact general desktop apps, because they have layers of misdirection between themselves and X.
But you also have a personal view on what would be better. For GPL supporters like myself, preventing or discouraging the use of proprietary software is inherently an improvement, even if it means losing market share. The GPL isn't about what is the most efficient way to get contributions or users, it is about ethics and morality and also preventing the exploitation of your labors by others who would profit off it without attribution.
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Originally posted by Luke_Wolf View PostProprietary developers aren't going to touch anything more restrictive than the LGPL if they don't have to because no proprietary developer wants to risk their code becoming a derivative work. This means you're not going to get any code that way either and if you do it's just going to be a one time dump of code. As a result the only thing you do is prevent people from using it in proprietary code, which some people would argue is the whole point. Other people would argue that the inclusion of proprietary developers using open source code resulting in more developers using it has a higher chance of fixes for the open source code being written and submitted upstream (or at the very least more bugs being reported) that then helps everyone, on top of the benefit of greater standardization on open source code meaning better overall code quality.
Originally posted by David A. WheelerThe GPL has created a 'safe' zone of cooperation among companies, without anyone having to sign complicated legal documents. A company can't feel safe contributing code to the BSDs, because its competitors might simply copy the code without reciprocating. There's much more corporate cooperation in the GPL'ed kernel code than with the BSD'd kernel code. Which means that in practice, it's actually been the GPL that's most 'business-friendly'. So while the BSDs have lost energy every time a company gets involved, the GPL'ed programs gain every time a company gets involved. And that explains it all.
"Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did." - Linus Torvalds
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Valve and SteamOS are the droids you're looking for here :P While the OEMs don't care two whits about Joe Schmo Linux Distribution, 4 or 5 years from now the idea of riding the wave of Valve's success by selling AlienWare Laptops running SteamOS is going to occur to Dell (and for the other Gaming brands), which will be the foot in the door from which things can trickle down. Also it has to be at least a half-rolling release distribution because the average individual isn't going to be willing to go through a complex upgrade process.Last edited by zanny; 21 May 2014, 10:23 PM.
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Originally posted by chrisb View PostThe problem with that argument (inclusion in proprietary products mean more fixes) is that it does not seem to work out in reality, because in the real world there is very little incentive for corporations to feed back any fixes. Instead companies see fixes as a potential competitive advantage, and hence denying fixes to their competitors makes complete sense.
Originally posted by chrisb View PostLinux Kernel Contributors 2013. Do you believe that all of those companies would be willingly contributing code without the GPL forcing them to?
Originally posted by chrisb View PostIf it were not for the GPL, most of those companies would immediately fork Linux and start producing their own proprietary versions. We would have Samsung Operating System, Oracle OS, Cisco OS, ARM OS,..
Originally posted by chrisb View PostThere would be no reason for any of those companies to feed their changes back upstream, since every change that they paid for would be something their competitors could use against them.
Originally posted by chrisb View PostSamsung released their exFAT driver as closed source, until someone leaked the code and it was found to be a derivative of a GPL driver, and they ended up releasing it as GPL. Would Samsung have done that if the original code were not GPL?
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Originally posted by zanny View PostHave you actually tried using SteamOS on a desktop? It doesn't have printer drivers, or a whole suite of standard working software (no sane, no samba, dunno about avahi, or file system drivers, etc). The Valve repositories are bare bones and contain almost nothing, so you have to manually add Debian. It uses its own compositor and mix of Debian Stable + Up to Date packages, and has no way to install alternative desktops without using the Debian repos. Also, stock images hard boot to Steam Big Picture, so you have to mod that too. How in the universe does it make sense to try to get that to a working desktop than shipping Debian with Steam installed?
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