C++11 & The Long-Term Viability Of GCC Is Questioned

[pingufunkybeat]

You were talking about GPL-licensed software and then cited LGPL licensed software. There is a difference.

I understood the discussion as being about strong copyleft licenses like the GPL and more permissive licenses like the BSD license. This is why I listed LGPL software too.

In any case... MPlayer is GPL. Gecko is GPL. Gnumeric is GPL. Abiword is GPL. LibreOffice was GPL (now LGPL). FFmpeg is GPL. x264 is GPL.

Some of them are also licensed under LGPL, MPL, or other licenses, but none of them is BSD.

The LGPL cannot be used to force a project to change licenses. That is something that Richard Stallman has done in the past with projects that depended upon GPL-licensed libraries. It is also why there are not many GPL-licensed libraries in use today.

Most people have agreed from the start that LGPL is a better choice for libraries. Even Stallman before he changed his mind.

Chrome is largely open source.

I think that you're missing my point. The most valuable part of Chrome is LGPL. There is no competitive BSD-licensed browser out there.

[ryao]

I don't see how. NVidia doesn't distribute the kernel nor do they use code from it. Also, if the kernel didn't specifically exclude userspace software from the GPL requirements, you couldn't even *run* non-GPL compatible software, because they invoke kernel routines similarly to using a GPL library. A GPL kernel is really not the same at all as an LGPL kernel.

It is for most purposes. Anyway, my point was that using the kernel (and a ton of LGPL userland software) as examples of GPL software is not representation of GPL software in general. This discussion of Nvidia is tangential to that.

I will not clarify myself again.

[RealNC]

If you read my original post, you would see that there was more to it than that:

The post to which you replied was a correction of a typo where I had said an obvious tautology. What I had said covered your Nvidia example.

I don't see how. NVidia doesn't distribute the kernel nor do they use code from it. Also, if the kernel didn't specifically exclude userspace software from the GPL requirements, you couldn't even *run* non-GPL compatible software, because they invoke kernel routines similarly to using a GPL library. A GPL kernel is really not the same at all as an LGPL kernel.

[ryao]

Not really. See for example NVidia and their inability to use proper kernel APIs (DMA-BUF) for their optimus support because that API is GPLed and the kernel doesn't provide an exception for it, like it does for some other APIs:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIwNDI

If the kernel actually was LGPL, they would be able to use that API.

If you read my original post, you would see that there was more to it than that:

The only thing you mentioned that is actually GPL licensed is the Linux kernel. For most practical purposes, a GPL licensed kernel is effectively the same as a GPL licensed kernel. The only differences occur when you want to distribute proprietary code as part of it or reuse code from it somewhere else.

The post to which you replied was a correction of a typo where I had said an obvious tautology. What I had said covered your Nvidia example.

[RealNC]

I meant to say that a GPL licensed kernel is effectively the same as a LGPL licensed kernel.

Not really. See for example NVidia and their inability to use proper kernel APIs (DMA-BUF) for their optimus support because that API is GPLed and the kernel doesn't provide an exception for it, like it does for some other APIs:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIwNDI

If the kernel actually was LGPL, they would be able to use that API.

[ryao]

Are you insinuating that GPL 'forces people to give free stuff'?


Ehh ?


A thing that has been confusing me, you are obviously a BSD advocate and from the looks of it you have no love for GPL, why are you developing a udev fork (eudev) which is GPLv2 licenced and specifically for Linux which is also GPLv2 licenced? Wouldn't someone who are strongly advocating BSD work on, well BSD software?

I meant to say that a GPL licensed kernel is effectively the same as a LGPL licensed kernel.

Excuse me?

Everything I mentioned is either GPL or LGPL. None of it is under a BSD-style license.

You were talking about GPL-licensed software and then cited LGPL licensed software. There is a difference.

The LGPL cannot be used to force a project to change licenses. That is something that Richard Stallman has done in the past with projects that depended upon GPL-licensed libraries. It is also why there are not many GPL-licensed libraries in use today.

The closed-source browser with an LGPL engine?

Yeah, I mean that one.

Chrome is largely open source. The only things that are closed source or proprietary are a few plugins and the branding. You can build the public sources on Gentoo by doing `emerge www-client/chromium`. Mozilla has a similar branding policy for Firefox and it relies on closed source plugins much like chrome. The only difference is that they are not distributed with firefox.

[yogi_berra]

There hasn't been a huge change, in any case. Fluctuations are normal.

Fluctuation? Nope.

From 2011: http://blogs.the451group.com/opensou...ne-of-the-gpl/

Their predictions were shown to be wrong as the gpl family is declining faster than they predicted.

[pingufunkybeat]

You mean like the BSD style licensed top browser in the world Chrome?

The closed-source browser with an LGPL engine?

Yeah, I mean that one.

[Ramiliez]

Oh, pollute Linux distributions with jihad of freedom protection, yes, I see it, uhuh, whatever Sir TRASH.

Your previous post btw: "1. Vista these days is stable and 2nd best OS" uhuh, just recycle yourself for good.

That was sarcasm and i said that Vista is second best OS from MS im using Sabayon since 2010 for obvious reasons

[BeardedGNUFreak]

Let me know when you have a browser and a toolkit.

You mean like the BSD style licensed top browser in the world Chrome?

No wonder the garbage viral GPL is dying if its rapidly dwindling fans are this clueless...