Why copyleft?

[sounds]

a moral imperative

Pot, meet kettle.

[StudlyCaps]

Pot, meet kettle.

Not really following you here. I don't think I'm moralizing.

[linguofreak]

In a theoretical sense I think the FSF represents a kind of ultimate alienation of programmers from their labour. They do all the work, but the economic rewards for that work go to SaaS providers who repackage their products as managed services,

The economic benefit was already going to the large tech companies anyways. What copyleft does is that now programmers working for large tech companies can do things like *reusing code that they wrote at one job at another job*, or *reusing code that they wrote at work in hobby projects*. The code resulting from their work is now less likely to end up locked up forever behind their employer's proprietary license (how's *that* for being alienated from your labor?).

Now, are Stallman and the FSF full of ****? Quite. All the linking restrictions in the main GPL are problematic in a number of ways (like, how are you going to enforce them without arguing *for* the copyrightability of APIs, which all of the FSF's favorite corporate bogeymen will just *love*). But the general concept of copyleft is fairly sound.

[zaval]

for me, all this FSF/GPL/copyleft thing is just a lunacy of one man, that has turned into a religion. craze for those, that are more stupid, benefit for those, that are smarter, that is. it's weird, that it happened, but on the other hand, all (many) religions probably appeared like this. just new realities, new religions. maybe one day, we will get something similar about I don't know tiktok "stories". still, it looks funny to read their "philosophy". I genuinely don't understand how software is any different from everything else, made by people and why it necessarily should be open sourced. so, when I read, that "proprietary software is amoral and a social issue", I am like pff, yeah, dude, whatever, take your pills and go keep eating your toe cheese, please.

[chilly]

Why copyleft? Because hard-core socialist types like to take advantage of the legal system to push their political ideology on everyone else. Or maybe not, who knows.

[GwenCat]

I came from the Shareware / Giftware / Freeware world of the Aminet. People providing (test versions of) their software, without the source, so you could see if it solved whatever problem you might have. You might have had to pay a modest sum after the test period expired, or the author might have asked to send a post card, or it might have been completely free. But what you got was software that had a clear idea behind it, and tried to stand on it's own. There was none of this "fix it yourself if you don't like it" stuff, and the authors took pride in a software well made. I can't help but feel that, from a user perspective, the software of that time was better than contemporary software from other markets. For one, you got proper documentation with that software, because you couldn't offload that to someone else...

GPL basically killed that community. They told everyone that such things as Free-/Shareware were evil, that everybody should program for free, and that you could get payed for providing documentation or support services, which I hold to be an essential part of a good software...

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

I have personally myself managed to work as a professional software engineer without ever having to produce nonfree software.

It's about freedom, not money.

Feel free to disagree with the free software movement, but don't misrepresent it.

[GwenCat]

To quote from https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-sou ... nt.html.en:

For the free software movement, however, nonfree software is a social problem, and the solution is to stop using it and move to free software.

I can't really express the amount of disgust I have for this POV.

Just because you wrote some code, does not mean you should get to control my computing, and it doesn't mean you should have unjust power over other people.

I will make a point of never using any software written by you though, if that is your view.

This whole thread amazes me because the osdev.org wiki is full of resources that only exist because the contributors value sharing access to knowledge. That's a beautiful thing. You aren't obligated to do it of course, but at the same time I don't believe that anyone has a duty to hand over control of their computing (and therefore frequently large aspects of how they live their lives due to the central role computers play in our society) to you just because you demand it.

Make money all you want, that's not the problem. I think the real issue is how many people don't understand that free software does not mean "doesn't cost money".

I'd happily pay MORE for free software than for proprietary software that restricts my freedom.

Also, I personally am less radical on this than most - I'll accept nonfree software for unimportant stuff like games or whatever, but never for something as critical as my OS.

[Solar]

I have personally myself managed to work as a professional software engineer without ever having to produce nonfree software.

Lucky you. So instead of you having to work as consultant / trainer / support personell by day so you can write free software at night, your company employs consultants, trainers, and support personell by day so you can write free software at night. The socialization of being a social problem. Because the software you write does not bring revenue. Other people's work does it.

Feel free to disagree with the free software movement, but don't misrepresent it.

Oh, I think I have figured out the Free Software movement pretty well a long time ago already.

You will have to live with the fact that not everyone shares your opinion.

Just because you wrote some code, does not mean you should get to control my computing, and it doesn't mean you should have unjust power over other people.

No, I don't have "unjust power over other people", and neither do I "control your computing". I'm just not holier-than-thou looking down my nose at people who provide actual benefit with their coding work without following the Church of Stallman.

I will make a point of never using any software written by you though, if that is your view.

It is my view, and it will remain my view. Whatever I consider "basic building blocks", I license under CC0, granting others the freedom to do with my code whatever makes their boat float, because I am a firm believer that basic building blocks should be free of cost and free of licensing strings attached. That includes the PDCLib, gim (Git for Mortals), and a (soon to be released) cross-compiler wrapper massively simplifying multi-platform building, testing, and debugging. (Kind of necessary to take the next step with PDCLib.)

Then there are the not-building-blocks, the software that actually boosts your productivity because it not only works "somehow", but works good, and thus is worth paying for. Some of the titles that have accompanied me over many of work were e.g. Directory Opus (which I actually been a licensed user of since version 5 on the Amiga), or Fork, both of them prime example of the kind of "software produced with pride instead of attitude" that I was originally referring to; unmatched in functionality and intuitive interface to this day.

And while you might feel lucky with your station, Bram Moolenaar worked on Google Calendar by day, Linus Thorvals had a job at Transmeta to do from 9 to 5, and Larry Wall at Unisys. Samba wasn't payed for by Andrew Tridgell's employer, the Australian National Library either. Eric S. Raymond wrote fetchmail while working as a consultant. Social problems, all of them, because they weren't among the lucky few who could rest on the shoulders of others like you?

I think I don't want you to use my software, thank you. I won't keep you from it either, though. Because I judge people by what comes out of their mouth, not by what they ended up doing for a living, and even those I disagree with I don't call names, and my software is free for everyone (until I have an idea for something I actually think should pay my mortgage and groceries, then that one title won't be free, but I will be).

This whole thread amazes me because the osdev.org wiki is full of resources that only exist because the contributors value sharing access to knowledge.

You might want to notice that the Wiki is under CC0 license as well, i.e., not Free, just free.

That's a beautiful thing. You aren't obligated to do it of course, but at the same time I don't believe that anyone has a duty to hand over control of their computing (and therefore frequently large aspects of how they live their lives due to the central role computers play in our society) to you just because you demand it.

I started working on the PDCLib in large parts because capital F "Free" libc's it demanded me to hand over control of my computing to the GPL, or dance rings around whatever the GPL of the day was, plus dealing with their toxicity. And I didn't know much about BSD at the time, who were and are making the better product in the first place.

I think the real issue is how many people don't understand that free software does not mean "doesn't cost money".

I think the real issue is that the GPL people are a bunch of arrogant twats who have no idea how to create proper user experience or a sense of community. (They tend to mistake "angry mob" for community...)

I'll accept nonfree software for unimportant stuff like games or whatever, but never for something as critical as my OS.

See, I'm the other way around. I am all kinds of miffed that something like PDCLib doesn't exist since the bloody 80's, because having a (non-capital f) free C library is kind of important.