With a recent change that removed dialog in favor of bsddialog, FreeBSD has now retired the last piece of GPL-licensed code in its base system. Although the impact of this change will be minor for …
You are very shrilly yourself. Plenty of companies have shown it isn’t hard to take GPL without contributed back. There are high odds you are using a chrome based browser to read this - did you know that is a GPL project because once upon a time it was khtml (from the KDE project), but the changes were never contributed back. Many embedded companies have their own fork of linux as well - their changes are all available as the GPL requires, but the changes won’t be accepted to the kernel as is and so the fact that they are available is useless.
Meanwhile there are many companies using FreeBSD who choose to contribute their changes back, just like some companies choose to contribute back to various GPL projects they use.
There are high odds you are using a chrome based browser to read this - did you know that is a GPL project because once upon a time it was khtml (from the KDE project), but the changes were never contributed back.
Chromium is what you’re ignoring here, and they are contributed back.
Many embedded companies have their own fork of linux as well - their changes are all available as the GPL requires, but the changes won’t be accepted to the kernel as is and so the fact that they are available is useless.
And that’s fine, if someone ever did want to pick it up, they could.
Meanwhile there are many companies using FreeBSD who choose to contribute their changes back.
I didn’t say there weren’t people/companies contributing to BSD. I am saying that since they aren’t required to, BSD isn’t getting the level of support it deserves. The companies contributing to GPL projects are required by law to release the source, so they might as well contribute to the project. I can guarantee there would be a lot less progress in linux/gnuland if releasing the source wasn’t required.
Basically his argument is that because some companies choose to contribute back to BSD projects even though they aren’t required to, and because some GPL projects choose not to merge some changes from downstream forks, the GPL and BSD licenses are effectively the same. I think the flaw in this logic should be pretty apparent. I think the GPLv2 vs. GPLv3 debate is a lot more interesting, particularly since Linus has come out against GPLv3.
Another way to phrase that is that companies can choose to meaningulfully contribute back, or not, with either project, and there are plenty of examples of each combination.
No, you have failed to understand how either license works. Companies are forced to contribute back in the case of the GPL and the project can choose to accept that or not. In the case of the BSD license companies can choose whether to contribute back and if they do, then the project has the option to accept it or not. The GPL makes it always the choice of the project, while the BSD makes it always the choice of the company.
You have failed to understand the difference between idealism and practice. There are more companies that use Linux without ever contributing back than those that do. Those that do do so because it makes practical business sense to improve the upstream project they rely on. Any company that has decided they don’t want to share some code just builds it in a binary module, firmware, or application to sit on top.
You can look it and go “yeah, it is shit, but I see what it is doing, it is better done like this” and push that upstream. Saves time reverse engineering.
Um, so yay for companies that have stolen open code and not contributed back? What even is your angle here?
In the end every licence is only as strong as your lawyers. And even if they don’t get merged into the main tree, their code being available is still a big win for users and devs alike
You are very shrilly yourself. Plenty of companies have shown it isn’t hard to take GPL without contributed back. There are high odds you are using a chrome based browser to read this - did you know that is a GPL project because once upon a time it was khtml (from the KDE project), but the changes were never contributed back. Many embedded companies have their own fork of linux as well - their changes are all available as the GPL requires, but the changes won’t be accepted to the kernel as is and so the fact that they are available is useless.
Meanwhile there are many companies using FreeBSD who choose to contribute their changes back, just like some companies choose to contribute back to various GPL projects they use.
Chromium is what you’re ignoring here, and they are contributed back.
And that’s fine, if someone ever did want to pick it up, they could.
I didn’t say there weren’t people/companies contributing to BSD. I am saying that since they aren’t required to, BSD isn’t getting the level of support it deserves. The companies contributing to GPL projects are required by law to release the source, so they might as well contribute to the project. I can guarantee there would be a lot less progress in linux/gnuland if releasing the source wasn’t required.
So your argument is that because there are some exceptions to a rule, the opposite of that rule is true.
Basically his argument is that because some companies choose to contribute back to BSD projects even though they aren’t required to, and because some GPL projects choose not to merge some changes from downstream forks, the GPL and BSD licenses are effectively the same. I think the flaw in this logic should be pretty apparent. I think the GPLv2 vs. GPLv3 debate is a lot more interesting, particularly since Linus has come out against GPLv3.
Another way to phrase that is that companies can choose to meaningulfully contribute back, or not, with either project, and there are plenty of examples of each combination.
No, you have failed to understand how either license works. Companies are forced to contribute back in the case of the GPL and the project can choose to accept that or not. In the case of the BSD license companies can choose whether to contribute back and if they do, then the project has the option to accept it or not. The GPL makes it always the choice of the project, while the BSD makes it always the choice of the company.
You have failed to understand the difference between idealism and practice. There are more companies that use Linux without ever contributing back than those that do. Those that do do so because it makes practical business sense to improve the upstream project they rely on. Any company that has decided they don’t want to share some code just builds it in a binary module, firmware, or application to sit on top.
Those are not exceptions.
The problem is that with GPL we can at least cherrypick the features and implement them ourselves, with BSD, everthing get closed and you get fucked
What do you mean “never contributed back”? All of these projects give their source code back, as the GPL requires.
The source is available but not in a form that will be accepted upstream. Often for good reason, but that doesn’t do you any good.
So? It’s not like upstream should have to accept everything every fork does.
What is the practical difference between code not accepted and code hidden?
You can look it and go “yeah, it is shit, but I see what it is doing, it is better done like this” and push that upstream. Saves time reverse engineering.
While someone can, in practice that doesn’t happen in most cases
Does happen though. Better to have the option and not often use it, than not have the option at all.
The practical difference is that the code is there for whoever wants to use it.
Um, so yay for companies that have stolen open code and not contributed back? What even is your angle here?
In the end every licence is only as strong as your lawyers. And even if they don’t get merged into the main tree, their code being available is still a big win for users and devs alike