Talk:Permissive and copyleft licences
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[edit] Terminology
Perhaps the 'Free beer' versus 'Free Speech' thing things to be added to this page - as it often comes up - and is very confusing for non-native speakers who do not realize that the US langauge does not have the wordss gratus and libre. --Anon,
[edit] excluded information
maybe somebody will want to format this a little bit better, but here's a quote from my talk page that probably ought to be here Qwasty 01:10, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Please do not advertise new, unproven licenses on our article pages (esp. ones with obnoxious clauses). Thank you. You might find Wikipedia is not for advertising of interest. --Maru (talk) Contribs 04:56, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what you mean by advertising, but just because a piece of information refers to something that is new, unproven, or obnoxious, does not preclude the information from being valuable and relevant. Incidentally, the BSD license is referred to as being obnoxious in the article text, so clearly personal opinions about obnoxiousness haven't mattered thus far. I only posted a link, but the linked to information is relevant enough that it probably deserves a sentence or two in the article text. I just figured I'd leave that to someone else who cares more. --Qwasty 21:44, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
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- It is referred to as obnoxious in the article only in a quote from the GNU project. And I say it is advertising because when I go google-hunting, I see perhaps three hits in the first two pages that refer to the license itself- and they were added by a "qwasty" or a "zesiger". In short, I don't think this license is at all important or relevant. --Maru (talk) Contribs 23:11, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
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- It's the only hybrid of the BSD and GPL licenses that I know of, so to me, that makes it relevant. How many hits by how many authors makes a certain topic relevant, to you? Do you have any other criteria for relevance? Sorry I'm teasing you, I think what you meant to say is that you don't think it's significant, and with that I'd be compelled to agree somewhat. However, the article is very short, very tightly focused on the interplay between BSD and GPL licenses, and so a person interested in this very specific article could appreciate all information that's relevant to it. When I added a reference to the Zesiger license in the article, it was small and proportional to its significance. If you feel it should be censored, then I suppose I'll yield to your opinion. Qwasty 01:02, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] References...
This article badly needs references and counter-weasel measures, there is far too much "proponents of this" and "it is said by some" and just plain completely unsourced assertions. I know enough about the subject to say ir is pretty accurate, but that isn't the point :-). It could also probably do with being broken up into a couple of sections, currently the lead is very long and dense. NicM 13:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC).
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- Agreed. Within the first paragraph: "Proponents of copyleft-style software licenses such as the GPL argue" "However, it is counter-argued" "it is further argued".--CalPaterson 16:26, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
The article has much less weasel words. The references are meager. The article seems to be a summary of the material in the "External links" section. --71.161.214.252 03:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The rewrite
I started rewriting this page. I'll probably come back later to help finish it, but in case anyones interested, here's as far as i got:
/==Introduction==
Two of the most common free software licenses are the BSD and GPL licenses. There has been continuing discussion over the relative merits of the use of either license in free software projects.
/== Merits of the BSD licences ==
The BSD license essentially allows the user of source code released under this license to act upon it with very few restrictions. This means that code released under this license can be used in both open source and closed source situations.
/==The "Obnoxious" Advertising Clause and other criticism ==
The original BSD license (now called the 4-clause licence) contains a clause requiring acknowledgments to appear in all advertising materials mentioning the software (see BSD license). The GNU project calls this clause "obnoxious" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html), citing the requirement for 75 such acknowledgments when advertising a 1997 version of NetBSD. They also point out that this makes the license incompatible with the GPL because it adds a requirement not present in the GPL. Since then, the clause was officially removed from the original BSD distribution, and other BSD distributions followed suit, but NetBSD still uses the original version of the license.
Richard Stallman, of the GNU Project has stated (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/x.html) that using the BSD licence is disadvantagous in that it allows other people to close the source code to their fork of the software.
/== Merits of the GPL licence ==
The GPL licence makes the following statements in its preamble section:
"The GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users." "To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights."
The GPL is was entended to ensure that software licenced under it can never be incorporated into a "non-free" program.
/== Criticism of the GPL licence ==
- Mostly good, and a lot better than the current version. Just a few comments: I'd add a brief overview of each license in the lead-in, and there must be some stuff can be said about BSD criticisms to balance it a little... I know it is a ridiculous clause, but what did people say about the 75 acknowledgements at the time, and why do NetBSD keep it? surely someone pointed out that required or not, acknowledging contributors is good manners, 75 or no? Also, it certainly needs to explain why RMS thinks closing the source code is a bad thing (under BSD one may not close other people's work, only one's own alterations to it), or at least point to an article that explains it... I believe that the point of view in the BSD camp is that this possibility is a necessary sacrifice for freedom of use, and I'm sure Theo de Raadt at least has made various comments about why they keep doing it despite manufacturers rarely giving back (one reason, at least for OpenSSH, is that it gets good, secure code out there, in use, improving security, an aim that is worth more than code ownership squabbles). Mac OS X would also make a good case study, perhaps: Apple have benefitted from open code under the BSD license, and FreeBSD has received code back from Apple, whether this would have happened under the GPL is unclear. Comparing with IBM's involvement with Linux would be interesting, and GCC has seen corporate involvement, I believe. This may be straying into original research, however, unless someone has already done such a comparison elsewhere. Equally, the merits on the GPL will need a lot more explanation, but it looks like you've hardly started the section, so I won't comment on it. NicM 17:36, 4 February 2006 (UTC).
I challenge the following assertion from the article:
As a result, BSD code can become proprietary software.
BSD code can never "become" proprietary. It can be included in proprietary works, but the original code is still available, and will forever remain available, under the BSD license. I would rewrite it as:
As a result, BSD code can be more easily included in proprietary software.
- I think you're discussing the point to which I wanted to comment. Without starting a flame war, after reading this article (and having no other prior exposure to the differences and details of these two licenses), I don't see how requiring somebody working on a derivation of my work to use my license is less free. In other words, by using the GPL, I am restricting the freedom of another author to use an alternate license, and unless I'm missing something in the details, the BSD license is then more free.
- And in specific reply to the "hoarding" comment in the current closing statement, as mentioned above, one can hoard a derived work in a proprietary context, but no one can hoard away the original, still free, work. This seems to be the entire crux of the argument of the final paragraph. The BSD license in no way inhibits "the growth of free software."
- What if the original DOS was BSD licensed? Then when MS bought it, MS-DOS would have become proprietary while the previous DOS would've remained free and forkable, thus preventing a monopoly, no? Now, if the original DOS was GPL licensed, MS probably would not have bought it, and who knows what would've happened after that.
- On the other hand, Wikipedia is in GPL territory, and the home team usually wins. ;) Xaxafrad 07:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm confused, why is there an objection to the verb "become". Once distributed as free software, the source code remains free software. However, software under non-copyleft licenses can be compiled with or without modification and made available without the source code, and becomes proprietary software. It has nothing to do with being "included" or not. That's an additional semantic that confuses the explanation. I understand the angle people are trying to drive home, but it's making the explanation worse, rather than clearing it up.
The debate over quantities of "freeness" will never be won on this discussion board, we can only cite others's arguments in the article, but I think a point that is made about copyleft works is that they increase freedom by protecting the work from being distributed as a non-free work and to preserve the freedoms of the original author, other contributors, and users of the software to access permanent free versions of the software. --69.54.29.23 20:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Make this an article
The labels "BSD" and "GPL" were misrepresenting both sides of the debate, so I've moved to "permissive" and "copyleft". "BSD" was a bad label because it wrongly excludes Apache, MIT, X11, and others. "GPL" was a bad lable because it wrongly excluded other copyleft free software licences, and it excluded all the copyleft free documentation and free artistic work licences (such as some Creative Commons licences).
I've also started reviewing the content and added info about non-software works.
And I've added links to this article from other relevent articles - hopefully we'll get more editors, more work, and more peer review. Let's go! Gronky 14:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] What OR? What clean-up?
The two tags at the top of the page say that this article contains original research, and that it needs clean-up, and each tag says that more details can be found on the talk page - but the person/people who added those tags haven't written any details on the talk page, so how is anyone supposed to address the complaints if the complainer is silent? I'll leave the tags there for a while, but please, if you added them, just say what problem you see with the article and I'll be able to try to fix it. Gronky 19:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- I don't remember if I added the tags or not, but the article is absolutely full of weasel words and seriously lacks cites given its subject. NicM 23:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC).
