@mtknn@cybre.space
You are correct that we don't live in a perfect world, but GPL is not a license for perfect world. It's a specifically designed weapon to combat proprietary software. And you should use it today if you can. In perfect world nobody would need GPL.
How is that relevant? I would very much like to live off writing GPL software, up until it's no longer necessary, when open source would become the norm. I'm sure some people do live off writing GPL software even today, and I envy them.
GPL is not designed to guarantee anyone's personal success, it's designed to prevent proprietary software from exploiting people and by extension the industry. My point was that once that is achieved, people would have more ethical opportunities to make money. I guess, I should clarify, that I'll never blame anyone for not using GPL, especially if their livelihood depended on it, but GPL is the most direct path to freedom, and only known way of defeating the established monopolies.
Regarding GPL not working, I think the we have open source software today largely thanks to GPL. OSS movement sprouted out of FOSS movement, as the existing industry's reaction to it, aiming to minimize damage. It was the last chance for proprietary software companies to keep up with FOSS, and they capitalized on it.
@mtknn@cybre.space
You present no logical arguments, only short statements and call my attempts to explain my reasoning a dogma? ok...
What you just alluded to with "not willing to do it yourself" in this context basically sounds like "If you're not a radical extremist then you're wrong". Nice argument... (I guess at least it is one).
I use GPL on all of my personal projects, and I would accept a job on a GPL project, even if it paid less than my current job, as long as I can live off of it and provide for my family. I'm sorry I don't just stop doing anything and die for GPL. That makes everything I said clearly wrong.
@mtknn@cybre.space
I never said it is normal outcome today. It is not a normal outcome to be paid for working on permissive licensed software either. I said that the norm is proprietary software, and the norm needs to be broken, and GPL is a way to do it, while permissive licensed projects only accept and foster it, occasionally getting some "breadcrumbs"(or stars.. yeah mostly stars) in return. I said it is not easy. I said I don't blame anyone for not doing it if their livelihood depends on it. I said once proprietary software stops being the norm, and GPL becomes the norm(or is no longer necessary), it would be much easier for a developer to earn money without participating in exploitation of users and reinforcement of monopolies. I don't understand why you chose to ignore all of that, and now talk as if I said that "use GPL and you will immediately get a lot of money".
Going back to my original comment. Those are GPL battleships lined up in the docks, not GPL sacks of gold.
@mtknn@cybre.space
OK, I think that is a much more reasonable stance.
About the other point, that the GPL works. There is not a lot of evidence that it is doing what it's intended to do over the last 10 years. Many big tech companies run tons of GPL software -- perhaps even the majority of many company's code in use is GPL -- and yet users have less power than ever. Why?
Well, I wouldn't claim to be an expert in economics or history, but in my opinion what freedom we do have today is thanks to GPL and proponents of GPL. However many big influential projects that adopted GPL initially didn't really understand it. For many of them money and the project's success is more important that user freedom. This includes linux and I recently leanred xorg, and I'm sure many others, that while on the surface adopted GPL, in reality just misunderstood it (or at some point changed leadership that did not understand/want it), so later on supported any attempts to circumvent it. They didn't uprgade to GPL 3, or AGPL, as those were designed to combat new ways to circumvent the old license. As such I think GPL was never really widely adopted.
Meanwhile the monopolists threw huge amounts of money at OSS movement, both to develop it and market it as "better" and "more free"(as in "we're still free to exploit you... I mean.. no of course not, nevermind... freedom!"), their only agenda being "free/cheap workforce to work on their projects, the relevant parts of which will forever remain proprietary".
The majority of the consumer market stayed oblivious to these realities, and is still happy to shop in the virtual shops for virtual goods and automated services.
TLDR: most people don't understand GPL or FOSS to this day, even if they claim they did and tried it and it didn't work for its intended purpose.
@mtknn@cybre.space
I believe he admitted himself that it was a wrong decision, and he's not a lawyer and he just didn't know better at the time, and while he understand the philosophy of FOSS movement he doesn't agree with it.
It appears that his primary motivation for using it was so that other companies don't steal it from him personally, and that he remained the owner of the project, that's it.
All I'll tell him is that he cares about his own success(and of his project) more than about the freedom of its users, and I don't think he will disagree with that.
@mtknn@cybre.space
I meant understand it as in right now. Why aren't you using some other kernel, then? (Or, are you?)
@cancel Ah I see. All that story was in context of justifying not upgrading to GPL v3. linux is still GPL 2 cause they can't get rid of GPL 2, cause even though outdated, it's still one mean and vicious battleship, you can't get rid of that easily.
Regarding what I use:
Well linux is still free software, even if it wasn't really intended to be :D
For what it's worth I use linux libre, on my main machine. If gnu hurd ever comes out I'll definitely move to it. But I'm generally not very good at system setup and configuration, so I just stick to what is easiest and is approved by FSF(currently Trisquel).
That said I still use the blobbed kernel on my entertainment/work machine. I see no harm in that(except harm to me, and I'm allowed to do that). I'm not a purist.
And the very most dangerous organizations give 0 craps about FOSS rules written on paper either way. Do you think the North Korean or Chinese government cares what some nerds wrote in a text file alongside the code they want?
@cancel You are taking this completely out of context. I didn't say GPL will save the world and stop all crime. I said it will stop software monopolies that exploit the rights of the users of the software without needing to break laws or even conditions of random text files.
Also, while I admit I didn't look very hard and that it's absolutely irrelevant, I didn't find any references to violation of GPL in that link. Even if some organization or individuals do violate GPL, it's still not a valid argument. It's equivalent of saying "some people break the law, therefore law is useless". Most megacorps are terrified of GPL, and they clearly demonstrate that by never acknowledging the existence of FOSS movement or directly/publicly confronting it, and pouring a lot of money in proprietary or permissively licensed alternatives of existing GPL software.
You're mixing up my two points.
ICE isn't performing any GPL violations, as far as we know. That's kind of the point. It's not stopping them.
The other point is that the most dangerous organizations aren't going to care either way.
Megacorps aren't "terrified" of the GPL. Two of the largest companies in the world actively develop GPL software, and then simultaneously remove control from users.
@namark Ethics isn't something you can write down on a piece of paper like a set of programming language rules and point your finger at someone else and yell if they break the rules as if that solves the problem. They will either not care, or change their behavior in a way that technically complies with the exact rules you wrote.
Using contract copyright law to try to correct perceived societal problems. Does it work? It doesn't seem to be stopping the big problems.
@namark I'm not saying the entire thing should be abandoned.
Well, maybe I am. GPL has just driven people to run all software on remote computers and then serve the last few percent of it through web browsers, which have become so large and complicated that nobody can actually write their own or even compile it on their own computers.
@namark AGPL will fix it? The same way GPL3 fixed GPL2? Won't the same thing just happen again?
@cancel So, because some things didn't work out people should just give up?
I don't see how GPL has driven people to run software on remote computers. Can you explain? Most GPL software I know of is designed to run on personal computers, but I'm might be biased because I'm not in the field of networking.
@namark Servers are all running GNU stuff, Linux, webserver software, ffmpeg
Users are all running Chrome or Chromium or Firefox to access this stuff, none of which are actually controllable by the user because they're incredibly complicated and unwieldy and can't even be compiled on regular consumer computers.
No licenses violated, users still have little control.
@cancel This would have been possible and even easier to do with permissively licensed software. I don't understand how GPL specifically made this possible or encouraged this. Most people run windows, and most servers would have been running windows, if not for GPL software you mentioned in my opinion. Most people on windows also run browsers. Why didn't proprietary software save them from that?
I really think GPL has nothing to do with web browsers, taking over native apps. I don't see the connection.
I believe I didn't mix up the two points and addressed them both, each in it's own paragraph, but maybe I was not clear enough.
I don't know why are you talking about some general notion ethical problems. The GPL solves a specific problem, that problem is called proprietary software. Proprietary software is not some nebulous concept, the mechanisms that make it what it is are very specifically codified in law. GPL attempts to circumvent this law by very spocific legal verbiage. There is nothing vague here, at least not as vague as general ethics.
If you are not familiar with the specific set of human rights and ethical problems(which is not all human rights and ethical problems that ever existed or will exist) associated with proprietary software, I suggest you read up on FOSS movement, cause I can't really explain that better than it was already explained many times before. TLDR: it creates an unnatural and very strong monopoly that is based on violating people's freedoms. One specific instance of a bad thing, not all possible bad things ever.
I say GPL stops proprietary software. You argue "GPL doesn't solve all problems of the world".
I don't understand. You don't even say what's wrong with proprietary software.
@cancel hmmm... I assumed you are familiar with the FOSS movement, and the problems with proprietary software it usually describes. Again I suggest you to seek other sources, because I'm clearly not explaining well, but here is a quick rundown:
Users can't run it on their machines freely, as they wish. They can't modify or fix it. They can't share it. They can't verify what it's doing.
I'm not sure if that's clear. These fundamental violations result in greater consequences I tried to outline before, such as formulation of the monopolies, mass surveilance, censorship. As more and more aspects of our life starts to involve software more and more violations are made possible through the same mechanisms.
@namark I can't run gmail on my machine. I can't run YouTube on my machine. Yet they're both powered by GPL software.
@cancel I didn't say it won in general, It was more like a small victory, in niche market. It was mostly thanks to linux, and I already explained why even linux is problematic.
You claim that gmail and youtube run on GPL software. Can you tall exactly what GPL software. Cause if it's just linux than same argument of it not really being GPL (or not wanting to be GPL) applies.
@namark @mtknn
i would suggest not going around telling people how to live their lives if you aren't willing to do it yourself
> GPL is the most direct path to freedom, and only known way of defeating the established monopolies
this is dogma