I think the key property of the GPL is its virality. It's part of the vision that if I can use some software, I can also change it, to adapt it to my needs, to learn from it, to build something on top of it. I can disassemble my bike, re-assemble it, change it, build on top of it. I want to do that with my browser, my OS kernel and my image viewer too.
That this is connected to how "valuable" code is, is in a sense a happy coincidence. The conditions are attached and entangled because this forces people to listen and pay attention.
A more "permissive" license (like BSD) is weakening that point. It allows you to reuse code but does not require the re-user to allow the above mentioned openness. So is kind of missing the point, from that perspective.
> It allows you to reuse code but does not require the re-user to allow the above mentioned openness
That is the dogma, but in practice it is false. Khtml was GPL, that didn't stop Apple from forking it in such a way that their changes couldn't be reused. In practice many who change BSD software find it worth while to contribute their changes back - so they can continue to use the latest version instead of maintaining their own fork.
Well I agree in that regard, but I think in the ideal world everything would just be open, and you would want to incentivise openness so it ends up as the natural state. In a sense by decoupling these issues. Eg Microsoft Windows OS could just be open source. There is some value to having windows itself, but the more valuable thing is the horde of programmers, and all the other resources behind it.
I believe that to understand GPL and FSF philosophy, you have to look at software from the point of view of the end user, not programmers.
> There is some value to having windows itself, but the more valuable thing is the horde of programmers, and all the other resources behind it.
This is partly true. What's valuable is for code to do things for people. For that to happen, you need programmers who can make that code, and maintain it over time. The way companies make money on proprietary software is by controlling the intersection - they control the access to code and programmers who can work on it, so if you, as end user, want your computer to do something, you have to pay them. If you want the program to do something else, you have to pay them (or their partners, friends, subsidiaries) to make the modifications/extensions.
GPL exists to defeat this stranglehold. It does it in two ways. First, like permissive licenses, it ensures you can modify the code yourself, or commission some programmers to do that for you. Secondly, unlike permissive licenses, it ensures that you can't just turn around and lock down your improvements, preventing other end-users from doing to the improved version the same thing you just did to the base version. In this way, it ensures the money can only flow from users requesting work to programmers doing the work - it removes the ability to seek rent for the work already done. It removes control over users from the hands of companies and software developers.
Permissive licenses are obviously preferred by software industry, because they give more control to us, software developers, at the expense of end users.
This sounds good. How do you imagine getting there? GPL people think that contributing to this ideal is only worth it if you also require all participants to take part in the ideal. Thereby granting that at least the GPL software stays in that ideal world.
It's definitely a tough call. Maybe this is an industry scale problem. The GPL existing hasn't stopped walled gardens from developing, and open source is falling behind in many regards.
Maybe the license isn't the correct place to address this. I'm not sure what the solution is, though...
Proprietary is, I think, the "default" way how people always did things. Keeping the recipe secret is one of the moats that help the enterprise stay relevant. So naturally, "it works" and I think it always will. IMO, this is why it's important to keep the open source stuff open. Closed doesn't usually turn into open, so why should open turn into closed? I think the legal system is exactly the place to address this, in fact, I think the governments themselves should drive the development, as it's their own interest to really own their software and hardware stack.
I don't remember who but someone here on HN once compared closed source vs open source to old school secretive alchemy guilds vs real science.
I really liked that comparison and I've thought about it a lot since. And here it's worth asking, how did we go from alchemy to science? How did we end up figuring out that openness and transparency is beneficial?
I know one thing, it wasn't with licenses. But I'm really curious, because I want to live in the world where open source is the default. I just don't know how we get there.
How is real science open? Aaron Swartz, for one, killed himself after receiving the punishment for "liberating" academic articles from the digital library he had access to. I also don't see corporations releasing the results of their precious r&d, although, I don't really have insight into this topic.
Licenses only matter because there's trademarks and copyright. In places where IP isn't protected as much, they also would not matter, in a way that they would not be necessary. But because stuff can be copyrighted, there also must be a way to share that, aside from liberating it from the copyright of course.
I think a close real-life analogue is a potluck. The custom requires that participants bring some food, and in turn can consume from what the others brought. And it's a nice old thing too, with etymology dating back to the 16th century.
That this is connected to how "valuable" code is, is in a sense a happy coincidence. The conditions are attached and entangled because this forces people to listen and pay attention.
A more "permissive" license (like BSD) is weakening that point. It allows you to reuse code but does not require the re-user to allow the above mentioned openness. So is kind of missing the point, from that perspective.