But they still use libraries under GPL themselves:
> It gets better… Unity itself, both the Editor and the runtime (which means your shipped game) is already using LGPL dependencies! Unity is built on libraries such as Lame, libiconv, libwebsockets and websockify.js (at least). Full list of open-source Unity dependencies here.
So what they hate seem to be "publishers and Unity users using GPL libraries", not using it themselves.
They are very different licenses, so their comment has nothing to do with the article, which is what I was pointing out. Including the LGPL in a comment about the GPL makes as much sense as including Switzerland in a comment about Sweden. It's an easy mistake to make if you aren't very familiar with them, but it's still a mistake, and one which leads you to nonsensical conclusions if you don't correct it.
libVLC the library is LGPL licensed, VLC the application is GPL licensed. This plugin was of course just using libVLC so it being GPL was not the issue. As you said several other libraries unity uses are also LGPL licensed.
Open source is just the transfer of property and capital from well meaning developers straight into the pockets of corporations and billionaires. Developers are well advised to always apply the AGPLv3 to everything they make. It's either AGPLv3 or all rights reserved, everything in between makes no sense.
Your comment makes no sense: first it attacks “open source” with derogatory language, then it strongly recommends using a certain open-source license, and then it returns to attacking “open source” with derogatory language pasted from a clueless blog post by a plonker renowned for his clueless rants.
If there's something wrong with open source software as a class, that thing would almost certainly have to be wrong with the AGPL as well, since it's a central example of the class of open source licenses, and, contrary to your comment, one of the most popular ones. If it's an exception to the generalization, you need to explain why.
So it isn't "slight hyperbole". It's utter incoherence.
If everyone in a classroom but one makes the same mistake, it's not incoherent to say the class screwed up.
And they half explained why AGPL is different, with the other half not being hard to infer. It's the only one that isn't donating code to huge companies, because they can't use it on their servers without sharing back.
Give a tiny bit of benefit of the doubt that they were saying something coherent. Please.
(Their other later comment says they considers AGPL to be in a different category from "open source", and even if that's wrong it actually makes the argument more coherent. They're explicitly criticizing open source licenses other than AGPL.)
Free software and open source software are not the same. AGPLv3 is not an open source license, it is the strongest copyleft free software license available at this point in time.
> certified as an official open source license by the OSI
That just means open source sees itself as a superset of free software. The reality is they have completely different and incompatible values. They are not the same.
> you're saying that "open source is just the transfer of property and capital" and it isn't
Open source licenses are essentially payment in exposure. Well meaning developers are literally giving away their intellectual property in exchange for a copyright notice with their name on it being included in a billion dollar corporation's product. To me that makes no sense whatsoever. The results are predictable and I've seen plenty of people get disillusioned when the reality of it sinks in.
Free software licenses at least attempt to maximize the public good of the software being given away. This actually generates some leverage for the developer.
Not at all. AGPLv3 is a copyleft viral counter-SaaS anti-tivoization license. Licenses like BSD and MIT are basically "just include this copyright notice and disclaimer".
It is true that the two licenses differ significantly, but not in the way you are asserting, namely, that one is an open-source license and the other is not, or that one is a free-software license and the other is not.
The so-called "MIT license" (one of many licenses that have been used by MIT at different times) is also both a free-software license and an open-source license.
> “Open source” is something different: it has a very different philosophy based on different values.
> Its practical definition is different too, but nearly all open source programs are in fact free.
> We explain the difference in Why “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software.
Which is the article I cited in a previous comment. It contains:
> a part of the free software community splintered off and began campaigning in the name of “open source”
> it soon became associated with philosophical views quite different from those of the free software movement
> The two now describe almost the same category of software, but they stand for views based on fundamentally different values
> We in the free software movement don't think of the open source camp as an enemy
> we want people to know we stand for freedom, so we do not accept being mislabeled as open source supporters
> What we advocate is not “open source,” and what we oppose is not “closed source.”
They are not the same.
In any case, this disagreement has nothing to do with the point I'm trying to make. I'm simply comparing the amount of leverage provided by different categories of licenses.
Viral copyleft licenses ensure the free software values are propagated. Corporations want to avoid that and this gives developers leverage. Companies must either publish code or negotiate a deal with the copyright holders.
Permissive licenses give developers no advantage. They don't get paid. Freedoms aren't guaranteed. Corporations can take the code and run. They could wake up on day and realize they dedicated parts of their lives to enriching billionaires for free.
The AGPLv3 is pretty easy for the corporations to comply with, they just have to either use the unmodified code, or give their users access to the modified code. The money will still go to them even with AGPLv3.
You have to go to non-FOSS licenses if you want to change where the money goes, but even that won't help, because if you get popular enough they will just use their giant amount of devs to re-implement your stuff and then beat you at marketing.
> The AGPLv3 is pretty easy for the corporations to comply with
> they just have to either use the unmodified code, or give their users access to the modified code
If it's so easy, then why don't they? Why do they treat it as legal kryptonite?
> You have to go to non-FOSS licenses if you want to change where the money goes
I agree with you. That's why I said "AGPLv3 or all rights reserved".
I don't necessarily want to change where the money goes though. It's about having the power to do whatever you want as the user of the software and especially as the owner of the computer that's running it.
AGPLv3 is simply the license that allows us to give away software while retaining the most possible leverage. Open source licenses just give it all away for literally nothing.
> but even that won't help, because if you get popular enough they will just use their giant amount of devs to re-implement your stuff and then beat you at marketing
That's okay. Spending one's own time and money on something is not exploitative in any way. They could also negotiate exceptions to the GPL with the copyright holders.
FTR, AGPLv3 is considered an Open Source license, perhaps you meant permissive/pushover licenses when you said "Open source licenses just give it all away for literally nothing". Also, permissive licenses have conditions too, although they are easy to comply with, violations of them are still quite common, as they are for GPL-family licenses.
Deliberately going out of your way to put a smaller company out of business seems like shitty behavior to me. I also wonder about the anti-trust angle; Big Tech using their oligopoly in the developer labour market to kill startups that could become competitors.
I never really bought the idea that selling exceptions is ethical, probably better to downgrade to LGPL instead.
> FTR, AGPLv3 is considered an Open Source license
I distinguish free software and open source software due to their different historical roots and values.
I also distinguish licenses based on user/developer centrality. Free software licenses are primarily about users. Permissive licenses are all about developer convenience.
> permissive licenses have conditions too, although they are easy to comply with
It's easy to comply with the AGPLv3 as well. They just have to share source code under the same license and make sure we can use it.
They don't want to comply. They want to keep their code secret. They want to find little loopholes to get out of the contract. They want to create controlled "platforms", corporate digital fiefdoms where only their software can run. They want to limit our freedom and impose their will on us.
Competitors launching a service based on free software isn't the real issue. The problem is being unable to self-host this stuff on our own computers because they control the software and the hardware. It's all about us, the users of the software. Developers don't really matter.
> violations of them are still quite common, as they are for GPL-family licenses
People infringe copyright on a daily basis. It's completely normal. They often do not even realize they're doing it. Happens to proprietary software too.
Copyright is a lost cause. I advocate for its abolition.
Only reason copyleft licenses exist at all is to try to twist copyright into a fake public domain. Still much better than permissive licenses that just pretend copyright doesn't exist without actually abolishing it. Others are only too happy to take advantage of their generosity by going all rights reserved.
> distinguish free software and open source software
The movements are different sure, but when it comes to acceptable licenses, they are pretty much equivalent. Sounds like you are talking about licenses people common associate with each movement though. I agree there is somewhat of a dichotomy, although I feel like at the beginning open source was a bit more of a copyleft thing, and became more associated with permissive/pushover licenses later when GitHub became popular and Big Tech steered folks towards those licenses.
> Competitors launching a service based on free software isn't the real issue.
It is for the companies who are adopting the AGPLv3 in an attempt to be seen as "real open source" again. They don't actually care about users, except to the extent they can get cash from them, to pay back their vulture capitalist funders.
> It's all about us, the users of the software. Developers don't really matter.
Sure, as far as licenses etc go, but developers have to matter to some extent, otherwise you get unmaintained/buggy/nonexistent software.
In a world without copyright law, there would still be proprietary trade secret software, and Free Software. I see the Free Software movement as aspiring to providing a high level of equality of access to a work between both the original author and far downstream recipients. The license is only one aspect of that, the other is the source code, without which you can't have equivalent access to the author. The form that source comes in also matters, since there are forms that can only be modified with proprietary software, and forms that discard information (like machine code exectuables, or lossy video encoding).
That would remove the one possibility of GPL enforcement that we have, since I assume we aren't going to resort to kneecapping violators when copyright goes away :)
Perhaps there would be other non-violent tactics like boycott campaigns or trademarks to mark ethical software that could be effective. We should be doing those now too though, and are to some extent.
> It is for the companies who are adopting the AGPLv3 in an attempt to be seen as "real open source" again.
If it's a problem for them, then they're not really committed to free and open source software. That's how we test them.
> They don't actually care about users, except to the extent they can get cash from them, to pay back their vulture capitalist funders.
Exactly. This is why we cannot fooled by their attempts to open wash their reputation. They're still looking to control and monetize and exploit users at every turn.
> developers have to matter to some extent
Developers are users too.
Users can also hire developers to work on what they need. I've been hired to customize open source software. I even upstreamed the work. Pretty great as far as jobs go. I think this is how professional programming should be like.
> That would remove the one possibility of GPL enforcement that we have
It would also get rid of "anti-circumvention" nonsense and allow
us to copy and distribute software much more freely regardless of attempts to lock things down.
It'd fix many more problems than it'd cause. No need to enforce anything if everything is already free by default. Only one copy is needed for infinite replication.
> Perhaps there would be other non-violent tactics like boycott campaigns or trademarks to mark ethical software that could be effective.
The Open Source Hardware Association has a trademark that projects can use to advertise. It can be revoked if they're not compliant.
This is about the LGPL, which is a very different licence. I’ve not heard of it causing any problems. Glibc is licensed in this way, everything uses that.
I appreciate the correction. It looks like specifically the long double libm functions (things like extended precision square root and logarithm) and the DES implementation from SSLeay are licensed under the LGPL? That seems to conflict with badgersnake's link https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/#license
No surprise here