Heater,
I guess loath way be wrong? The logical reasoning part is because it's viral to the extreme. The main reason I feel even stronger hate for GPL is that many of the GPL zealots are unreasonable. They want all software everywhere to be open and free. I disagree. Also, because I am in general not allowed to use it any GPL licensed thing in much of my coding work. I have found many cool things I would have loved to use, that could have saved me time, but because it was GPL'd I could not.
Zealotness can be a perception thing too. To put it bluntly, you've basically been suckered into thinking they are wrong no matter what. Which sounds remarkably like something ...
I believe the term "troll" also gets used in similar instances. I've certainly been labelled that, or something equally ghoulish, before.
That is neither good nor bad. It's just a deal, take it or leave it. If you think it's a good deal or not depends on what your aims and values are.
...the GPL zealots are unreasonable
Perhaps they, but the zealots don't define or change the thing itself. Would the Propeller be a worse device if it's users were all over the top crazy
fanatical about it. Insisting it is used is in all kinds unsuitable places?
...because I am in general not allowed to use it any GPL licensed thing in much of my coding work. I have found many cool things I would have loved to use, that could have saved me time, but because it was GPL'd I could not.
Wait a minute Roy. I can't believe you just said that. If you happened upon some source code from Microsoft or other commercial venture with some cool things in it, would you expect to be able to just lift that out and use it?. No, it's not licensed to you to do that. Why should expect to be able to get away with that with code under some other license?
This is just normal copyright stuff, in the music or literary world you don't get to just lift tunes or text out of one place and use them in another without agreeing to the appropriate license. I'm sure you are not meaning to be a pirate.
Heater,
I did not mean to imply that I would just steal a snippet of code and use it. I meant say someone made a function that does something neat, they post it on a blog or forum and encourage people to use it, but they make it GPL licensed. in the commercial projects I work on, I cannot use that code because of the license. If it were MIT licensed I could use the code, and would give credit in the credits for the software (either in the app, or in the manual, or both if applicable). If it were available to license for use in a commercial product (as are many "middleware" type libraries, then I could at least make a case to the boss that we should pay for the license so I could use it.
Also, I most certainly would not expect to be able to use something from Microsoft (unless I was an MS employee and working on an MS product internally, or had a license to do so).
Well that comes to license compatibility doesn't it. The GPL is explicitly designed to demand openness for the explicit purpose of fostering growth and improvements of the software.
This is naturally going to be incompatible with licenses that demand closed handling.
Ah, OK Roy we are back to GPL vs MIT vs whatever for snippets forum posts (as opposed to lifting code out of a complete GPL program or project).
In which case I agree. GPLed forum posts would make the forum unusable for many. And that would diminish the usefulness for all as there would be less participants.
So, I would "loath" and "hate" that the GPL be used that way. (as opposed to "loath" and "hate" the GPL which I happen to think is a very fine and worth while idea)
Whilst I'd like to think all forum posts are effectively MIT licensed, after all if you post it it will get used if it's of any use and you did voluntarily put it on display to the public,
I'm still not sure that Parallax insisting on any license here is a god idea.
Strangely enough this debate has been going on about github. Projects hosted there can have any license they like, or non specified. Some have suggested that this or that license be a condition of hosting a project there. I hope that does not happen.
Yeah, I guess I don't hate the GPL itself so much as how it's used/abused.
I doubt Parallax will insist on a license for code posted in forum postings. Based on my conversations with Chip, I am pretty sure he would be strongly against the idea. I personally think it's right out!
It occurs to me I have spent too long pondering licensing issues over the past few days, due to this thread or that. Time to get back to trying to get Forth to do anything useful, a challenge I cannot neglect.
After reading thru all of this I will try to summarize
- like with LMM (as Phil posted the link) Bill claimed his Idea TO PREVENT anybody else from patenting it. He stated this a couple of times.
This is noble and we should not argue with him.
- evanh has a agenda (political or not) that Open Source and the GPL is the Solution to the greater goals of the world.
This is noble and we should not argue with him.
- idbruce is (my guess) the most informed one here (thanks God not a lawyer) - alas nobody is listening to him.
BUT
This is about a NEW product from Parallax. We all are waiting and hoping for years for it to arrive.
This is NOT about Open Source.
Parallax IS a company - even a very Open Minded. And they need to get ths product out. WITHOUT patent/openSource or other trolls.
YES. Roy is right. I also worked for over 20 years as a programmer and NONE of those entities I worked for where able or willing to GPL there sources. Nobody does.
The OBEX is MIT. Why not the Forum also? You don't need to post your source.
This whole thread is very disturbing and not helpful to anyone.
1: You see some code that you would like to use because it'll solve a problem in your design. The copyright owner says "sure, you can use my code freely if you're willing to do the same with _your_ code which uses my code". That's fair, and something the copyright owner is clearly in the right to say. It's _his_ code, he decides the terms. After all, you don't have any right to anyone else's code unless the author gives you that right, and the author can apply conditions. GPL is based on copyright law, that's how it can exist.
2: LGPL is very different and actually one of the best licenses around as far as commercial entities are concerned. It let's you use tons of neat libraries for free, without having to disclose a single line of your own code, _and_ it prevents you from doing the mistake of cut-and-paste use: The code stays in the library as well as any enhancements you do to it, and that library can keep improving (by yourself and by others). Very clean, very productive.
3: Some of you keep forgetting that it's the copyright owner who added the GLP license. The copyright owner is free to provide additional licenses. At our company, for example, we _did_ find some GPL code we would like to use (a fast FFT), but in an application where we would not be able to fulfill the GPL requirements. So we simply contacted the copyright owner and bought a commercial license. No problem. In a different case the copyright owner simply changed his GPL license to LGPL after we contacted him (as his code was a library already this was a simple step).
4: It's been stated in some posts above that "nobody [as in commercial software companies] are able or willing to GPL their code". That's not true at all. I would go so far as to say that's rubbish. For a wide overview, look at who's behind most of the code in the Linux kernel these days, and many of the major *nix applications and tools. And I've been working for a software company for 30 years, we're in the space industry and in this industry there are more and more projects where GPL'ed code is used and developed. We have _no_ problems with having both closed and guarded software projects but also other projects where code is developed to be provided as GPL. These projects are often collaborations between different (often international) partners. What we do though is to keep a clear understanding of how all this works. Real knowledge about licensing and copyright laws is better than knee-jerk reactions (thus my seminar with the company IP lawyer that I mentioned in an earlier posting). And oh, we also contribute to a few GPL projects in general (often tools we use), and MIT-licensed libraries we use. Many companies do.
Can we leave further GPL discussions out of this thread please? The title of the thread is about if code posted in the forum should be released as MIT or public domain, there's nothing about GPL in that title, so that's a side track. I hope what I wrote above would be the last mentioning of it. There's no need for more GPL bashing.
I would just like to add one thing about snippets - the FSF itself acknowledges that small snippets are not considered to need a copyright, the story is longer but what it boils down to is that if you provide a bug fix or something to their code you won't need to go through the copyright process they use for FSF-owned code if your addition is down to 10 lines or so (IIRC - but it's something in that range). So why not say that we stop worrying about having to add any license to all those snippets that people post? After all, snippets dominate here, not full applications or libraries, those usually end up elsewhere and are just referenced (although sometimes attached) here.
So, did the original question from the title of this thread ever get answered?
As bruce pointed out, any license is just another tool, and the tool should be appropriate for what you want to accomplish, and different tools are for different purposes.
When we post code in the forums, we want to show it to other folks, and maybe get some feedback. Mission accomplished. Is any license needed?
If code is posted in the forums, could anybody make a claim preventing the author or anyone else from using the posted code? Has this ever come up in real life? That is, has a forum user posted code, and a troll tried to stop the author from using his own code? It strikes me as not possible, and so we would not have to spend much effort to prepare for it.
So, did the original question from the title of this thread ever get answered?
As bruce pointed out, any license is just another tool, and the tool should be appropriate for what you want to accomplish, and different tools are for different purposes.
When we post code in the forums, we want to show it to other folks, and maybe get some feedback. Mission accomplished. Is any license needed?
If code is posted in the forums, could anybody make a claim preventing the author or anyone else from using the posted code? Has this ever come up in real life? That is, has a forum user posted code, and a troll tried to stop the author from using his own code? It strikes me as not possible, and so we would not have to spend much effort to prepare for it.
I don't think it ever really was answered. I'm not sure what will work or if it's even possible to create a truely open forum for sharing ideas.
I released CLMM as MIT, not because I really want to lay claim to it, but to prevent someone from doing what Bill Henning has done with P2BCEE.
I get the very distinct feeling I've ticked a lot of you off, that wasn't my intent.
The way I see it is we are having people rushing out to lay claim to screws and nails because they know we all want to build houses.
When I buy a P2 or any other component I want to be free to use at least the majority of it's features, not have to navigate a minefield of different claims and licenses to every little novel feature of the chip.
I think we are giving people more power than copyright implies and that those people should spend the money and effort to obtain a patent if that is really appropriate, otherwise we are letting the school yard bully tell us what games we can play.
I understand attribution and have no problem giving it, but asking for attribution for "screw and nails" is over the top.
My intent is to make the forum a safe place to keep up with the P1 and P2 as well as other Parallax products without the fear of seeing something I didn't want to see.
When I look at 3rd party code I can review it's features and licensing and if it's right buy it, or not, but I'm still free to buy something else or roll my own.
We seem to have a standard here that says if something is posted in this forum you are now bound to it's license terms, even if you didn't read the code.
That doesn't seem to make this a place that commerical customers of Parallax are safe to visit.
I apologize if having this discussion is uncomfortable for some, but I do think it needs to be had.
C.W.
Note: "school yard bully" may be a bit too strong, but I'm not sure what other words would fit.
If nothing else, I hope this thread has made people more aware of copyrights and the implications of licensing. Without any doubt, I truly felt the topic was worthy of debate. In all honesty, I can appreciate the desire for a blanket MIT policy, but I just don't see it as being practical, legal, or truly in the best interest of all forum members.
While considering this thread yesterday, I came up with another possible scenario, for which I would like you to consider, which is as follows:
(I have a particular person in mind with this scenario, but I will not mention their name, because I am fairly certain they would not want me associating their name with this thread, so for the sake of discussion, we will call this person John Doe)
John Doe is an active forum member, and he is probably one of the smartest coders in bunch, if not the smartest, because he never asks for help, yet he is always helping others. Now let's say John has been working in the peace and quiet of his own home, developing a section of code (body of work) which will open of a very wide array of new uses from Propeller 1 (ONE)'s architecture. Being one of the smartest coders in the bunch, he did not ask for anyones help, because he did not need it. Now of course this is just theory and of course impossible, but lets say that his code for the Propeller 1, will optimize the Propeller 1, to make it more efficient and robust than the Propeller 2 will ever hope to be. Since he has worked long and hard on this code, he writes his own license, which basically says that you can use his code privately or commercially and freely distribute it, but it must not be modified in any fashion. With John being a very decent guy, after drafting his license, he wants to share his creation with the rest of his friends within the Parallax forums.
Okay, now I ask you, in all good conscience, can you honestly tell me that you would not want access to that code, just because it had limitations of no modifications?
If nothing else, I hope this thread has made people more aware of copyrights and the implications of licensing. Without any doubt, I truly felt the topic was worthy of debate. In all honesty, I can appreciate the desire for a blanket MIT policy, but I just don't see it as being practical, legal, or truly in the best interest of all forum members.
While considering this thread yesterday, I came up with another possible scenario, for which I would like you to consider, which is as follows:
(I have a particular person in mind with this scenario, but I will not mention their name, because I am fairly certain they would not want me associating their name with this thread, so for the sake of discussion, we will call this person John Doe)
John Doe is an active forum member, and he is probably one of the smartest coders in bunch, if not the smartest, because he never asks for help, yet he is always helping others. Now let's say John has been working in the peace and quiet of his own home, developing a section of code (body of work) which will open of a very wide array of new uses from Propeller 1 (ONE)'s architecture. Being one of the smartest coders in the bunch, he did not ask for anyones help, because he did not need it. Now of course this is just theory and of course impossible, but lets say that his code for the Propeller 1, will optimize the Propeller 1, to make it more efficient and robust than the Propeller 2 will ever hope to be. Since he has worked long and hard on this code, he writes his own license, which basically says that you can use his code privately or commercially and freely distribute it, but it must not be modified in any fashion. With John being a very decent guy, after drafting his license, he wants to share his creation with the rest of his friends within the Parallax forums.
Okay, now I ask you, in all good conscience, can you honestly tell me that you would not want access to that code, just because it had limitations of no modifications?
Sure it was, my answer was NO
Bruce
Easy answer, no I would not want access.
Why? Because I don't want to take potential solutions to future problems off the plate by looking at restricted source.
I am just saying this person wants to give his source code as a gift to other forum members, but he does not want his source code modified, that is the scenario, irregardless of what I want.
Okay, now I ask you, how many people do you honestly think will believe that reply?
That doesn't matter to me.
It was already hinted at in a previous reply those wanting MIT licensing probably wouldn't do the same themselves, I hope I put that to rest, at least in my case with the CLMM.
Then it is not a gift. Doing that here is expensive for reasons already given Bruce. And they can do that with a simple note, fetch it here, enjoy under the terms of license X, leaving you completely free to benefit however you can.
All I have ever contributed is MIT, BTW. The things I can't do that with did not appear here.
If his code allows you to do things on Propeller 1 that others thought were impossible, and it opened up a wide array of new features, why shouldn't it be considered a gift? The person is not asking for any royalties or recognition, just providing users with news methods to use their Propeller 1 chips, and asking for no modifications in return.
The thing is, I didn't do it for the applause, I did it because it seems it may be useful and I want to see it left open for others to use and improve.
I won't deny that recognition, especially from ones peers, is nice, but I like it best when it is voluntary.
Let's say he missed something, and it falls short of what you need, now that you have seen the source thus agreeing to his license terms, you can never do your own version.
If such as solution existed, and cannot be modifed per license, then it should be released as an executable, so no source need be divulged.
In this case if it doesn't end up suiting the needs of the project, you are still free to roll your own.
Comments
I guess loath way be wrong? The logical reasoning part is because it's viral to the extreme. The main reason I feel even stronger hate for GPL is that many of the GPL zealots are unreasonable. They want all software everywhere to be open and free. I disagree. Also, because I am in general not allowed to use it any GPL licensed thing in much of my coding work. I have found many cool things I would have loved to use, that could have saved me time, but because it was GPL'd I could not.
I believe the term "troll" also gets used in similar instances. I've certainly been labelled that, or something equally ghoulish, before.
fanatical about it. Insisting it is used is in all kinds unsuitable places? Wait a minute Roy. I can't believe you just said that. If you happened upon some source code from Microsoft or other commercial venture with some cool things in it, would you expect to be able to just lift that out and use it?. No, it's not licensed to you to do that. Why should expect to be able to get away with that with code under some other license?
This is just normal copyright stuff, in the music or literary world you don't get to just lift tunes or text out of one place and use them in another without agreeing to the appropriate license. I'm sure you are not meaning to be a pirate.
I did not mean to imply that I would just steal a snippet of code and use it. I meant say someone made a function that does something neat, they post it on a blog or forum and encourage people to use it, but they make it GPL licensed. in the commercial projects I work on, I cannot use that code because of the license. If it were MIT licensed I could use the code, and would give credit in the credits for the software (either in the app, or in the manual, or both if applicable). If it were available to license for use in a commercial product (as are many "middleware" type libraries, then I could at least make a case to the boss that we should pay for the license so I could use it.
Also, I most certainly would not expect to be able to use something from Microsoft (unless I was an MS employee and working on an MS product internally, or had a license to do so).
This is naturally going to be incompatible with licenses that demand closed handling.
In which case I agree. GPLed forum posts would make the forum unusable for many. And that would diminish the usefulness for all as there would be less participants.
So, I would "loath" and "hate" that the GPL be used that way. (as opposed to "loath" and "hate" the GPL which I happen to think is a very fine and worth while idea)
Whilst I'd like to think all forum posts are effectively MIT licensed, after all if you post it it will get used if it's of any use and you did voluntarily put it on display to the public,
I'm still not sure that Parallax insisting on any license here is a god idea.
Strangely enough this debate has been going on about github. Projects hosted there can have any license they like, or non specified. Some have suggested that this or that license be a condition of hosting a project there. I hope that does not happen.
I doubt Parallax will insist on a license for code posted in forum postings. Based on my conversations with Chip, I am pretty sure he would be strongly against the idea.
It occurs to me I have spent too long pondering licensing issues over the past few days, due to this thread or that. Time to get back to trying to get Forth to do anything useful, a challenge I cannot neglect.
I'm out of here.
No need to hurry - people have been trying to do just that since around 1970
- like with LMM (as Phil posted the link) Bill claimed his Idea TO PREVENT anybody else from patenting it. He stated this a couple of times.
This is noble and we should not argue with him.
- evanh has a agenda (political or not) that Open Source and the GPL is the Solution to the greater goals of the world.
This is noble and we should not argue with him.
- idbruce is (my guess) the most informed one here (thanks God not a lawyer) - alas nobody is listening to him.
BUT
This is about a NEW product from Parallax. We all are waiting and hoping for years for it to arrive.
This is NOT about Open Source.
Parallax IS a company - even a very Open Minded. And they need to get ths product out. WITHOUT patent/openSource or other trolls.
YES. Roy is right. I also worked for over 20 years as a programmer and NONE of those entities I worked for where able or willing to GPL there sources. Nobody does.
The OBEX is MIT. Why not the Forum also? You don't need to post your source.
This whole thread is very disturbing and not helpful to anyone.
Enjoy!
Mike
-Phil
I was mainly trying to clear up perceptions of usefulness I saw from earlier statements. It kept snowballing from there.
1: You see some code that you would like to use because it'll solve a problem in your design. The copyright owner says "sure, you can use my code freely if you're willing to do the same with _your_ code which uses my code". That's fair, and something the copyright owner is clearly in the right to say. It's _his_ code, he decides the terms. After all, you don't have any right to anyone else's code unless the author gives you that right, and the author can apply conditions. GPL is based on copyright law, that's how it can exist.
2: LGPL is very different and actually one of the best licenses around as far as commercial entities are concerned. It let's you use tons of neat libraries for free, without having to disclose a single line of your own code, _and_ it prevents you from doing the mistake of cut-and-paste use: The code stays in the library as well as any enhancements you do to it, and that library can keep improving (by yourself and by others). Very clean, very productive.
3: Some of you keep forgetting that it's the copyright owner who added the GLP license. The copyright owner is free to provide additional licenses. At our company, for example, we _did_ find some GPL code we would like to use (a fast FFT), but in an application where we would not be able to fulfill the GPL requirements. So we simply contacted the copyright owner and bought a commercial license. No problem. In a different case the copyright owner simply changed his GPL license to LGPL after we contacted him (as his code was a library already this was a simple step).
4: It's been stated in some posts above that "nobody [as in commercial software companies] are able or willing to GPL their code". That's not true at all. I would go so far as to say that's rubbish. For a wide overview, look at who's behind most of the code in the Linux kernel these days, and many of the major *nix applications and tools. And I've been working for a software company for 30 years, we're in the space industry and in this industry there are more and more projects where GPL'ed code is used and developed. We have _no_ problems with having both closed and guarded software projects but also other projects where code is developed to be provided as GPL. These projects are often collaborations between different (often international) partners. What we do though is to keep a clear understanding of how all this works. Real knowledge about licensing and copyright laws is better than knee-jerk reactions (thus my seminar with the company IP lawyer that I mentioned in an earlier posting). And oh, we also contribute to a few GPL projects in general (often tools we use), and MIT-licensed libraries we use. Many companies do.
Can we leave further GPL discussions out of this thread please? The title of the thread is about if code posted in the forum should be released as MIT or public domain, there's nothing about GPL in that title, so that's a side track. I hope what I wrote above would be the last mentioning of it. There's no need for more GPL bashing.
I would just like to add one thing about snippets - the FSF itself acknowledges that small snippets are not considered to need a copyright, the story is longer but what it boils down to is that if you provide a bug fix or something to their code you won't need to go through the copyright process they use for FSF-owned code if your addition is down to 10 lines or so (IIRC - but it's something in that range). So why not say that we stop worrying about having to add any license to all those snippets that people post? After all, snippets dominate here, not full applications or libraries, those usually end up elsewhere and are just referenced (although sometimes attached) here.
-Tor
As bruce pointed out, any license is just another tool, and the tool should be appropriate for what you want to accomplish, and different tools are for different purposes.
When we post code in the forums, we want to show it to other folks, and maybe get some feedback. Mission accomplished. Is any license needed?
If code is posted in the forums, could anybody make a claim preventing the author or anyone else from using the posted code? Has this ever come up in real life? That is, has a forum user posted code, and a troll tried to stop the author from using his own code? It strikes me as not possible, and so we would not have to spend much effort to prepare for it.
I don't think it ever really was answered. I'm not sure what will work or if it's even possible to create a truely open forum for sharing ideas.
I released CLMM as MIT, not because I really want to lay claim to it, but to prevent someone from doing what Bill Henning has done with P2BCEE.
I get the very distinct feeling I've ticked a lot of you off, that wasn't my intent.
The way I see it is we are having people rushing out to lay claim to screws and nails because they know we all want to build houses.
When I buy a P2 or any other component I want to be free to use at least the majority of it's features, not have to navigate a minefield of different claims and licenses to every little novel feature of the chip.
I think we are giving people more power than copyright implies and that those people should spend the money and effort to obtain a patent if that is really appropriate, otherwise we are letting the school yard bully tell us what games we can play.
I understand attribution and have no problem giving it, but asking for attribution for "screw and nails" is over the top.
My intent is to make the forum a safe place to keep up with the P1 and P2 as well as other Parallax products without the fear of seeing something I didn't want to see.
When I look at 3rd party code I can review it's features and licensing and if it's right buy it, or not, but I'm still free to buy something else or roll my own.
We seem to have a standard here that says if something is posted in this forum you are now bound to it's license terms, even if you didn't read the code.
That doesn't seem to make this a place that commerical customers of Parallax are safe to visit.
I apologize if having this discussion is uncomfortable for some, but I do think it needs to be had.
C.W.
Note: "school yard bully" may be a bit too strong, but I'm not sure what other words would fit.
If nothing else, I hope this thread has made people more aware of copyrights and the implications of licensing. Without any doubt, I truly felt the topic was worthy of debate. In all honesty, I can appreciate the desire for a blanket MIT policy, but I just don't see it as being practical, legal, or truly in the best interest of all forum members.
While considering this thread yesterday, I came up with another possible scenario, for which I would like you to consider, which is as follows:
John Doe is an active forum member, and he is probably one of the smartest coders in bunch, if not the smartest, because he never asks for help, yet he is always helping others. Now let's say John has been working in the peace and quiet of his own home, developing a section of code (body of work) which will open of a very wide array of new uses from Propeller 1 (ONE)'s architecture. Being one of the smartest coders in the bunch, he did not ask for anyones help, because he did not need it. Now of course this is just theory and of course impossible, but lets say that his code for the Propeller 1, will optimize the Propeller 1, to make it more efficient and robust than the Propeller 2 will ever hope to be. Since he has worked long and hard on this code, he writes his own license, which basically says that you can use his code privately or commercially and freely distribute it, but it must not be modified in any fashion. With John being a very decent guy, after drafting his license, he wants to share his creation with the rest of his friends within the Parallax forums.
Sure it was, my answer was NO
Bruce
Easy answer, no I would not want access.
Why? Because I don't want to take potential solutions to future problems off the plate by looking at restricted source.
C.W.
That doesn't matter to me.
It was already hinted at in a previous reply those wanting MIT licensing probably wouldn't do the same themselves, I hope I put that to rest, at least in my case with the CLMM.
C.W.
All I have ever contributed is MIT, BTW. The things I can't do that with did not appear here.
I would certainly consider it a gift.
I appreciate that Bruce.
The thing is, I didn't do it for the applause, I did it because it seems it may be useful and I want to see it left open for others to use and improve.
I won't deny that recognition, especially from ones peers, is nice, but I like it best when it is voluntary.
C.W.
I know why you did it and I applaud you for that also.
This is why I asked what you want. Suddenly a gift gets costly, doesn't it?
Let's say he missed something, and it falls short of what you need, now that you have seen the source thus agreeing to his license terms, you can never do your own version.
If such as solution existed, and cannot be modifed per license, then it should be released as an executable, so no source need be divulged.
In this case if it doesn't end up suiting the needs of the project, you are still free to roll your own.
C.W.