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Topic: Switch to GPL (Read 17495 times)

sr. member
Activity: 314
Merit: 251
January 22, 2011, 01:43:35 PM
#71
Asterisk has GNU General Public License
Avidemux has GNU General Public License
Blender has GNU General Public License v2 or later
Cinelerra has GNU General Public License
ffmpeg has GNU LGPL 2.1+, GNU GPL 2+
Gimp has GNU General Public License
GNU Compiler Collection has GNU General Public License (version 3 or later)
LiVES has GNU General Public License version 3 or higher.
MPlayer has GNU General Public License
OpenOffice has GNU Lesser General Public License v3
OpenVPN has GNU GPL
OpenX has GNU General Public License
VirtualDub has GNU General Public License
VLC has GNU General Public License v2 or later
xine has GNU GPL

Want to join the Fun!

BIND is ISC
Compiz is MIT
Enlightenment is BSD
Fluxbox is MIT
GHC and Hugs BSD
Haiku is MIT
lighttpd is BSD
LLVM and clang are BSD
Lua is MIT
ncurses is BSD
nginx is BSD
OpenSSH is BSD
PuTTY is MIT
Tcl is BSD
thttpd is BSD
Tor is BSD
vi is BSD
Webkit is BSD
X11 and most related projects are MIT
Most implementations of Smalltalk are BSD or MIT
Most implementations of JavaScript, as well as jquery and YUI are BSD or MIT
Bittorrent became successful, because they were MIT, libtorrent (base for a big number of clients) is BSD
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1076
January 20, 2011, 09:28:06 PM
#70

MIT/BSD = Freedom
GPL = Communism


I can do this too:

Bicycles = Freedom
Cars = Communism

Freestyle = Freedom
Backstroke = Communism

Brunettes = Freedom
Blondes = Communism
Activity: -
Merit: -
January 20, 2011, 08:43:56 PM
#69
If anything, GPL slows adoption compared to less restrictive licenses, such as MIT, BSD, or no license/copyright (Public Domain).  People naturally try to make the best (in their own eyes) use of their resources, generally trying to increase their wealth (subjective).  A business that wants to release their own client loses much of their competitive edge if they have to release the source code (and therefore their improvements) to their competitors.  So why would they put the resources into something that won't give them a competitive edge when they have other, more profitable things they can do with their resources?  However, an MIT license allows them to make changes and not release the source to their competitors, which may actually give them an edge over their competition, potentially leading to higher profits.  If you don't have businesses promoting Bitcoin with their software releases, Bitcoin-related services, marketing budgets, etc., what chance does Bitcoin have to become mainstream?  What use is Bitcoin to the mainstream if mainstream businesses don't use it?  Most real life transactions are either consumers to business, or business to business.  Why make Bitcoin less likely to become mainstream by using the GPL license?

My Bitcoin implementation will certainly not be GPL, and will be released in the Public Domain (assuming I don't unwittingly run into problems with any potential future co-developers demanding a license, asserting fallacious claims of control over the real property of myself and others), as I don't believe in initiating (or threatening the initiation of) violence to increase wealth (everything every human does is in attempt to increase their personal wealth in their own eyes), which means I don't believe in government or copyright, as the foundation of government is based on the (threat of) initiation of violence, and all of your open-source licenses are based on copyright laws that require the government.  Until someone accomplishes the impossible and provides a proof that people should initiate violence to get what they want, any beliefs in support of government, copyright, and licenses based on copyright are unfounded, and are nothing more than religion and an attempt to force their religion onto others.
newbie
Activity: 53
Merit: 0
January 20, 2011, 02:47:56 PM
#68
By releasing under a copyleft licence, you don't prevent abuses, but you make sure that they're illegal.

Nothing of the sort, since one can legally implement an abusive client from scratch.
sr. member
Activity: 360
Merit: 250
January 20, 2011, 11:09:42 AM
#67
legendary
Activity: 1372
Merit: 1008
1davout
January 20, 2011, 09:07:32 AM
#66
SMF bug. The "number of characters left" display on the signature input box appears to be wrong. Someone else had pointed out to me that my address there was invalid, and thought I corrected it by adding a "3" to the end:

1F417eczAAbh41V4oLGNf3DqXLY72hsM73

Should be working now, since I shorted the text in other places.
Promised BTC sent
newbie
Activity: 42
Merit: 0
January 20, 2011, 08:47:43 AM
#65
GPL-advocates believe that simply by releasing with this license you'd prevent proprietary-software-scams??
Seriously? Do you really think that somebody willing to steal people's money will even bother to know what's the software license?

By releasing under a copyleft licence, you don't prevent abuses, but you make sure that they're illegal.
sr. member
Activity: 360
Merit: 250
January 20, 2011, 08:37:08 AM
#64
david@bankbox:~$ bitcoin validateaddress 1F417eczAAbh41V4oLGNf3DqXLY72hsM7
{
    "isvalid" : false
}


Interesting -- the checksum for that address is wrong. Maybe a bug in Bitcoin? The actual address seems to be:
1F417eczAAbh41V4oLGNf3DqXLYBmgs6s
I'm not sending funds to an address with a wrong checksum Smiley

SMF bug. The "number of characters left" display on the signature input box appears to be wrong. Someone else had pointed out to me that my address there was invalid, and thought I corrected it by adding a "3" to the end:

1F417eczAAbh41V4oLGNf3DqXLY72hsM73

Should be working now, since I shorted the text in other places.
legendary
Activity: 1106
Merit: 1004
January 19, 2011, 03:24:06 PM
#63
GPL-advocates believe that simply by releasing with this license you'd prevent proprietary-software-scams??
Seriously? Do you really think that somebody willing to steal people's money will even bother to know what's the software license?
sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
January 19, 2011, 01:02:02 PM
#62
GPL = Communism
Only to the same extent of copyright.

Licensing and copyright are orthogonal.
Not so with copyleft. The whole idea, or at least a big part of it, is to exploit overly extensive copyright protections in order to give those who infringe on the rights of end users a taste of their own medicine.

...Unless I misunderstood you.
legendary
Activity: 1372
Merit: 1008
1davout
January 19, 2011, 12:46:00 PM
#61
I happen to like the GPL. It's a big, beautiful fuck-you to the entire copyright system. That said, I see nothing wrong with the MIT license for the "official" Bitcoin client. Anyone who wants a GPL Bitcoin client badly enough can just take the source code for 0.3.19, make some changes, give his version a different name, and release it under the GPL. No more butthurt.
Licensing and copyright are orthogonal.
+1 for the rest
full member
Activity: 222
Merit: 100
January 19, 2011, 12:43:38 PM
#60
I don't know if you have problems with restricting the freedom of restricting freedom. Has Alice the freedom to put Bob in prison, or should we restrict Alice's freedom in order to protect Bob's ?

I don't know where you got the idea that enforcing people to release source code they wrote is more freedom. It has nothing to do with copyrights, I might have nothing against copying my source code once it's public, but it doesn't mean I must make it public in the first place. It doesn't restrict any freedoms.

MIT/BSD = Freedom
GPL = Communism

Scams are also possible with GPL, not many people can read or understand source code. And it's possible to write closed source client from scratch and besides, there are easier ways to cheat than writing your own client.
sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
January 19, 2011, 12:35:37 PM
#59
I happen to like the GPL. It's a big, beautiful fuck-you to the entire copyright system. That said, I see nothing wrong with the MIT license for the "official" Bitcoin client. Anyone who wants a GPL Bitcoin client badly enough can just take the source code for 0.3.19, make some changes, give his version a different name, and release it under the GPL. No more butthurt.
legendary
Activity: 1372
Merit: 1008
1davout
January 19, 2011, 11:19:06 AM
#58
david@bankbox:~$ bitcoin validateaddress 1F417eczAAbh41V4oLGNf3DqXLY72hsM7
{
    "isvalid" : false
}


Interesting -- the checksum for that address is wrong. Maybe a bug in Bitcoin? The actual address seems to be:
1F417eczAAbh41V4oLGNf3DqXLYBmgs6s
I'm not sending funds to an address with a wrong checksum Smiley
administrator
Activity: 5222
Merit: 13032
January 19, 2011, 11:03:20 AM
#57
I don't know if you have problems with restricting the freedom of restricting freedom. Has Alice the freedom to put Bob in prison, or should we restrict Alice's freedom in order to protect Bob's ?

It's not about "freedom", but property rights. Any enforcement of copyright allows you to control my use of my real property. In your example, Alice would be infringing on Bob's ownership of his own body, which would not be OK.
administrator
Activity: 5222
Merit: 13032
January 19, 2011, 10:57:17 AM
#56
david@bankbox:~$ bitcoin validateaddress 1F417eczAAbh41V4oLGNf3DqXLY72hsM7
{
    "isvalid" : false
}


Interesting -- the checksum for that address is wrong. Maybe a bug in Bitcoin? The actual address seems to be:
1F417eczAAbh41V4oLGNf3DqXLYBmgs6s
newbie
Activity: 42
Merit: 0
January 19, 2011, 10:43:29 AM
#55
Enforcing freedom is rather like fucking for virginity.
Free software licences force publishers to give freedom to their customers. It is not about freedom for the publisher, it is about freedom for the users. Of course, a user can become a publisher, but the licence is about the user's rights. There is, therefore, no paradox.

I don't know if you have problems with restricting the freedom of restricting freedom. Has Alice the freedom to put Bob in prison, or should we restrict Alice's freedom in order to protect Bob's ?
legendary
Activity: 1372
Merit: 1008
1davout
January 19, 2011, 10:38:19 AM
#54
Enforcing freedom is rather like fucking for virginity.
1 BTC donation sent XD

EDIT :
david@bankbox:~$ bitcoin validateaddress 1F417eczAAbh41V4oLGNf3DqXLY72hsM7
{
    "isvalid" : false
}
sr. member
Activity: 360
Merit: 250
January 19, 2011, 10:29:57 AM
#53
I don't see why is it coercive or bad attitude to insist on adopting a more freedom-enforcing lisence for technical reasons?

Enforcing freedom is rather like fucking for virginity.

The MIT license is basically a grant of use for any purpose, plus a disclaimer of liability and the (coercively enforceable) requirement to include the original author's copyright notice and the license itself on derived works. That is, if you as a software developer take MIT-licensed software and distribute a derived version or copy of it without adhering to the license terms, the legal system permits the author to bring a lawsuit. That, in turn, means things like courts, judges, police, fines, imprisonment for "contempt" and the well-oiled .45 that lies underneath every pile of government paperwork.

Doesn't sound like freedom to me, if you as a software developer can be subjected to all that, just because the original author objects to how you've twiddled some bits.

And the Gnu licenses are worse, since they add more restrictions.

All in all, the MIT license is fine. But if you want more of that freedom stuff, you ought to be arguing the opposite: put the Bitcoin code fully into the public domain, like the world's very first web server, CERN httpd was. Or like the stuff listed here: http://unlicense.org/

legendary
Activity: 1372
Merit: 1008
1davout
January 19, 2011, 10:22:22 AM
#52
Then one day, someone decides to ship, under well-worked pseydonym, an android-client with a "sleeping" feature that steals any payment containing more than i.e 1000 bcs, or all payments happening on April 1st.
And the malevolent developer can rest assured that nobody could have prevent it, since nobody can compare the binary to the source code.
Deciding whether to run untrusted code is your responsibility, the mere fact a project is open source doesn't mean someone can compile and distribute a rogue binary to people who won't bother to compile themselves.

An application that supports the very-existence of "money" is not the same as any other application we have ever come acrosss.
The rules don't apply the same.
Is your online banking interface under AGPL ?
No. Doesn't mean it can deal with money, you use it because you trust it to work as advertised.

I don't see why is it coercive or bad attitude to insist on adopting a more freedom-enforcing lisence for technical reasons?
Nothing wrong with having a different opinion, however there's no technical reason why the source should be under GPL rather than MIT.
It doesn't really make a difference. What matters is the protocol, not the mainstream client.
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