GPL - Makeshift Patriot
=======================
The other day Gruber [1] once again linked to a good article [2]. The author,
Daniel Jalkut [3], described his opinion on the effects of using the
GPL [4] as an OSS [5] license. The post can be pretty well summed up with
this quote:
I suggest that the GPL does more to harm collaborative development
than it does to help it. - Daniel Jalkut
Today Gruber posted a follow up [6] from Matt Mullenweg [7] that argues the
exact opposite, that Wordpress [8] is successful not in spite of, but because
of the GPL.
Matt, you're wrong.
-------------------
Towards the bottom of Matt's post he goes off on a tangent about how the GPL
protects the rights (as in constitution) of 'users'. He even links to the
Declaration of Independence article at Wikipedia [9]. It'd be heart warming if
it weren't such a fallacy. The core of his argument:
You are free to do pretty much whatever you want as long as it does not
infringe on the freedoms of others.
The only way a user has rights to the derivative work is if those rights are
somehow propagated from original to derivative which is exactly why the GPL
exists. Welcome to the beginning, Alice.
Lets rephrase the argument: "The GPL is good because it protects users' rights
which only exist because of the GPL." Recursive FTW!
Bottom Line
-----------
The GPL exists and is used as a tool to further the political and philosophical
agendas of those who choose to use it. This is not a bad thing. As a developer
you are free to do as you choose with your code. As a user I must decide if I'm
willing to abide by your license just as I must choose to obey a closed source
license. But for fuck's sake, don't pretend you're any different than a closed
source licensor. Your onerous requirements annoy the shit out of me just as much
as anyone else's.
References
----------
[1]: http://daringfireball.net
[2]: http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/825/getting-pretty-lonely/
[3]: http://www.red-sweater.com/about/DanielJalkut.html
[4]: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html
[5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software
[6]: http://ma.tt/2009/07/not-lonely-at-all/
[7]: http://ma.tt/about/
[8]: http://wordpress.com/
[9]: http://wikipedia.org/
Copyright Notice
----------------
Copyright 2008-2010 Paul Joseph Davis
License
-------
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/