Thanks for taking my quote/tweet/whatever out of context, Zed. I was replying to your comment "I find it funny that people cry it's not fair I use the GPL and use their BSD software, but then _don't_ cry when a company uses their gear."<p>Specifically; I was paraphrasing @mjmalone's comments yesterday where he and others were pointing out what they felt was an issue with this.<p>I don't think I, or anyone else who has been discussing this is attacking you, or attempting to diminish the fact you have released Lamson at GPL. I think we all appreciate anyone releasing something as Free/Open Source software, period.<p>However, we <i>can</i> lament the fact we can not use/extend (namely - import) your code to add to it without triggering the GPL requirements within our own code.<p>For me personally, it's an easy choice - I push stuff out under MIT/Apache 2.0/etc and just don't touch/patch/extend things under the GPL. It's <i>your</i> choice, and that's what great about Free/Open source software, and no one is suggesting you, or I, or anyone give up that freedom.<p>Additionally; some of us write software for a living, for companies who pay us money. Not all of them are these evil, soulless entities you seemingly despise. I, and many others have been lucky enough to work for companies who use open source software, and give back as well, in the form of released code, patches, etc. We don't "love" evil corporations - we simply work for those which are not evil (in our eyes) and we attempt to promote ethical open source behavior within those companies. Heck; some of us have even gotten to dedicate time to open source projects on company time.<p>Even for those companies (ones with an open source culture), the GPL can become more of a pain to deal with, and can quickly outstrip the benefits of using that GPLed software rather than "using something else".
I think that the BSD license has gained favor because, in the web space, the GPL only offers hassle, not protection.<p>Let's say you release a new Web 2.0 app as GPL and I take the code and want to make a closed-source, proprietary thing off of it. Well, I can. Since I'm not distributing the code (merely running it on my servers as Software as a Service), I don't have to contribute back. I can make additions, incorporate your additions so I don't fall behind and start making my service look better than the open source code.<p>BSD has come into fashion because either 1) you're not going to release the code and nether license helps there or 2) you're going to release the code in which case the GPL's length and requirements are just an annoyance. The GPL simply doesn't protect web code in the way that it protects desktop apps. And so developers feel no need to use the GPL - it doesn't offer them anything and only serves to do things like make employers nervous or the like.<p>The AGPL (Affero) is a different story. . .
<p><pre><code> /*
** 2001 September 15
**
** The author disclaims copyright to this source code. In place of
** a legal notice, here is a blessing:
**
** May you do good and not evil.
** May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
** May you share freely, never taking more than you give.
**
*************************************************************************
** Main file for the SQLite library. The routines in this file</code></pre>
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The way I see it, I've utilized so much free software over the years and made use of so many man-years of development that I couldn't care less if I am given any attribution for the code I write (which is why I pretty much exclusively license under MIT/X11). I've never explicitly given credit to the thousands of committers who've made my life insanely easier over the years, so I don't really care if others do the same for me. If the logs indicate people are downloading the code, that's good enough for me. Hopefully they get some use out of it.<p>Now let's all just shut up about this nonsense and be friends :)
Zed Shaw gets too much attention for his half baked rants. Which encourages him to compose more half baked rants. Use whatver license you want for [DIETY]'s sake. Just stop going on and on and on about something after all the arguments have been hashed out umpteen times.
Why is this guy zed getting so much coverage?<p>If you have something under the BSD license, you can do anything you want with it (complete freedom). This is not the case with the GPL license (proprietary apps are a good example).<p>This is why many people choose to use apps only under the BSD license.
<i>Petty squabbling over bullshit like this, and even worse doing it in such a contradictory way, is stupid. This kind of useless bickering doesn’t help promote excellent software and “freedom” to express yourself with code.</i><p>I have a kettle you can meet, Zed.
This discussion is ridiculous. Zed is completely within his right to release any code he wants under whatever license he wants.<p>First of all how many of us deploy our applications using Mysql on Linux (both GPL'ed projects). It's not an issue. Lamson is generally for server applications. If you use it you don't need to release your application as GPL. Come on.<p>From what I've seen of lamson, most apps based on it will run separately from a web application and often be quite small. If your Lamson project gets large and you want to release it, what is wrong with GPL for that?<p>Secondly, what is wrong with Zed actually trying to make a living. Why is it so wrong for him to want to capitalize on what looks like a great project to pay his rent. When was that a crime. Those of you in salaried jobs who complain about this should be ashamed of yourselves.<p>When you're a freelancer like Zed you have to hustle and thats exactly what he's doing. MySQL is offered Dual License together with many other projects. I don't know how successful this has been nor how successful it will be for Zed, but he's got a right to try.
One question with regard to the GPL: Is it at all enforceable? How could you find out if someone violating it and using your code in a proprietary project?
I think Zed underestimates the value of his contribution of Mongrel. It's a great piece of code. I certainly wouldn't have heard of him if it wasn't for that. I doubt his blog posts would be making it to number 1 on hacker news without it.