RoboGeek

Jonathan S's nonsensical criticism of GPL Sigh, it would be great to have a leader I could agree with more often.  He seems like such a smart guy, full of energy, but the ideas that come out of his mouth so often seem strange.

Tuesday (April 5, 2005) he addressed the Open Source Business Conference and slammed the GPL.  The resoning is very strange.  There's a provision requiring that people who use GPL'd code to create another product must release that product under GPL as well.  His claim is this provision is an onerous burden imposing "a rather predatory obligation to disgorge all their IP back to the wealthiest nation in the world".

er....

Okay, first, nobody is requiring these people to use GPL'd code as the base of their projects.  NOBODY.  They can use other code, or write their own.

Second, the GPL is not owned by the United States.  One of the biggest GPL projects, Linux, was started by a fellow from Finland.  Thus, when someone follows the GPL and does share their code with the world, it is the WORLD they are "disgorging" their code to, not the United States.

I once heard a very smart person give a talk on open source software.  Who?  Ken Arnold, a Sun employee, and one of the Jini people.  He advised using the license for your project that fits with your purpose.  If you don't want to use the GPL then don't use that license.  And given the nature of the GPL, that means you must also eschew code based on the GPL.  In other words, the choice is up to the people running each project, and there's no need to slam the GPL.

The GPL isn't for everyone, but it's obviously suiting the purposes of a lot of people.  And, you know what?  That's a GOOD thing.
(2005-04-06 11:12:49.0) Permalink Comments [9]