On 22 April 2014 12:24, Ben Boeckel via Digitalmars-d-announce <digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 11:17:32 +1000, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
>> Yeah I know, I just never expected anyone else to take interest. I'm often torn between gpl and bsd/zlib.
>
> FYI, if you're using the free services on GitHub, it *must* be FOSS. I think the GitHub terms of service permit forking for public repositories regardless of the license[1].
>
>> If something's open source with no commercial intent, is there good reason not to use gpl?
>
> http://choosealicense.com/

Yeah, I understand the license options essentially, but it's more than
just the license text, there are license cultures that affect the
decision, and people are borderline religious about this sort of
thing.
I mean, the GPL seems fine to me, but there are many people who see
GPL and avoid it like the plague as a matter of superstition or
something. I'd prefer to not discourage interest or contribution just
because I wrote "GPL" near my code.
Then people invented LGPL and in my experience, this makes some of
them feel okay with it, and others still don't wanna go near it.

What practical reasons are there to avoid GPL if your software is
fundamentally open-source?
Ideally, I'd like something like GPL, with the option that I can grant
someone an exception to the license upon request.

On 22/04/14 07:57, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

> Yeah, I understand the license options essentially, but it's more than
> just the license text, there are license cultures that affect the
> decision, and people are borderline religious about this sort of
> thing.
> I mean, the GPL seems fine to me, but there are many people who see
> GPL and avoid it like the plague as a matter of superstition or
> something. I'd prefer to not discourage interest or contribution just
> because I wrote "GPL" near my code.
> Then people invented LGPL and in my experience, this makes some of
> them feel okay with it, and others still don't wanna go near it.
>
> What practical reasons are there to avoid GPL if your software is
> fundamentally open-source?
> Ideally, I'd like something like GPL, with the option that I can grant
> someone an exception to the license upon request.

If you want to use some library that is not GPL, or incompatible with GPL. Or the opposite. If someone wants to use your code, but not want to use GPL, but still an open source license. BSD, for example, is much more flexible in these cases.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On 22 April 2014 16:29, Jacob Carlborg via Digitalmars-d-announce <digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com> wrote:
> On 22/04/14 07:57, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
>
>> Yeah, I understand the license options essentially, but it's more than
>> just the license text, there are license cultures that affect the
>> decision, and people are borderline religious about this sort of
>> thing.
>> I mean, the GPL seems fine to me, but there are many people who see
>> GPL and avoid it like the plague as a matter of superstition or
>> something. I'd prefer to not discourage interest or contribution just
>> because I wrote "GPL" near my code.
>> Then people invented LGPL and in my experience, this makes some of
>> them feel okay with it, and others still don't wanna go near it.
>>
>> What practical reasons are there to avoid GPL if your software is
>> fundamentally open-source?
>> Ideally, I'd like something like GPL, with the option that I can grant
>> someone an exception to the license upon request.
>
>
> If you want to use some library that is not GPL, or incompatible with GPL. Or the opposite. If someone wants to use your code, but not want to use GPL, but still an open source license. BSD, for example, is much more flexible in these cases.

But then you lose the incentive to return contribution back to the
original community.
I've worked in companies where we take OSS libraries, modified for our
needs, and never offer the modifications back to the community. I've
done it myself, and it's basically wrong.
I am not aware of the license that encourages community contribution,
but also doesn't infect your code like the plague?

On Tuesday, 22 April 2014 at 06:41:58 UTC, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> On 22 April 2014 16:29, Jacob Carlborg via Digitalmars-d-announce
> <digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com> wrote:
>> On 22/04/14 07:57, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
>>
>>> Yeah, I understand the license options essentially, but it's more than
>>> just the license text, there are license cultures that affect the
>>> decision, and people are borderline religious about this sort of
>>> thing.
>>> I mean, the GPL seems fine to me, but there are many people who see
>>> GPL and avoid it like the plague as a matter of superstition or
>>> something. I'd prefer to not discourage interest or contribution just
>>> because I wrote "GPL" near my code.
>>> Then people invented LGPL and in my experience, this makes some of
>>> them feel okay with it, and others still don't wanna go near it.
>>>
>>> What practical reasons are there to avoid GPL if your software is
>>> fundamentally open-source?
>>> Ideally, I'd like something like GPL, with the option that I can grant
>>> someone an exception to the license upon request.
>>
>>
>> If you want to use some library that is not GPL, or incompatible with GPL.
>> Or the opposite. If someone wants to use your code, but not want to use GPL,
>> but still an open source license. BSD, for example, is much more flexible in
>> these cases.
>
> But then you lose the incentive to return contribution back to the
> original community.
> I've worked in companies where we take OSS libraries, modified for our
> needs, and never offer the modifications back to the community. I've
> done it myself, and it's basically wrong.
> I am not aware of the license that encourages community contribution,
> but also doesn't infect your code like the plague?

That would be the CDDL, which Sun came up with for OpenSolaris, and other file-based licenses like the MPL, which Mozilla came up with for the open-sourcing of Netscape:

https://glassfish.java.net/public/CDDLv1.0.html

The CDDL is like the GPL, in that CDD-licensed files have to stay open source when redistributed, but since it applies on a file-by-file basis, doesn't infect the rest of the codebase.  Others can compile your CDD-licensed files with their own files that they license differently, as long as they provide the source for your CDDL files, including any modifications they've made to your files.

All that said, simple licenses, like the BSD or MIT licenses, are probably best, because they work with almost everything else.

On Tue, 22 Apr 2014 02:41:49 -0400, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce <digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com> wrote:

> On 22 April 2014 16:29, Jacob Carlborg via Digitalmars-d-announce
> <digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com> wrote:
>> On 22/04/14 07:57, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
>>
>>> Yeah, I understand the license options essentially, but it's more than
>>> just the license text, there are license cultures that affect the
>>> decision, and people are borderline religious about this sort of
>>> thing.
>>> I mean, the GPL seems fine to me, but there are many people who see
>>> GPL and avoid it like the plague as a matter of superstition or
>>> something. I'd prefer to not discourage interest or contribution just
>>> because I wrote "GPL" near my code.
>>> Then people invented LGPL and in my experience, this makes some of
>>> them feel okay with it, and others still don't wanna go near it.
>>>
>>> What practical reasons are there to avoid GPL if your software is
>>> fundamentally open-source?
>>> Ideally, I'd like something like GPL, with the option that I can grant
>>> someone an exception to the license upon request.
>>
>>
>> If you want to use some library that is not GPL, or incompatible with GPL.
>> Or the opposite. If someone wants to use your code, but not want to use GPL,
>> but still an open source license. BSD, for example, is much more flexible in
>> these cases.
>
> But then you lose the incentive to return contribution back to the
> original community.

I think you're confusing incentive with enforcement.

But enforcement of keeping sources open is not what GPL does, GPL forces you to open YOUR sources. It's the opposite of incentive, it's a disincentive. I don't know any for-pay developer that would prefer GPL over a less restrictive license.

> I've worked in companies where we take OSS libraries, modified for our
> needs, and never offer the modifications back to the community. I've
> done it myself, and it's basically wrong.

I disagree. There are cases where your changes are not relevant to the community. There are cases where the code is hacky, and you don't really want to support it (as some open source projects require), or follow the community guidelines for coding or documentation.

> I am not aware of the license that encourages community contribution,
> but also doesn't infect your code like the plague?

By definition, open source encourages community contribution. ANY open source license encourages this. As ANYONE who has used OSS for their binary-only distribution, had to modify it, and then had to maintain their changes internally as bugs were released on the community version, it does not pay off. There is no good reason to withhold changes to the OSS itself, and almost anyone would MUCH rather prefer to get their changes into the main-line and have them maintained by the community!

-Steve

On Tuesday, 22 April 2014 at 06:41:58 UTC, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> But then you lose the incentive to return contribution back to the
> original community.
> I've worked in companies where we take OSS libraries, modified for our
> needs, and never offer the modifications back to the community. I've
> done it myself, and it's basically wrong.
> I am not aware of the license that encourages community contribution,
> but also doesn't infect your code like the plague?

You said, it couldn't be commercialized. GPL prevents commercialization, if the latter won't happen anyway, GPL doesn't give you anything.
I did that, but sent a patch to the developer, diff -ur doesn't hurt in the least. Though the tool is only used by developers, no redistribution required, so GPL wouldn't prevent from doing private changes and still benefit from them (the tool provided a very important feature absent in a commercial analog, and I added 3 more more cool features).

On Tuesday, 22 April 2014 at 01:17:46 UTC, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> If something's open source with no commercial intent, is there good
> reason not to use gpl?

Nothing in GPL prevents commercial use, and it doesn't limit your ability to issue other licenses later. It does not limit the author, only the user.

But you have to make sure that all patches you receive are followed by a written statements where the ownership is transferred to you. The patches makes it a derived work, and then you need all the authors of that derived work to agree on an additional license.

> How hard is it to change later?

You cannot revoke GPL for released code, but you can stop releasing new versions under GPL.

> If something's open source with no commercial intent, is there good
> reason not to use gpl? How hard is it to change later?
i don't see a reason not to use GPL even on commercial code. %-)

On 23 April 2014 00:33, ketmar via Digitalmars-d-announce <digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com> wrote:
>> If something's open source with no commercial intent, is there good reason not to use gpl? How hard is it to change later?
>
> i don't see a reason not to use GPL even on commercial code. %-)

I was convinced that GPL doesn't serve the purpose intended. I went with BSD, there's a license.txt now.

Its because its viral that a lot of people avoid it.


On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 4:33 PM, ketmar via Digitalmars-d-announce < digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com> wrote:

> If something's open source with no commercial intent, is there good
>> reason not to use gpl? How hard is it to change later?
>>
> i don't see a reason not to use GPL even on commercial code. %-)
>