Re: People who develop with MySQL and/or other GPL based code
Re: People who develop with MySQL and/or other GPL based code
- Subject: Re: People who develop with MySQL and/or other GPL based code
- From: Ed Watkeys <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 22:54:35 -0500
On Jan 6, 2004, at 12:07 PM, Nicko van Someren wrote:
On 6 Jan 2004, at 16:43, Cameron Hayne wrote:
On 1/5/04 2:40 PM, "Shawn Erickson" <email@hidden> wrote:
Stopping the distribution of a product while you replace the
GPL-covered code is really what scares folks. Talk about huge risk
for
a commercial software product.
This is what feeds folks fears about the GPL.
It's been said many times before but I think needs to be said again:
This is no different than what would happen if you accidentally
included
proprietary source code (e.g. from Microsoft) in your commercial
product.
You would have to stop distribution of your product while you
rectified the
problem. The only difference is that it is *somewhat* easier to get
access
to GPL'd source code than it is to get access to Microsoft source
code, and
hence "accidental" inclusion might be more likely.
There is another difference. If you include someone's proprietary
code into your system then you basically have no choice but to come to
an agreement (possibly amicably, possibly in court) as to how to deal
with it. In the case that you accidentally include GPLed code into
your product you can redeem yourself either by settling with the
copyright owner OR by releasing your derived work under the GPL. You
are in no way obliged to the do so, but if you don't you'll have to
settle with the owner of the code some other way.
Yes, but if you incorporate BSD licensed code into your product, the
worst that will happen is that you'll need to respect the advertising
clause and give the developers credit. And that's unlikely, since the
advertising clause has been cleansed from most BSD and similarly
licensed code.
I can't speak for people who have an irrational fear of GPL'd code -- I
simply have a rational aversion to the license and the mentality behind
it -- but I would guess that it's the temptation factor Cameron
describes that gets these people nervous. Microsoft's proprietary
source code generally isn't lying around, so it's difficult to
"accidentally" use their code.
There was a time when if you could see the source code, you could be
fairly confident that you could use it. Apple has distributed tens of
thousands of lines of code that you can use without any practical
limitation, much released before the GPL was written. Then there are
the classic texts of computer science. And BSD-licensed Unix code. And
MIT-licensed code. The GPL represented a great limiting of what
programmers could do with the code they could see.
I still have the Technical Reference Manual to the Apple II+. It
contains the complete ROM listing (minus AppleSoft BASIC, thanks to
Microsoft). Was I free to build an Apple II clone with it? No. Was I
free to read it and learn from it? Of course. Would the world have
benefitted any more had the Apple II ROM been GPL'd? I don't think so.
Would there be a Mac today if Apple couldn't have poured the money it
made off the the II series into the Macintosh? I don't think so. We
would have had a lot of cheap Apple II clones, but not much else.
Regards,
Ed
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