'GPL encumbrance problems'

[jdow]

From: "Mike McCarty" <mike.mccarty at sbcglobal.net>
> Andy Green wrote:
>> jdow wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>>Andy, I am a software developer by trade. I use it to earn my daily bread
>>>and board. If I develop in an environment that involves GPL I cannot see a
>>>model that will continue to feed me and house me unless I take up a side
>>>job asking, "Do you want to supersize that, sir?" or sit at my own help
>>>desk all day instead of developing. GPL contaminates things too thoroughly.
>>>I am not a lawyer. I just read that document and basically stay away from
>>>GPL except for some recreational coding I've done.
> 
> Seconded and re-seconded.
> 
>> I also design software and hardware... but depending on the field you
>> work in, GPL stuff can bring an awful lot of firepower to the party very
>> cheaply.  Again depending on the circumstance, the compataibility,
>> quality, time to market and royalty-free advanatages surrounding that
>> can overwhelm the possible competitive disadvantage of having to open
>> some of your stuff.
> 
> No, GPL forces one to open everything.

Not true. It forces you to open everything that uses ANYTHING that is
itself GPL contaminated and not purely your own work. (You can dual
license your own work.)

>> The general deal is AIUI if you link with GPL'd stuff -- not LGPL'd,
>> which will not infect what it links to but only changes to itself -- you
>> will have to open your work.  It seems that we crossed a threshold now
>> and the signs are that if you generate kernel modules you can expect
>> that sources will be demanded.
> 
> LGPL is less infective, but even that gets you into being a distributor
> of source.

At least some source. I've read it. It left me gasping for air. It SEEMS
to be intended to allow you to do an Oracle on Linux. But I am not enough
of a lawyer to try. It's easier to stay away.

> [snip]
> 
>> Of course in your particular field if there is no specific benefit to be
>> had from using or being directly compatible with GPL'd stuff then it
>> makes sense to avoid it.
> 
> Unless one just wants to produce GPL or LGPL stuff, and not feed himself
> with the fruit of his labor (like Joanne and I do) it makes sense to
> avoid GPL altogether, end of story.

I've two forays into GPL so far. One is a TINY contribution to the
kernel based on specialized knowledge I have. (I helped, in some small
way, design the Amiga computer's partitioning scheme. I found a mis-
implementation in the kernel and repaired it. Now I can read some of
the old horrors I put together for testing when I was doing partitioning
software for the Amiga. {^_-}) The other was a "learning and playing
around tool" on Winders. I have a ham radio transceiver with fairly
good remote control capabilities. So I built a remote control for it.
I've sent that to a few people with source and a GPL license on it. It
is entirely my work except for the libraries it calls up from Windows.
So I also use modified pieces of "gadgets" I put together in it for my
other work on the perfectly dual license basis for my own work.

>> But if its just that you are considering to use, say, Fedora as a
>> platform for scripts or usermode apps then AFAIUI there is zero leakage
>> of the GPL-ness of the OS apps up into your code and BSD or GPL makes no
>> odds there.
> 
> Erm, if you compile and link any program which runs on Linux, you
> end up with at least LGPL stuff in your code.

This is an ongoing discussion on the kernel mailing list that pops up
from time to time. It seems "nobody really knows." That makes me even
MORE nervous about serious work on Linux. It's a shame, really. Somebody
should draw up some REALLY clear guidelines about GPL, LGPL, and Linux.
(I've a hunch I know of at least one violation in the lighting control
console industry. But *I* am not about the blow the whistle on the guy.
He's earned his bread as has the company that employed him to do it. The
industry's so small and densely competitive within that "smallness" that
open source would utterly kill the company.)

{^_^}   Joanne