'GPL encumbrance problems'

[Andy Green]

Les Mikesell wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-01-18 at 16:37, Andy Green wrote:
> 
> 
>>Then to repeat Erwin's point, why should the people who did the work to
>>create, by choice, a GPL'd library or app, have made another choice to
>>facilitate your locking up a proprietary app based on or deriving from
>>it? 
> 
> Once the first little bit is GPL'd, no one has that choice if they
> want to contribute.  For a very large part of the code base, I'd
> guess that applying the GPL restrictions was not the author's first
> choice.  And from the dual-licensed items like perl, you can tell
> that some authors go well out of their way to ensure that others do
> not have their choices taken away.

Fine... but I wondered "why should the people who did the work to
 create, by choice, a GPL'd library or app, have made another choice to
facilitate your locking up a proprietary app based on or deriving from
it? ".  I couldn't plug your answer into that.

Fact is a GPL project is GPL'd.  One can start a new competing project
on a more liberal license.  That doesn't seem to happen much though,
because the best that can be expected from all that struggle to
duplicate an existing GPL project in, say, BSD is that the GPL guys will
attract patches and improvements from users all around, while the new
BSD project will attract proprietary users who will not give back.

>>But please don't moan about the terrible consequences of the GPL when
>>this is a deliberate feature wielded by the coders that chose the
>>license, it just sounds like you want something for nothing.
> 
> That would be a fair argument if every person who contributed
> code were allowed to choose whether to encumber his portion
> with the GPL or not.  That isn't the case, and that's the
> part of the complaint.

You need to squint a little and see it from the project's POV.  They
give this great stuff out for free on the basis you can't lock it up and
you can't distribute improvements without giving out the improved
source, which usually means giving improved source to the project.
That's the "GPL deal".  Now you consider only your modifications and
groan that they have to be GPL'd also, well that's true but balancing
this is the huge benefit of getting given the whole project you modified
in the first place.  You can't just look at the bit of work you chipped
in and mourn the opening of that without also looking at the huge boost
you were given -- all the work done by others conscious they were doing
it as part of the GPL deal -- in order to have something to modify in
the first place.

That's why these complaints seem really churlish to me, ignoring the
boon to you and only complaining about your contribution back.

-Andy
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