Re:Is the GPL Really Declining?
by josteink on Thursday May 04, 2017 @05:15AM
(#14263578)
> EDIT: Pragmatically IMO the freedom of the end user matters less because they need more than just access to the source code to derive any value of having that access, whereas for a downstream developer the value of being able to do as they please is extremely direct.
Again, like I said, that's clearly debatable.
First I think we need to shoehorn some terminology into this conversation in order for it to be useful.
You have two clearly distinct roles. You call them "developer" and "user", but that's really imprecise and doesn't correctly capture the use-cases which we're discussing, so here's my attempt:
* A publisher (what you call a "developer", someone who releases software, different software, one which will have to "deal" with reciprocal licenses).
* A user (one which runs software, usually on devices he own).
It may not be the norm, but a user may very well build and modify the software he uses (that is: do development work), and submit patches back upstream (instead of forking/bundling the code and modifications in another product). So while clearly a developer, he is first and foremost a user, and he doesn't need to care about licensing, since he doesn't actually release anything on his own.
Example: As a user of a device I buy, I want to be able to modify and replace its firmware when I find it lacking. In this case I'm a user, not a developer, at least not until the need arises.
And a "normal user" may not be able to do all these things, but as others have noted, there may be a pre-existing development community which has pre-modified builds available (like Cyanogendmod, OpenWrt, Coreboot, whatever).
In that sense, things being open to me, the user, the owner of the device running the code, has an high value anyhow. Not having control over what runs on my devices is unacceptable in a post-Snowden, emerging IoT-ridden world.
And I think those concerns are much more important for the IoT-everywhere world we're moving into, than some mere licensing inconveniences for publishers when they free of charge incorporate other people's work into their own product.
Again, like I said, that's clearly debatable.
First I think we need to shoehorn some terminology into this conversation in order for it to be useful.
You have two clearly distinct roles. You call them "developer" and "user", but that's really imprecise and doesn't correctly capture the use-cases which we're discussing, so here's my attempt:
* A publisher (what you call a "developer", someone who releases software, different software, one which will have to "deal" with reciprocal licenses).
* A user (one which runs software, usually on devices he own).
It may not be the norm, but a user may very well build and modify the software he uses (that is: do development work), and submit patches back upstream (instead of forking/bundling the code and modifications in another product). So while clearly a developer, he is first and foremost a user, and he doesn't need to care about licensing, since he doesn't actually release anything on his own.
Example: As a user of a device I buy, I want to be able to modify and replace its firmware when I find it lacking. In this case I'm a user, not a developer, at least not until the need arises.
And a "normal user" may not be able to do all these things, but as others have noted, there may be a pre-existing development community which has pre-modified builds available (like Cyanogendmod, OpenWrt, Coreboot, whatever).
In that sense, things being open to me, the user, the owner of the device running the code, has an high value anyhow. Not having control over what runs on my devices is unacceptable in a post-Snowden, emerging IoT-ridden world.
And I think those concerns are much more important for the IoT-everywhere world we're moving into, than some mere licensing inconveniences for publishers when they free of charge incorporate other people's work into their own product.