[ossig] Linguistic Problems of GPL Advocacy

[Dinesh Nair]

from slashdot, http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/08/1832255
but worth a complete repost.

---

The first disagreement I wish to address concerns the statement "BSD
projects are free, but GPL projects stay free." GPL advocates cannot
understand why the BSD advocates are not getting this point, and BSD
advocates make accusations of Communism, which are then argued to death by
both parties. The problem with the statement above is the different
interpretation of the word "project." I, and I suspect many other BSD
advocates, generally separate the concept of "project" from "code." While
code is what projects are made of, I do not see it as valuable as the
useful product a project provides. When I write a program, be it a site
scraper, or a todo program, or a UI framework, I think of my project as
the entity that matters. The fact that I may have copied some code from
one to another is of no concern to me.

A GPL advocate sees an entirely different situation. To him, it is the
code that comes first, and the applications built from that code are a
secondary consideration. Even a single line of code is precious, whether
it contains a complex spline formula or i += 2;. As an aside, I would
expect this mindset to be more prone to reusing other people's code
instead of reimplementing it. Where I would scoff at a piece of code, call
it utter garbage, and rewrite the damn thing from scratch, a GPL advocate
would probably wrap the garbage in another API that he finds more
palatable. In my opinion, this leads to bloat from wrappers, instability
from the garbage that is still there, and loss of skills. What programmer
from the current generation is up to the challenge of reimplementing
libjpeg? But, I digress. I am here to explain, not bash, so please excuse
this little rant.

The two different viewpoints outlined above lead to different
interpretation of the expression "stay free." To a BSD advocate, his
project will always "stay free," and to assert otherwise is ridiculous.
Once it is published, what could possibly make it go away? I have projects
that I wrote fifteen years ago which are still hosted on ibiblio.org FTP
site and mirrored around the world. I no longer maintain them and think
them useless, but they'll persist forever, and anyone at all who wants to
download them still can download them. The fact that some company can take
it, write a little bit on top of it, and sell it, does not in any way
affect my project.

To a GPL advocate, the project is not important; the code is important. So
he looks not just at the project distributions he has made, but also of
other projects that may incorporate any line of code he ever wrote. In his
mind there is no distinction between his original work and its
encapsulation in a derived work. He still thinks of both as "his code,"
and as an entity that must stay free. Naturally, any non-free derived work
will anger him, because his code in it will no longer be free, even though
his own copy of that code and his entire project will still be free.

The code/project distinction also leads to a different view of what it
means to "use" a project, although this point is seldom argued explicitly.
A GPL advocate makes a rather arbitrary and vague distinction between a
human using his code and a computer using his code. Consider a situation
where a user has a GPL-licensed program that converts a JPEG image to a
GIF image and his own program (which he sells, or distributes under some
other incompatible license) that can only view GIF images. It is legal for
him and his customers to call the GPL program from the command line to
convert JPEG images and then view them with his program. Suppose he gets
fed up with this sequence and writes a shell script to do both operations
in sequence. Is this legal? Probably. But what if he cuts out the
conversion part of the GPL program and embeds it in his viewer? That would
make his viewer a derived work, and so illegal to distribute under
anything but GPL.

From the GPL advocate's view, this is perfectly logical. It is his code,
and he wants all instances of his code to be free. The instance can not be
free if it is embedded in another executable that is not free, since it
can not be easily modified, which was Stallman's gripe and the reason for
the GPL's existence. From the BSD advocate's view, the situation is
absurd. His project is still free, and he does not really care how a user
wants to use it. A shell script calling the converter is no different than
a closed source program embedding it. They are simply different ways for a
human to use the program. Whether the object code for the project stays
hackable is also irrelevant, since the human's use of the project through
a derived work project is just another way of use.

These different views of derived works are another bitter point of
contention. GPL code can only be legally embedded in GPL projects, and if
a non-GPL project wants to use GPL code, it must either not do that, or
become a GPL project. This is why BSD advocates call the license viral,
and thus elicit vehement denials from GPL advocates, who retort that
nobody is forced to use GPL code, which lead to useless arguments over the
meaning of "forced" or "viral" with no meaningful result. It must be
reiterated that the GPL advocates look at code, while the BSD advocates
look at projects, and the "viral" debate can only be resolved by examining
both viewpoints. A GPL advocate sees a derived work as "his code" combined
with some "other code" in a package, and his concern is that the package
always be openable. "His code" always remains his code, and he sees any
use or distribution of the whole package as a kind of use or distribution
of his code. As a result, he feels justified in placing restrictions on
how a user may use or distribute the derived work, even though he "owns"
only a small part of the whole package. This is following the philosophy
of copyright and intellectual property, which, curiously, is a favorite
target of derision of these same people. A copyrighted work can never be
wholly owned by the user, it is only rented, and so subject to control by
the original creator.

A BSD advocate sees a derived work as his project being used by another
project. The derived project is wholly owned by whoever wrote it, even if
it uses other people's code. This is similar to the property laws of the
real world. For example, suppose I sit on the curb and give away free
lemons. A kid next door might get the bright idea to get my lemons, make
lemonade, and sell it. The lemonade is clearly a "derived work," since it
is made from my lemons, but it is absurd to suggest I have any right to
tell him what price to put on his lemonade or how much sugar he can use in
it. By the laws of private property in the real world, my ownership was
relinquished at the time when I handed him my lemons. Just as I do not own
his lemonade, neither do I own the derived works he makes from my
BSD-licensed software.

These distinctive views of ownership combine with considerations of money,
and GPL's anti-business mindset, resulting in accusations of Communism,
and worse. But I'll save explaining that for another article. For now I
will simply suggest that GPL advocates should change their language a bit,
to make themselves more easily understood by people who do not subscribe
to their philosophy. Specifically:

"BSD code is free, but GPL code stays free."

It would be better instead to say:

"BSD code is free, but the GPL ensures all derived works are also free."

or

"The GPL ensures your code will never be used by a closed-source
application."

These alternatives clarify that you are talking about derived works,
rather than the original project, which, of course, will always stay free
anyhow. Also, do keep in mind the other points brought up in this article
and make at least some effort to ensure you are speaking the same language
before becoming too upset. I will never agree with your philosophy, but at
least you'll know you were understood.

-- 
Regards,                           /\_/\   "All dogs go to heaven."
dinesh at alphaque.com                (0 0)   http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/
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