# Non-GPL Land



## falkman (Aug 19, 2011)

One of the big things that draws me to FreeBSD is the GPLless goal/nature of it. I think there should be some sort of a GPLless mailing list to talk about what needs to be rewritten under a BSD license, and who is doing what. Right now, it seems there is no good place to talk with others about this. Obviously you could go right to a dev related mailing list, but I'd hate to post there about GPLless questions/progress/etc. With clang on the move, I think that right now we are getting very close to where BSD can rid itself of all the GPL code, and I think that should be a group of its own.

On a second note. Any future insight for a BSD licensed version control system? I know there is Fossil, but is that really any good?

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_(software))

I think that hosting a BSD system on a GPLd version control system is a bit... wrong. Not that SVN is bad by any means.

Regards,
Brandon Falk


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## kpedersen (Aug 19, 2011)

There is a reimplementation of CVS by the OpenBSD project (http://www.opencvs.org/)

That will almost certainly be under a BSD license.

What is your reason for not wanting GPL software in the operating system you run? (Not trying to start an argument, I am interested).


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## falkman (Aug 19, 2011)

Because I cannot stand Stallman and I do not support his movement. I think that the GPL is extremely anti-corporation and I do not like that. I also like how simple the BSD license is. 'Credit the creator in the source that is distributed, or if there is no code distributed, then have a text file crediting the author.' Why is there a need for the massive GPL?

Sidenote: It also gives me more things to dev


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## kpedersen (Aug 19, 2011)

Fair enough.

All the software I write is under the BSD license for the same reasons. I find the GPL license oddly far too restrictive for such a "free" license lol.

However, perhaps rather than reimplementing stuff purely for a different license. It *might* be more worthwhile to spend that time and effort on improving the project (making sure that the new stuff are under BSD licenses).

as an aside 

Stallman picks bits off his foot and eats it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ)

... I don't support that..


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## NewGuy (Aug 21, 2011)

falkman said:
			
		

> Because I cannot stand Stallman and I do not support his movement. I think that the GPL is extremely anti-corporation and I do not like that. I also like how simple the BSD license is. 'Credit the creator in the source that is distributed, or if there is no code distributed, then have a text file crediting the author.' Why is there a need for the massive GPL?



While I agree the BSD license is nice in its simple approach, I do wonder about your "extremely anti-corporation" statement. The GPL is often used in corporate environments. Red Hat being a prime example of a business largely based around GPL software. IBM is involved in a lot of GPLed projects, Novell too...

I agree with you about the BSD license being more attractive in some cases, especially from a developer point of view, but I think both licenses are important as they both fill important roles. For instance, I like the BSD license for libraries and items I'd like to see spread around and standardized. The GPL is nice for applications where you want to encourage sharing rather than competition.


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## Slurp (Aug 21, 2011)

NewGuy said:
			
		

> The GPL is nice for applications where you want to encourage sharing rather than competition.



I certainly don't find GPL encouraging. It's demanding and that's entirely different thing. Personally, I don't like being forced and it discourages me from even touching GPL sources.


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## NewGuy (Aug 21, 2011)

*Sharing*

Maybe I should have said "enforcing" instead of encouraging.

For example, a few times I've found that companies have taken my code and copied large chunks of it into commercial applications. Because those apps were licensed under the GPL I was able to go to those companies and basically tell them they had to release their changes back to the community. Which is nice for the open source community, though perhaps not appealing to that particular company. But then, down the road, another company was able to come along and use the software and benefit from the code contributed both by the community and the previous company.

I guess, for me, the appeal of the GPL is knowing that someone can't just come along and steal my hard work. They have to share and share alike.

But I also like the BSD license, as I said, when working on libraries where it's more important to me that the code be shared without restriction to encourage adoption. In the end, they're both tools with specific purposes and I think it's more important to use the right tool for the job than to stick exclusively to one.


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## xibo (Aug 22, 2011)

> I guess, for me, the appeal of the GPL is knowing that someone can't just come along and steal my hard work. They have to share and share alike.


I guess for me, the disgust of the GPL is that while I might not notice others stealing my "hard work", or be made to not notice it with enough blackmailing/bribe/"settlement out of court", I cannot use it as I will. This isn't much bad though, since there isn't any worthy will of mine to begin with - after all, I am a slave of Stalmanism.


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## rhyous (Sep 17, 2011)

It is important that base system be completely GPL-free, which is one of the main reasons the CLANG compiler is being developed.

When thinking GPL vs BSD License, in many situations the "free"-ness is the same. 

For all intents and purposes, for "personal use" there is not much of a difference between GPL and BSDL.

When comparing GPL and BSD License, it makes sense to talk of the situation where the difference is most emphasized. So a good scenario where the difference is most emphasized is this:

CompanyXYS has a great idea for a new product. 
They decide to make an appliance they will sell and distribute. 
They want an open source operating system. 
They will have their new awesome proprietary software running on top of it.

I have an article that covers this: Differences between the BSD/FreeBSD Copyrights and the GNU Public License (GPL)

If they go with a BSDL/MIT license, their costs could be a lot lower than if they go with GPL for a few reasons.

1. GPL requires you redistribute the source. Yes, this takes time and money. Do you need a web site or just someone responding to email?
2. GPL requires that you release your changes as GPL as well. This can take away sales and be a competitive disadvantage. Maybe you have to limit yourself to selling support and services because you can't sell your product as you have to give it away for free.
3. You have to give up a lot of you Intellectual Property (IP) as it touches GPL and so everyone can use.
4. You almost have to hire a lawyer to make decisions on what can be proprietary and what can't.
5. You have to train and educate your developers on when they can and can't link to GPL.
6. Failure to comply leaves you open to a lawsuit that could be quite expensive and even if you win, ruins your profits and ends your business.

The costs of the GPL in an enterprise appliance can continue to pile up. The less GPL you have, the less the cost.

If you go completely GPL free, you don't have any of the above costs. You can just distribute the OS without a concern in the world for licensing. You don't have distribute the code, call a lawyer, worry about a lawsuit, or anything. 

This is why Apple used a lot of BSD source. This is why some key components of Android were replaced with GPL equivalents. This is why you can find BSD software in things like TVs.

So yes, it is very important to have a list of what software is in the base system that is not GPL.

GPL = Communism (not the false negative connotation of bad countries with dictators that cause wars, but the actual dictionary meaning of the word: the community owns the software and the software is shared in common...click the link read the dictionary meaning and please no troll-ing)
BSD = Communism or Capitalism 

It is because the BSD License goes both ways, that in the situation described above the company distributing an appliance is set free.  This company can maintain their capitalism while still participating in the community and contributing code back that may not be proprietary. Apple does this with FreeBSD, I hear.

By the way, is there such a list of what remains in the base system that is GPL? (Because I found this post looking for that list.)


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## da1 (Sep 17, 2011)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> Stallman picks bits off his foot and eats it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ)



Comment from the video:


> He has the intellect of Albert Einstein and theï»¿ social skills of Bob the Mountain Gorilla.


hahahahhahahahah ..... =)))


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## rhyous (Sep 17, 2011)

Ok, I found this when I got smart Googled like this: FreeBSD base system GPL site:wiki.freebsd.org

http://wiki.freebsd.org/BSDToolchain

It has a long term goal listed



> Long Term (10.0+)
> 
> Our long term goal is for the base system to include a modern BSD licensed toolchain without any GPL licensed componants. To make this happen we need to replace:
> 
> ...


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## fonz (Sep 18, 2011)

rhyous said:
			
		

> To make this happen we need to replace:
> gcc
> binutils (as, ld, nm, strings, etc)
> gdb
> ...


The latter probably isn't even that important, there's not a whole lot of C++ code in the base system (thankfully, for C++ is one dog-ugly language).

But what you're basically saying is that if we have a (good!) BSD- or otherwise decently-licensed C (and possibly C++) compiler, there's no need for any GPL stuff in the base system at all anymore. I wish I had more time available, because I'd be more than willing to help with that.

Fonz


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## Alt (Sep 19, 2011)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> I find the GPL license oddly far too restrictive for such a "free" license lol.


Talking about "Free software" or GPL - software is free, not you. :e


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