The previous post gave a short introduction into the topic of software licenses, focusing on the GPL vs. BSD discussion. This one is basically my response to some typical arguments I’ve seen from people who seem to loathe permissive licensing. I’ll write this in dialog style, hoping that this makes it a little lighter to read.
Users
GPL fan: “BSD license? Really? You shouldn’t be using that!”
BSD advocate: “Why not? I like it a lot.”
Fan: “It’s a dumb decision. Don’t you even care about free and open source software?”
Advocate: “Oh yes, I do!”
Fan: “Then why not just use the license everyone uses? In contrast to BSD, the GPL ensures that code remains free.”
Advocate: “No, not ‘everyone’ uses that license. You wouldn’t claim that e.g. the Apache foundation doesn’t do anything for open source now would you?”
Fan: “Most of the important projects do. Apache and some others don’t, I’ll give you that. They should adapt the GPL, though.”
Advocate: “Version 2 or 3?”
Fan: “GPLv3, of course. It was updated for a reason after all! The current version offers much better protection for your code.”
Advocate: “Well… I don’t feel any need for this kind of ‘protection’. But for now let’s assume that you convinced me. Changing the license would be quite a bit of work!”
Simplicity vs. Complexity
Fan: “How’s that? Re-licensing stuff to GPL is pretty straight-forward.”
Advocate: “Reading – and understanding! – the license alone takes quite some time… Which is one reason I prefer the much simpler BSD licenses, BTW.”
Fan: “Nonsense! The GPL has been constructed carefully and is advocated by the FSF. You can read it, of course, but you could basically trust their judgement.”
Advocate: “I strongly prefer to work with things that I do understand myself.”
Fan: “The aim of the GPL is not hard to understand at all.”
Advocate “It’s a complex monster. Sure, I understand what it’s all about. But in life in general – and even more so in law – the devil is in the details. Finding out what I am allowed to do and what not is not an easy task – and it got more complicated with every new version of the license.”
Fan “It’s only as complex as it has to. You admitted that law is complicated and details are important. Of course it had to become more comprehensive over time! That’s for our own good.”
Advocate “‘Of course’? I’d doubt that. The BSD license has seen updated versions as well – and it has been shortened with every new revision… Anyway, my focus is on the software. For that reason I prefer a license that doesn’t distract me for quite some time from what I actually want to do.”
Fan: “You said that you care about your code? Fine. Then you really should avoid BSD licenses!”
Advocate: “Uhm… What?”
Fan: “Linus Torvalds put it this way: ‘Over the years, I’ve become convinced that the BSD license is great for code you don’t care about’. And he’s right.”
Advocate: “No he isn’t. It completely depends on what you want to achieve!”
Success
Fan: “It’s common knowledge that the Linux kernel is so successful because of it being GPL’d so that every company using it had to give their changes back for the common good. Let’s see… How popular are your valued BSD-based operating systems today? Oh, nobody uses them anymore…”
Advocate: “Wow, Netflix, Whatsapp and others who exclusively use BSD are ‘nobody’? Not to mention other users and supporters of BSD operating systems like Yandex and VeriSign. The BSDs are less visible compared to Linux, that’s true. But by simply doing their job well and without all the community drama people are talking less about the BSDs is not a surprise at all!”
Fan: “Now you’re trying to make it look like Linux and the BSDs were on par! That’s completely wrong. Linux has a share of 100% on the TOP500 supercomputers since November 2017. Try to beat that!”
Advocate: “And with Android… yeah, I know what you’d point to next. True: Linux has reached a monopoly worse than…”
Fan: “Worse? What’s bad about open source software prevailing?”
Advocate: “Monopolies are not a good thing at all. I’m all for open source operating systems – mind the plural there.”
Fan: “Heh, you only say that because you’re betting on the wrong horse. Face it: Linux is the winner here and for a good reason!”
Advocate: “*mumbles* Yeah, and if only it had adopted the GPLv3 then it’d be at 200% share on supercomputers now…”
Fan: “Excuse me, could you repeat that just a little louder?”
Advocate: “I just doubt that it’s only a license thing that decides on success or failure. For the BSDs, historically it has been a state of legal uncertainty that was the big problem and allowed Linux to rise. And if your point was really valid – why do we need GPLv3 at all if v2 used by Linux to this day is all that’s required to conquer the world?”
Fan: “You’re just jealous! But sure, the GPL is just one key to the success of Linux. The BSD licenses are also one major factor in the demise of the BSD operating systems.”
Advocate: “There is no demise; there are at least four healthy BSD communities who continue to provide quality operating system releases. The claim that ‘BSD is dying’ has about as much truth to it as the prediction of the ‘year of the Linux desktop’! Of course you are free to prove otherwise.”
Freedom
Fan: “Freedom is a good point, too! Permissive licenses may grant the user some rights but only copyleft ensures that nobody can take your freedom away. Isn’t that kind of important?”
Advocate: “Yes, freedom is extremely important – which is why I choose permissive licenses over copyleft ones. But we certainly won’t find a definition of freedom that suits both of us.”
Fan: “So that’s something you don’t want to talk about? Then what are you hiding there? Your weak arguments?”
Advocate: “Not really. The problem here is: I know and understand your point of view. Why? Because I’ve been there when I was younger and promoted the GPL. But now that I have a broader understanding of the matter I have a different view on it.”
Fan: “Yeah, just treat me like a young boy. ‘You cannot understand that now, grow a little older and wiser and you’ll be enlightened like me!'”
Advocate: “I didn’t say that. All that I’ve said is that I know your position and that it’s nothing that can be proven wrong easily enough for us to make sense to discuss it without going in-depth on it. If you insist, we should set aside a couple of evenings for a philosophical debate.”
Fan: “Which philosophical debate? I’m still claiming that you’re trying to avoid the topic.”
Advocate: “Yes, I am – for today. It’s a topic for itself and leads too far off for us right now. But here’s the core of the problem: The point of view you have is that ‘enforcing freedom’ is a good thing. From my point of view it is absurd. Force and freedom contradict each other.”
Fan: “Not necessarily.”
Advocate: “So you claim that it’s possible to force somebody to be free?”
Fan: “Hm. Why not?”
Advocate: “Because force takes freedom away. But the problem is in the term ‘freedom’. We use it differently and mean other things. That’s why this specific debate would require a whole lot more time. So can we agree on a draw for that topic for now?”
Fan: “If it really takes so long to discuss, that may make sense. So back to the characters of the licenses, right? But don’t think that I’ll let you get away with such claims on another topic again!”
Better with Copyleft?
Advocate: “So?”
Fan: “Copyleft is also superior to permissive licenses.”
Advocate: “Didn’t we already cover the topic ‘success’? Or do you mean the fact that it’s overriding the terms of permissively licensed code when the two are combined?”
Fan: “I meant something else, but that’s true, too, of course!”
Advocate: “I don’t think that this is a good thing. It’s virulent in nature.”
Fan: “Oh hello, Mr. Ballmer!”
Advocate: “I didn’t say that it’s cancer, even though that’s probably a valid point of view on it.”
Fan: “Anyway, it’s superior because it guarantees that companies using the code contribute their changes back. It’s pure logic to assume that this makes the software better than a competitor where you don’t have to give back.”
Advocate: “Hm… What about the incompatibilities of copyleft licenses?”
Fan: “What do you mean? And how would that impact the quality of an OS or something?”
Advocate: “Well, take ZFS for example. It’s the world’s most advanced filesystem – and it’s licensed under a copyleft license. However that license is incompatible with the GPL and for that reason cannot easily be included into Linux distros! FreeBSD for example doesn’t have this problem. Due to the permissive license of the main operating system components, including ZFS was no problem from a legal point of view…”
Fan: “Ah, we can do without ZFS, we have BTRFS! And if you really want it, you can use DKMS to build it!”
Advocate: “DKMS is quite an inconvenience in this regard and I won’t even comment on that other FS… But that was just one example that copyleft licenses are sometimes not as cool as you’d like to make them look.”
Fan: “Nah, Sun should have open-sourced ZFS under the GPL or at least made their license compatible with it. Then we wouldn’t have that problem.”
Advocate: “The more complicated licenses get, the more edge cases arise that lead to problems. BTW, have you ever heard the comparison ‘GPL is a license. BSD is a gift’?”
Gift vs. license
Fan: “The large corporations will surely applaud your stance on this matter!”
Advocate: “Oh, let’s stay clear of this childish behavior and refrain from insulting each other with poisoned compliments, shall we? Otherwise I’d reply with something like ‘great attitude! Congratulations on it from the national lawyer’s association’. But that wouldn’t be helpful either, would it?”
Fan: “Lawyers are not nearly as bad as the big companies.”
Advocate: “Right. Some of them are supporting your cause. Others are doing the opposite by helping big business to find new loop holes. Both make quite a bit of money without ever improving the code.”
Fan: “Good lawyers are necessary to help protect software. That’s a win for open source.”
Advocate: “If you say so… I still prefer simple things. I like it being a gift.”
Fan: “Others will surely like that, too. It’s a gift to the large companies that only care for open source when they can make profit with it! For that reason making such a gift is stupid.”
Advocate “Not so fast. It’s a gift to everybody. That makes quite a difference!”
Fan: “No it doesn’t. Greedy corporations will end up taking your code.”
Advocate: “Maybe they’ll actually do. But are you really saying: ‘Don’t give a blanket for a refugee – a terrorist might warm himself with it’? Are good deeds wrong if a bad person might benefit from it?”
Exploitation?
Fan: “*Sigh* That’s not the point. When you use permissive licenses you are actively asking to be exploited.”
Advocate: “Sorry, that’s simply wrong. Software has the advantage of not disappearing when you give it away. I can give it to multiple people and don’t lose anything. When it comes to free software, the only thing that can be exploited are bugs.”
Fan: “Ha ha, very funny – not. You know exactly what I mean: You are asking to be exploited because you invested time into a project and somebody else simply takes it and generates revenue from it while you get nothing.”
Advocate: “I have a very different view on that. I open-sourced my code in the hope that it would be useful to people. If I had intended to make money with it, I would have chosen to commercialize it.”
Fan: “But they did commercialize it! And they make money from your work!”
Advocate: “Relax! Yes, that’s entirely possible. However I didn’t expect to make money with it in the first place, anyway.”
Fan: “But if your code is useful, somebody else surely will!”
Advocate: “And is allowed to do so, if he or she finds somebody who’s willing to pay for something that’s freely available. I’m still not losing anything, right? Besides: Anybody else could also try to sell it. It’s the same rules for everybody. I’d say that’s fair.”
Ethical issues
Fan: “That’s really egoistic thinking. Supporting unfree software is entirely unethical!”
Advocate: “You didn’t really say that, did you? I’m giving something away. For free, no strings attached and without trying to achieve any real benefit for myself. And you are accusing me of acting unethical?”
Fan: “Actually yes. By not making sure that your ‘gift’ remains free, you’re supporting unfree software.”
Advocate: “Wrong. It does remain free! Nobody is losing anything.”
Fan: “You know as well as I do that the BSD license allows closing your code and using it in closed-source software!”
Advocate: “Errr… Sure. But while you are trying to make it sound like that would mean a loss for open source this is not the case. The original code doesn’t disappear! It remains available under the BSD license and continues to be of use to anybody who wants to use it.”
Fan: “Bah, what a short-sighted argument! Yeah, your original code may still be available, but they will make modifications to their copy. And that’s when you’re cut off from good things that resulted from your code!”
Advocate: “I can live with that.”
Fan: “That’s ridiculous. Come on, don’t be an idiot! They are making others pay for something that was free software and now isn’t anymore. And you said that you care for free software?!”
Advocate: “You obviously can’t understand it. Why don’t you ask for my reasons instead of calling me an idiot?”
Fan: “Because there cannot be a legit reason for supporting unfree software!”
Advocate: “Excuse me but that’s a little bit arrogant, don’t you think? Let me give you an example. Think about Microsoft…”
Closed source
Fan: “Ha! You’re not going to defend M$, are you? You advocates of ‘permissive licensing’ are all the same! Why didn’t you start our conversation stating that you love Microsoft? That would have saved me quite some time!”
Advocate: “Please let me finish my sentences, will you? I certainly don’t love Microsoft. In fact I haven’t installed any Microsoft OS or program at home in about 10 years. I’ve been there when they used their market power with Windows 3.x to destroy DR-DOS. I haven’t forgotten the Halloween papers, either.”
Fan: “So? Windows is a terrible OS.”
Advocate: “Yes, for the versions that I know and have used in the past, that’s certainly true. What I wanted to say however is this: The web is a pretty bad place today and even though a lot was done over the last years, much of the software today is still a nightmare when it comes to security. Agree?”
Fan: “Sure!”
Advocate: “Fine. Especially Windows has been notorious for very bad security flaws in the past and all those hacked Windows machines are ruining the net for us all. Now imagine Microsoft couldn’t have taken the well-tested TCP/IP stack from BSD Unix because it had a different license. They would have been forced to write their own – would you really want to claim that would have made the world a better place?”
Fan: “Probably not… But nobody should use Windows in the first place then that problem would be hypothetical.”
Advocate: “In an ideal world we wouldn’t have any of those issues, right?”
Fan: “Correct. In that case we wouldn’t even need the GPL because everybody would be acting ethically anyway. But we aren’t living in such a world and for that very reason need GPL to support the FLOSS movement. You’re quite good at making esoteric objections against the GPL to make your lax license look better, BTW.”
Lax vs. pessimistic
Advocate: “Esoteric? I’d claim that the one case that I mentioned alone had quite some impact on the future of the net. But if you insist on calling my preferred family of licenses ‘lax’, I’m going to call yours ‘pessimistic’.”
Fan: “Why that? There’s nothing pessimistic about the GPL!”
Advocate: “Yes, there is. The whole idea is. Didn’t you say yourself that the GPL wouldn’t be needed in a better world?”
Fan: “In an ideal world! That’s different. But that doesn’t make it pessimistic.”
Advocate: “It does. You’re considering man to be bad – or at least sufficiently bad that instruments as the GPL are necessary.”
Fan: “They are necessary! That’s a fact. Just look around you with your eyes open!”
Advocate: “I disagree. And in fact I’m even going to top it: The GPL is not only unnecessary, it’s actively harmful.”
Fan: “Now you’ve completely lost your mind…”
Advocate: “Have I? Let me make another example. I’ve grown up using closed-source software. When I discovered open source, I was very happy that such a thing existed and completely made the switch.”
Fan: “And now you’re seeking to ruin it all…”
Advocate: “Not really. I’m actually happy enough with it that I developed a feeling of great gratitude and that created a desire within me to give something back.”
Fan: “That sounds great and all but I have no idea why the heck you are acting against open source.”
Advocate: “The point here is: I give back now because I want to. With the GPL I’d have to. The freedom of choice makes the difference here.”
Fan: “How nice for you! But a lot of people wouldn’t give back on their own and that’s why they need to be forced to!”
Advocate: “And by doing so you’re actively making it impossible for people to really grow ethically and make the morally superior choice themselves! You know, I hate that ‘four freedoms’ nonsense! It’s just a disguise for dictating rules that seem to make sense but in fact deny your freedom! All that ‘respects your freedoms’ is utterly cynical if any person’s most basic freedom – our free will – is denied!”
Capitalism
Fan: “Wow, impressive rant!”
Advocate: “That’s all you reply to the points that I make?”
Fan: “You’re a dreamer. All that ‘ethical growth’ and ‘personal development’ stuff is utopistic. Big money rules the world.”
Advocate: “It sure does, but in the form that we’re seeing today that will come to an end.”
Fan: “I doubt it, but if it does, that will be a victory we can only achieve with the GPL. It’s a powerful weapon we can use to defeat the big corporations.”
Advocate: “To found a world that people live in who never learned to make ethical decisions in the first place because it was already decided for them. Not a world I’d like to live in either.”
Fan: “Not a surprise that you’re defending capitalism and corporate power!”
Advocate: “I’m not a capitalist but I’m convinced that there’s a better way out of it.”
Fan: “By letting it all continue as it goes today?!”
Advocate: “As strange as that sounds – yes. And here’s why: Take companies like Juniper for example. They took FreeBSD as the base for their OS because… Well, it was free and allowed them to close the source and keep it for themselves.”
Fan: “And you like that…”
Advocate: “Yes, I do! You won’t believe it, but they hurt themselves by doing so: More and more new versions of FreeBSD were released and they were stuck with their old system which required a lot of maintenance and updating it got harder and harder since the system diverged a lot over the time. If they had given back as much as they could, they would even have saved a lot of money… Today there are already companies who understood this and even from purely capitalistic motivations started to embrace permissive open source: They give back as much as they can because it benefits everyone (including them).”
Fan: “That cannot be many. Otherwise BSD would be far more popular.”
Advocate: “It takes time for companies to learn. Give them the chance to hurt themselves and to eventually come to a good conclusion on how to act.”
Final victory
Fan: “Even if that was true, in your world open source would never succeed. You’d always feed your code to the companies who will improve it a bit and start selling a product that’s superior. We can never catch up with them this way!”
Advocate: “I’m going to claim the opposite: We’re catching up quickly and there’s no way that we’re not going to win.”
Fan: “How’s that? They will always be a step ahead! Code needs to be constantly improved and they have an advantage there.”
Advocate: “That’s today’s story, yes. But we’re rapidly approaching the point where open source software is no longer a somewhat limited ‘alternative’ to commercial software but simply good enough for just about any task.”
Fan: “And then?”
Advocate: “That’s the moment we’ve ‘won’.”
Fan: “Strange definition of winning… The companies will still sell improved products!”
Advocate: “Well, just let them if they find someone who really needs those additional features and is willing to pay for them.”
Fan: “What do you mean? Of course people want the best software possible and will pay for it! We live in a capitalist society. Your strange ideas won’t change anything.”
Advocate: “My ideas? Certainly not. But the very rules of capitalism itself will eventually defeat it. If you don’t believe me, just tell me: How to beat good enough and free from a capitalist point of view?”
Fan: “Oh my. You really are a weirdo. Keep your faith in mankind being able to change its ways. I don’t have it and will stick with copyleft!”
(Sorry for the delay in publishing this, but last month has been really, really chaotic for me. Two of my grandparents passed away just a few days apart, I had a deer accident (I’m fine but the deer and my car not so much) and I’m in the middle of moving houses… So if you comment on this and I don’t immediately respond, please bear with me!)
