This is what free software / free licenses needs, people who parade and exemplify it rather than compare it to non-free licenses or even hate on and fight against non-free software, by force.
I don't entirely understand his explanation though. All I understand is that Mark approves of what happened. I do not understand why it is a good thing and why he wants the world to work like this. He didn't explain that.
The whole logic of what and how you are allowed to charge for in the free software/content world seems completely arbitrary to me, even though I have read so much about it.
I think the point is that once Mark released his work under the GPL, then he no longer has any control on how his work is used or distributed, even though it might be in disagreement with his wishes ... and he accepts that, because that's what "Free" is all about.
... that in contrast to forcing people to abide by your rules, without explicitly saying that in the license (e.g. by activism, harassment and public insults ... for reference see for example GNU/Linux [1] or the endless discussions about apologists/traitors[2] ).
I'm not a lawyer, but my layman's understanding is something like this:
* If you wrote/created/designed it, you get to pick the license. You can give it to some people under the GPL, you can give it to other people under the BSD license, you can negotiate all kinds of crazy licenses for arbitrary recompense you dream up - it's up to you.
* If you received a copy of some GPL'd code, freely or in exchange for money, you have the right to give copies to other people - freely, or in exchange for money. If you paid $1000 for some GPL'd code, you're allowed to burn it to a stack of CD-Rs and hand them out on the street corner. If you got it for free off the Internet, you can copy it to your own website and charge people $29.95 per download (whether these actions are moral is another question, but they're legal).
* If you give somebody some binary executables whose source was under the GPL, whether you gave them in exchange for money or for free, you must give them the source too, or give them the right to ask for the source later. If they ask for a copy of the source later on, you're only allowed to charge the cost of blank media - regardless of what you charged for the binary executables in the first place.
If you wrote/created/designed it, you get to pick the license
I do get that part. But it doesn't help me understand the merits of any particular license.
Thanks for your attempt to explain the GPL to me. I already knew what the GPL says, I just don't see how it achieves its goals of increasing my freedoms.
For instance, I'm not allowed to use the source code of some of the software google has linked to GPL code. Even when I pay for using it (like when I run my code on google's servers), I lose all freedoms related to some of the code covered by the GPL.
If they let me download their code, they would have to let me use the source and sell it as well. But they can simply not let me download it and force me to run the code on their servers exclusively.
So, in this scenario using the GPL means that I can not view or modify the source code of the software I build on. I have to pay for using it, and I have to abide by further arbitrary rules included in their terms of service, taking away even more fundamental freedoms.
The GPL increases your freedoms by forcing people to give back, for free, the work they've done on top of GPL'd work they in turn received for free. With software as a service, this breaks down completely, because the derived work is never actually distributed.
The GPLv3 explicitly tries to deal with software as a service, but it's definitely more problematic since it's not as solidly grounded in copyright law as v2 is, it's harder to detect breaches of it, harder to prove breaches, and harder for the people in the justice system to understand it.
> The GPL increases your freedoms by forcing people to give back, for free, the work they've done on top of GPL'd work they in turn received for free
No, the GPL forces people to distribute the source code of their own modifications, but that's only on redistribution. That's why with software as a service this doesn't work.
This has to be emphasized, because that's its central strenght.
The majority of all software is made and run in-house, without ever being distributed. And open-source would not be what it is today without contributors that have SaaS as a business model.
> The GPLv3 explicitly tries to deal with software as a service
No it doesn't. The GPLv3 is still only a copyright license which only covers redistribution (as GPLv2). It is more problematic because it tries to define what distribution means (to prevent tivoization), and copyright laws have their own definitions, but it still is within normal bounds ... so it remains to be seen if it works, but FSF has got some pretty smart lawyers over there, and they did their homework.
The license that tries to deal with SaaS is AGPL.
But that's not a copyright license anymore, and while it is considered to be "open-source", some people think that it shouldn't be, since it places restrictions on the actual usage of the software (like an EULA).
And you'll have a hard time convincing companies that have contributed to open-source to switch to AGPL. Hell will freeze over or a new gap in AGPL will be discovered before that happens. One way AGPL can be "monetized" is with dual-licensing. But that's just dishonest and definitely not free.
If they let me download their code, they would have to let me use the source and sell it as well. But they can simply not let me download it and force me to run the code on their servers exclusively.
This is where the AGPL comes into play. It's a modified form of the standard GPL3 license, but with extra provisions specifically designed to include the of accessing the software from a remote server as distribution. By licensing web applications or server-based software with the AGPL, you then "force" the hosting entity to provide source code for any users of the service.
You're pretty much spot on. You don't just get the right to redistribute, though, you also get the right to modify. If you do modify, and distribute your modifications, you're obligated to release them under the GPL as well (this is what FUDers always cry 'viral' over).
The reason is that this is desireable is because anyone who's willing to spread what Mark has written helps Mark. Think of it as free advertising.
This could be much, much longer. I actually spoke on a panel at my local PodCamp about all of this a few weeks ago... It's a very complicated topic. A lot of the ideas are very counter-intuitive to a lot of people.
You've read a lot about Free software, but have you read the primary source? The Free Software Definition (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) would be a good place to start, if you haven't. Does that still not make sense? If not, I could try, but this is basically what I'd tell you, without some further context.
The definition of what is "Free Software" is arbitrary, because anyone could use a completely different definition and wouldn't be less right or wrong.
The proposition that "Free Software" is moral is also arbitrary, for there's no rationale. There's just some agreement because of the bandwagon effect and multiple meanings of words like "freedom", "sharing" and so on.
The simple truth is: It's sometimes useful and so is "non-free" software.
