Without GPL and its viral behavior open source would not become a thing. Everything would be proprietary and closed. Open source would be exploited and its code would be used in proprietary software without any benefits.
Maybe, or maybe not. Firefox was never GPL, and yet it single-handedly broke Microsoft's proprietary hold on internet browsers and protocols. "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is the paper that inspired it, and it is not based on Free Software Foundation philosophy. It generated the entire idea of "permissive" licenses and led to the Open Source Initiative being founded. The OSI cooperates with the FSF while keeping distance from RMS's philosophy.
I agree that the GPL had an important role, and still does at times, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the FSF has done more to divide the programming community than build it. Some of our largest open source innovations come out of so-called "permissive" licenses. The large corporations contributing massive bodies of work do so under OSI's support and framework, not FSF's. Open source isn't quite as weak as some would believe.
"The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is a paper that only inspired a degenerate market term, which is widely used by megacorps as a new way of exploitation today. OSI does nothing but gets donations from those companies (such as Microsoft) for their "innovations" of showing free licenses as their beloved market term "open source". You need to remember that permissive licenses are also free software, and that so called innovative paper is based on the existing free software movement.
I find your assessment interesting, if utterly baseless. I'm a member of the OSI, and well familiar with the activities of the OSI, and the issues surrounding it.
Yeah, it certainly took these specific efforts to get to where we are now, but open source is fundamentally valuable enough that I think that progress could have happened under other circumstances. We only get one timeline, it's literally impossible to know.
While we're talking about theoretical history, by some interpretations, it may have been easier for open source to gain a footing without the FSF, simply because it took years of hard work to peel the "viral and divisive" label off the open source movement. It wasn't until relatively recent years that the OSI managed it, and larger companies started seeing the value in open source.
In that same vein, peer-to-peer technology might be a lot further along if its primary and/or famous use cases weren't immediately so anti-establishment.
My name is Matteo and I'm a cloud solution architect and tech enthusiast. In my spare time, I work on open source software as much as I can. I simply enjoy writing software that is actually useful.
Just think about docker, all the Apache softwares, Firefox, near all the Google softwares... None of them uses the GPL and still no one is abusing of them. Even Microsoft now contribute to free software. There is no more need to force people to go open source. Sharing is caring, not forcing
Without GPL and its viral behavior open source would not become a thing. Everything would be proprietary and closed. Open source would be exploited and its code would be used in proprietary software without any benefits.
cough cough Sun microsystems before acquisition cough IBM and Eclipse stuff cough Apache and their long list of free but business friendly software
Maybe, or maybe not. Firefox was never GPL, and yet it single-handedly broke Microsoft's proprietary hold on internet browsers and protocols. "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is the paper that inspired it, and it is not based on Free Software Foundation philosophy. It generated the entire idea of "permissive" licenses and led to the Open Source Initiative being founded. The OSI cooperates with the FSF while keeping distance from RMS's philosophy.
I agree that the GPL had an important role, and still does at times, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the FSF has done more to divide the programming community than build it. Some of our largest open source innovations come out of so-called "permissive" licenses. The large corporations contributing massive bodies of work do so under OSI's support and framework, not FSF's. Open source isn't quite as weak as some would believe.
"The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is a paper that only inspired a degenerate market term, which is widely used by megacorps as a new way of exploitation today. OSI does nothing but gets donations from those companies (such as Microsoft) for their "innovations" of showing free licenses as their beloved market term "open source". You need to remember that permissive licenses are also free software, and that so called innovative paper is based on the existing free software movement.
I find your assessment interesting, if utterly baseless. I'm a member of the OSI, and well familiar with the activities of the OSI, and the issues surrounding it.
You need to do a lot more reading.
Yeah, it certainly took these specific efforts to get to where we are now, but open source is fundamentally valuable enough that I think that progress could have happened under other circumstances. We only get one timeline, it's literally impossible to know.
Indeed!
While we're talking about theoretical history, by some interpretations, it may have been easier for open source to gain a footing without the FSF, simply because it took years of hard work to peel the "viral and divisive" label off the open source movement. It wasn't until relatively recent years that the OSI managed it, and larger companies started seeing the value in open source.
In that same vein, peer-to-peer technology might be a lot further along if its primary and/or famous use cases weren't immediately so anti-establishment.
Just think about docker, all the Apache softwares, Firefox, near all the Google softwares... None of them uses the GPL and still no one is abusing of them. Even Microsoft now contribute to free software. There is no more need to force people to go open source. Sharing is caring, not forcing
Newton one said the reason i am able to see so far ahead is because i am standing on the shoulder of giants.