Comments on: GPL declines as open source moves to the Web

The 5 percent drop in General Public License adoption likely reflects a shift in perception as to the value of open-source licensing.

[bradweikel]

Fragmentation in the long tail doesn't say much about GPL's dominance of the core. Research that simply counts the number of applications using a license really doesn't tell us much - it needs to also consider the usage of those applications. The VERY large percentage of open source projects that are just hobbyist applications with one developer, very few users, and no open source methodologies other than the license, create a lot of noise in any attempts to analyze substantive trends.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there hasn't been any solid research on open source that distinguishes between serious apps and hobbyist projects, partly because its really hard to do such a study. So, at least for now, we just have to take these numbers with a grain of salt.

[nt007]

No one in their right mind would adopt a GPL 3 for any work unless they like being on welfare.

[BrucePerens]

Actually, the opposite is often true. Because I use the AGPL 3.0 on my software, I can sell commercial licenses to folks who don't like the AGPL terms. And it DOES apply to web-delivered software, something that Matt missed entirely.

If I used the BSD license, nobody would have any reason to buy a commercial license at all. Then I'd be more likely to be on welfare.

MySQL sold their business for a Billion using this licensing scheme. Too bad that Sun ran it into the ground immediately after the purchase. The founders took home over 200 Million each.

[jgodse]

GPLv3 is actually a better license than GPLv2 because it forces software distributors to license any related patents as well. Before this, a troll could publish software under GPL v2, wait for a rich company to start using it legally under the terms of GPL v2, and then ding them for patent violations. The patent clause is the only major difference between GPL v2 and GPL v3. Check out http://linux-watch.com/files/misc/GPLv2_vs_GPLv3.pdf for details.

As for being on welfare, the whole idea in FOSS is that you distribute the software under a FOSS license, and then make your money on customization and integration (instead of charging for licenses).


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[vikinzer]

You miss a rather large point though. The AGPL is actually very important. Data is great and all, but it's only great if the user has the power to produce an alternate piece of software to use the data.

I personally want to see more cloud applications move to a structure similar to Drupal. I desperately want to be able to download Google Docs and put it on my home server. I would use it a great deal more that way, because I would know that if Google did something with the software that someone else could fork it, or that I could go in a hack around with the code.

So many of the freedoms associated with free software are lost in this situation. "Access to your data" which are the crown jewels you speak of means nothing if the only program to utilize the data is the one you are paying for. This is a mirror of the same vendor lock in we had with Microsoft.

[ghaff]

But issues of format complexity aside (which was a significant part of the OOXML debate), they key is documenting the format as opposed to open sourcing the app that created the format. At one level, all that having the source to the app lets you do is reverse engineer the data format. Of course, someone has to write an application and if enough people don't care, no one may do so.

[vikinzer]

I agree with you that documenting the format is important, I would go to far as to say the most important thing. Format's don't exist in isolation though. Anyone who has tried to do something with a format in one program and then open it in a different program that doesn't implement the same features, or reads the format slightly differently will atest to this. It is important to have access to the code so you don't have to completely re-invent the wheel to get out of vendor lock in. The right to fork, thereby taking everything about the app you need with you and having the freedom to add to it is central to the whole point of open source from a consumer protection standpoint. Open Source cannot be about business. Business needs to be able to leverage open source to make a profit in order for it to stay relevant, but it cannot be just about business or you forget the very reasons it was started. Those reasons are still valid.

[BrucePerens]

Matt, you miss AGPL entirely, and its import to web-delivered software.

[giovanisp]

Matt.... what about the GNU Affero GPLv3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html)? It should be promoted AS THE REPLACEMENT of gnu GPL 2/3 for the web... as it is the only license that keeps all the freedoms for users.

What do you think about it ?

Will (real) free software die without licenses like the GNU Affero GPLv3 ?

[jgodse]

WIth the web/cloud as a hosting platform, free software as defined by Richard Stallman will die without the AGPL. However, there is lots of other free software that won't die.

[elmagistral]

I'm not sure I followed you thoughts, well, I did at the end when you mentioned AGPL. Your "It's irrelevant because the GPL protects nothing in a world where software is delivered over the Web, because the GPL's "distribution clause" isn't triggered. " sound me that didn't consider at atll AGPL. Just in the last parragraph you mention AGPL, and moreover, that it had a 400% increase in adoption. Doesn't that contradicts a large part of you line of thought? The 5% decrease in GPL that Black Duck reports the 400% increase in AGPL ?

[Chris_Duffy]

Dear Matt: http://www.google.com/search?q=AGPL+3.0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rlz=1R1GGGL_en___US323&client=firefox-a

[dsterry]

Matt definitely should have included AGPL but I think I know why he didn't. His source ( Black Duck Software ) doesn't track it and they should. They link to this story from their website so hopefully they'll note this important omission. How are we all to know our code and it's compliance with important free software licenses if the hottest one isn't included?

[PeterVescuso]

It was not an omission, Black Duck does track the AGPL. The reason it didn?t appear in Matt?s comments is the AGPL license is not in the top 10 in terms of its share of OSS projects, using it?s share as a measure of popularity if you will. The AGPL ranks #29. You can see the usage stat?s for all the GPL variants at:

http://www.blackducksoftware.com/oss

Peter Vescuso

[MSSlayer]

"It's irrelevant because the GPL protects nothing in a world where software is delivered over the Web, because the GPL's "distribution clause" isn't triggered. The GPL becomes BSD/Apache, in short."

It appears that not only do you not understand linux and software development, you don't have the first clue about licensing either.

Just because your company abuses the spirit of OSS, doesn't mean everyone does.

[jgodse]

This was a great article! One consequence of web applications effectively turning GPL into Apache (for web applications only) is that it gives public web applications a huge advantage over other types of FOSS applications because since web application hosts do not have to distribute any changes they make to FOSS software of any of the common FOSS licenses (except AGPL), they can pick from a much wider variety of software as their starting point. For example, if you are a company that is building a proprietary CRM system using a database, a web-hosted CRM solution can use MySQL (GPL license) or PostgreSQL (BSD license, I believe). A company that builds the same kind of proprietary application can only use PostgreSQL (BSD) and not use MySQL because using MySQL (under the GPL) will force them to distribute their application source code as well. In fact, using PostgreSQL in a web application frees you to distribute it to, say, and enterprise customer that demands that the database be resident on its premises, without distributing your proprietary code.

Using AGPL is a great way to adhere to the software freedom philosophies of Richard Stallman. However, remember that Linux didn't take off in popularity until companies found ways to connect their proprietary software to Linux without triggering the distribution clause.

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