The Death Of A Software License
The FSF’s apparent lack of vision will lead to the obvious outcome.
This week I found myself entangled in yet another GPL argument. Opinions on the GPL’s infamous viral effect polluted the air as advocates and opponents battled over topics they had no business discussing. My advice: don’t argue about a legal license unless you’re a lawyer. Scratch that. Don’t argue about the GPL, period. Most people have no actual knowledge of the contents, effects, etc. of the license and build their opinions entirely on hearsay and speculation. Current revisions to the GPL are diluting any viral effect it may have had in the past, and distracting us from the real issue: Version 3 is going to distance Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation from the developers that make the organization so influential to begin.
Was it ever truly viral, or just popular? Though there are many derivative works out there, mass adoption of the GPL had little to do with cleverly planned infection and everything to do with winning the license popularity contest. I’ve spoken to countless project leaders over the years that selected the license not on the advice of legal counsel, not because of benefits for themselves or their customers, but because that’s what everyone else used. I’d bet my savings that a catalogue of every GPL licensed project would show a very small percentage were derivatives, or had to use it. Most leaders will tell you they selected the GPL because it was expected, but I’ll save peer pressure for another blog.
Back to the future of the GPL. The FSF should realize by now their influence is waning. Look at the plethora of alternative licenses. Now they’re really hamstringing themselves with Version 3, taking the license further and further from where industry developers are heading. Developers are still the heart of the open source community, and their support is integral to success. Are provisions concerned with patents and digital rights management really what developers want to see addressed? Do they care when Eben Moglen says “the time is rapidly approaching when the GPL is capable of leveling the monopolist to the ground?” Developers demand more freedom, not less. They want clear, practical leadership, not bombast.
Thankfully there are those in the community who clearly get it, like Greg Stein. Greg’s an Engineering Manager at Google and the chairman of the Apache Software Foundation. In his recent presentation at Linux World Tokyo he told the crowd, “Due to pressure from developers, all software is moving towards permissive licensing.” He calls this, oddly enough, “license pressure.” Developers care about the licenses on the software they use and incorporate into their projects, they like permissive licenses, and they will increasingly demand permissive licenses.
I know Greg, and I consider him a friend. We don’t always agree, but this time he’s 100% correct. Regardless of what the old guard believes, their little circle is no longer in control. By design, developers are the controlling species in the open source ecosystem, and those licenses that can’t adapt face extinction.
Few realize the depth of open source’s impact on the industry, and even the leaders of the FSF may not yet feel the earth shifting beneath their feet. But if GPL continues down its current path, will it be around in 10 years? The FSF’s apparent lack of vision will lead to the obvious outcome—the death of the GPL.
