Banning GPL articles
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How would you all feel if we banned GPL licenced code on The Code Project? 1 = bad idea, 5 = good idea
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Bad idea. Yeah, right now, there are a lot of articles that are more "article" than "code", and it's more of an irritation than anything. But if you ever want to make this a nicer place for on-going projects, GPL is a must.
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...the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more...
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How would you all feel if we banned GPL licenced code on The Code Project? 1 = bad idea, 5 = good idea
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Personally, I regard GPL as a virus licence. I don't like it as it is effectively authoritarian and doesn't fit with the idea of community. As an Open Source licence I would say that FreeBSD is the one that fits community best.
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Bad idea. Yeah, right now, there are a lot of articles that are more "article" than "code", and it's more of an irritation than anything. But if you ever want to make this a nicer place for on-going projects, GPL is a must.
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...the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more...
Shog9 wrote:
But if you ever want to make this a nicer place for on-going projects, GPL is a must.
Saying that the "GPL is a must" does not follow from making this a "nicer place for on-going projects". Why is GPL a must in that situation? Why must it be GPL? Why not some other licence?
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sorry for my ignorance about all these license things, but in what is it not compatible with CP' spirit ?
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toxcct wrote:
but in what is it not compatible with CP' spirit ?
It is an authoritarian licence. It dictates unreasonable terms to force "community" rather than just let the community happen. If communities are to be successful then they have to come together of their own volition. You can't force a community together. -- modified at 13:12 Wednesday 21st November, 2007 Corrected a typo.
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toxcct wrote:
Why ?!
Because they dictate too much. They are not in keeping with the spirit of a community, in my opinion.
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Is it April in Canada already? ;P Sometimes your work is forced to be GPL due to GPL dependencies.
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The rule of three: "The first time you notice something that might repeat, don't generalize it. The second time the situation occurs, develop in a similar fashion -- possibly even copy/paste -- but don't generalize yet. On the third time, look to generalize the approach."leppie wrote:
Sometimes your work is forced to be GPL due to GPL dependencies.
Probably a good reason to not see or use GPL code. I don't want to be forced in to GPLing something because of some restrictive licence.
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As a compromise, should one be desirable, you might make the liscense a category for the posts, allowing people to search for code by license type. This would allow people to filter out GPL should they so desire, while keeping the articles available should others want to view them for tutorial purposes (or be willing to adhere to the terms of the GPL).
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Coming soon: Got a career question? Ask the Attack Chihuahua! www.PracticalUSA.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
As a compromise, should one be desirable, you might make the liscense a category for the posts, allowing people to search for code by license type
That's a good idea. I'd also like to see a big red flashing banner on any article with GPL code so I know to steer clear of it.
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Excuse my ignorance - I'm unfamiliar with the various licences and the differences between them. Is GPL the licence that comes with libs like NUnit and Log4net? Does this mean that if for instance I posted something that used as part of the solution, code from a free library like NUnit, it would be rejected? Would it depend on whether the article based itself on the code, i.e. took the concepts and hard work that had gone into it and changed them a little, or if it simply used them as part of an overall solution, say off the top of my head, using log4net as a part of a web development framework? (If that's a valid comparison) ? I'd be of the opinion that if there's a component to do something which is peripheral to the main content of the article, then isn't it only logical to write the article on the basis of the way you would develop in a production scenario, i.e. get the best tool for the job and get on with it? Again, excuse my ignorance, just raising the question. Doubtless there are less legally-minded members of CP who would likewise benefit from an informed response.
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melchizidech wrote:
Is GPL the licence that comes with libs like NUnit and Log4net?
No. NUnit License[^] It looks similar to FreeBSD which I think is the closest to what I regard as genuine open source.
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What is your motivation?
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To protect Joe Q Coder from accidentally tainting his companies code base because he copy/pasted without reading the whole article to see the GPL tag.
-- Help Stamp Out and Abolish Redundancy The preceding is courtesy of the Department of Unnecessarily Redundant Repetition Department.
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You mean only have code that comes with no license at all? Hmm... perhaps. But if somebody had a project that others could benefit from by posting it with an article, yet they didn't want people to just take their code and use it (rather, that they learn from it and develop their own code)... :confused: I'm gonna just say 3 ;P
My current favourite word is: PIE! Good ol' pie, it's been a while.
The Undefeated wrote:
You mean only have code that comes with no license at all?
Code without a licence would default to only permitting the creator (or copyright holder if it has been reassigned) to use the code.
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To protect Joe Q Coder from accidentally tainting his companies code base because he copy/pasted without reading the whole article to see the GPL tag.
-- Help Stamp Out and Abolish Redundancy The preceding is courtesy of the Department of Unnecessarily Redundant Repetition Department.
dan neely wrote:
To protect Joe Q Coder from accidentally tainting his companies code base because he copy/pasted without reading the whole article to see the GPL tag.
I can imagine that happening a lot, especially given the number of cargo cult programmers that I see in the programming forums that don't understand how something works that they've ripped from some article and now need help to get it working. If they don't understand the code then I hardly think they'll understand the license.
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How would you all feel if we banned GPL licenced code on The Code Project? 1 = bad idea, 5 = good idea
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Diversity is ultimately what makes a community. My preference would be for CP to be encouraging of the most unrestrictive licences, but accepting of them all. For a long time, all articles where to contain the source code to them. But eventually a special class of article, Product Showcase, was developed and considered acceptable.
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] Donate to help Conquer Cancer[^]
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I can already see the Slashdot headline:
Top Windows Developer Site Bans GPL Code Rumors have it that site owner is sleeping with Bill Gates. Also, he is the spawn of Satan. Bribery suspected. Stallman and Moglen planning legal action.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. I'm currently blogging about: The Lord Is So Good The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
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Diversity is ultimately what makes a community. My preference would be for CP to be encouraging of the most unrestrictive licences, but accepting of them all. For a long time, all articles where to contain the source code to them. But eventually a special class of article, Product Showcase, was developed and considered acceptable.
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] Donate to help Conquer Cancer[^]
This is exactly what I'm thinking. The GPL is often used by developers who have little or no understanding of what it entails. A ban would force developers to think long and hard about which licence they did actually want to use. However, there may be legitimate reasons a person may wish to use the GPL. I just can't think of one at the moment.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Shog9 wrote:
But if you ever want to make this a nicer place for on-going projects, GPL is a must.
Saying that the "GPL is a must" does not follow from making this a "nicer place for on-going projects". Why is GPL a must in that situation? Why must it be GPL? Why not some other licence?
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Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
Why is GPL a must in that situation? Why must it be GPL? Why not some other licence?
Why not GPL? :) Surely you can understand the desire of someone who has invested considerable time and effort in a project to keep others from taking their work and making it inaccessible to others? I'll agree that it's not a good fit for a lot of the code here - trying to force anyone using your gradient clipping snippet (or whatever) to open up their entire codebase isn't friendly or practical. But consider a project like ZedGraph[^] (one of my favorite CP-connected projects): it doesn't really do much good to allow someone to take and release this as a closed-source graphing library; requiring that enhanced versions be released with source allows everyone to benefit from it. IMHO, right now CodeProject is sort of a code dumping-ground. A great place to post an article, but a pretty poor host for evolving projects with multiple developers / changing developers. There's some history there as well - i know of at least a couple of promising projects that started out here and then... disappeared when their authors decided to close up the source and turn them into commercial projects. I think that's fine, as long as there aren't any misconceptions. If that's what we're gonna be, then we should go with the most permissive license possible and leave any ongoing development to whatever other sites support a given author's preference.
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...the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more...
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This is exactly what I'm thinking. The GPL is often used by developers who have little or no understanding of what it entails. A ban would force developers to think long and hard about which licence they did actually want to use. However, there may be legitimate reasons a person may wish to use the GPL. I just can't think of one at the moment.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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dan neely wrote:
To protect Joe Q Coder from accidentally tainting his companies code base because he copy/pasted without reading the whole article to see the GPL tag.
I can imagine that happening a lot, especially given the number of cargo cult programmers that I see in the programming forums that don't understand how something works that they've ripped from some article and now need help to get it working. If they don't understand the code then I hardly think they'll understand the license.
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Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
I can imagine that happening a lot, especially given the number of cargo cult programmers that I see in the programming forums that don't understand how something works that they've ripped from some article and now need help to get it working.
These would be the same folks that strip copyright headers and comments from article code, throw in one line of project-specific code, and then check it in with their consulting company's banner. Do you really think CP is the only place they steal code from? :rolleyes:
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...the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more...
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How would you all feel if we banned GPL licenced code on The Code Project? 1 = bad idea, 5 = good idea
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
What does it say in CP's vision statement ? Is CP first and foremost an educational resource, or is it intended to be a repository of free source-code. If an educational resource, then any and all source should be allowed. If a repository, then put whatever restrictions on submissions as fit your religious views. Personally, i see CP as an educational resource. Since i don't use the site to get source code to use in my apps, i don't really care what license the author puts the code under. I am gratefull to anyone who is willing to take the time to write and post an article w/ or w/o source.
...cmk The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying. - John Carmack
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How would you all feel if we banned GPL licenced code on The Code Project? 1 = bad idea, 5 = good idea
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
That would prevent articles detailing how to use GPL'd code. I believe the lame encoder is GPL'd and it is definitely deservant of articles. A less restrictive community is always better than a more restrictive community, imho.
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Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
I can imagine that happening a lot, especially given the number of cargo cult programmers that I see in the programming forums that don't understand how something works that they've ripped from some article and now need help to get it working.
These would be the same folks that strip copyright headers and comments from article code, throw in one line of project-specific code, and then check it in with their consulting company's banner. Do you really think CP is the only place they steal code from? :rolleyes:
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...the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more...
Shog9 wrote:
These would be the same folks that strip copyright headers and comments from article code, throw in one line of project-specific code, and then check it in with their consulting company's banner. Do you really think CP is the only place they steal code from?
No. I expect they'll still steal the code. That's why I like to make the world a weirder place starting with my eBay Feedback[^] Code Project articles. I put in little odd quirks here and there that I've seen people blindly pick up. Nothing that stops the code working, but just that little bit nuts that any ordinary person would correct and cargo cult programmers don't detect.
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