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
5. Rhetorical political actions like these are a necessary evil sometimes. GPL doesn't fit CP's ideals. It would be a nice controversial PR stunt in showing that GPL != open source or "Free" software. It'll probably get Slashdotted, and they'll come up with some awesome conspiracy theory about how Microsoft forced CP to do it. Which will lead some more level-headed people (the people that matter) to conclude that Slashdot's being stupid and that GPL is in fact not necessarily the cure to cancer. By the way, my project (MiniHttpd[^]) is also on SourceForge under LGPL. The version on here is outdated, but it's licensed under CC. What would happen in this case if it were GPL instead of LGPL?
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Every article should be forced to specify a license - if the article does not specify a license and the author cannot be contacted anymore, then no one has the right to use that code. The employer of the author can later decide to start suing people who are using the article's code. I think this is a much more serious problem than GPL code (which at least clearly says that you can use it only under specific conditions).
If no license is specified I think it's safe to default to the "found it on the Internet" license and let the applicable regional laws do their thing.
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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.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest HemingwayRestricting restrictively unrestrictive licenses might encourage a less restrictive community.
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I would say we shouldn't host any GPL code at CodeProject, since it is clearly not compatible with the spirit of this community. However, if there is an article with a link to GPL code hosted i.e. at SourceForge, I say let's allow it. Many articles are useful without the code.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what Chris means. At least I hope so.
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++ I tend to like GPL, or Creative Commons or whatever, and I see a great deal of ugly feedback coming if a ban is made. Unless it is made very clear that all code submitted to code project is to be used in any possible way. Banning a single license seems strange.
I think the ugly feedback will be counterbalanced by long-term overall realization that GPL isn't an all-embracing or all-embraced silver bullet. It'll get people thinking "maybe GPL wasn't made by God".
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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
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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.
It seems a laudable motivation but banning posts might be a bit harsh. If it's an issue you're seeing messages about could you make it more obvious to the reader when an article may contained licenced works such as using a different colour for the article or a pop-up window that informs the user of any potential risks?
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++ I tend to like GPL, or Creative Commons or whatever, and I see a great deal of ugly feedback coming if a ban is made. Unless it is made very clear that all code submitted to code project is to be used in any possible way. Banning a single license seems strange.
I like GPL and use it with LGPL, too. I think it's not a good idea to ban a single license. It should be better to clearly underline the license of the code in every article everyone provide. I think that if you publish your code it's your own business to decide which license should apply to your code and the user (me for example) is forced to use the license you choose. Stefano
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I think the ugly feedback will be counterbalanced by long-term overall realization that GPL isn't an all-embracing or all-embraced silver bullet. It'll get people thinking "maybe GPL wasn't made by God".
It's not CodeProject's purpose, nor in CodeProject's interests to prove that GPL wasn't made by God. The question is whether protecting ignorant programmers outweighs the negative feedback.
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If no license is specified I think it's safe to default to the "found it on the Internet" license and let the applicable regional laws do their thing.
In the US and many other countries, software is copyrighted by default. Without a license, you have no right to use it.
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It's not CodeProject's purpose, nor in CodeProject's interests to prove that GPL wasn't made by God. The question is whether protecting ignorant programmers outweighs the negative feedback.
Maybe not, but it's certainly something to consider in regards to the concern about negative feedback. The question then becomes whether protecting ignorant programmers outweighs the risk of negative feedback outweighing positive feedback. Keeping in mind that GPL's arguably malevolent viral nature is the reason CP would be killing GPL articles, anyone who isn't blinded by GPL's promises of freedom should recognize the justification.
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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
-10!! :mad: I think that if a developer is too stupid to read the article in full and see that the code is released under the GPL then that is their or their company’s problem. Sounds to me like you’re trying to create a "Nanny" website. GPL code doesn't have to be copied. God forbid that a developer could actually read some code and not write their own implementation of it instead of getting through their career copying and pasting code. Although it has to be asked why developers are releasing code samples (I'm not talking about full apps) under GPL. This also shows ignorance that they could have picked BSD which I would have thought is a much better license for code samples.
Oh, uh, good question. Now technically speaking, uhh, let's say, put me down as a... 'Whatever'?
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In the US and many other countries, software is copyrighted by default. Without a license, you have no right to use it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a copyright just say that you're not allowed to claim ownership; not that you're not allowed to use it?
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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
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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
No text - nothing to see here, move on....
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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
No. We use GPL code in our applications. (Though to be fair we are in a different world to most of the Microsoft users on CP.)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Andy Brummer wrote:
Watson's law: As an online discussion of cars grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Bugatti Veyron approaches one.
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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
I also think that the GPL kinda misses the objective of this website. I understand that when you're building a system, you don't want to put those tens of thousands of lines of code and coffee cups in the public domain, but for a small article in a site intended to share code with other people, the GPL is too much. Those articles should default to Public Domain or some other permissive Creative Commons license. Some articles however aren't explaining just detailing a couple classes, they're actually explaining a larger framework or library, and for such complex frameworks, a license could be more carefully chosen. How about LGPL? If I recall correctly, you're allowed to use LGPL code in your project without tainting the rest of the project, right?
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - Edsger Dijkstra
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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
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a copyright just say that you're not allowed to claim ownership; not that you're not allowed to use it?
The author who wrote the code owns it. Even if he publishes the code, you may not use it unless he gives you the permission to do so. Remember that a license is an agreement between the author and the user. The user is free to not accept this agreement (e.g. if he does not like restrictions specified in the license), but then he is left with no license; and no license means no right to use the code.
Wikipedia on copyright:
Copyright is a set of exclusive rights that regulate the use of a particular expression of an idea or information.
Remember that copyright was invented for book printers. The author has the exclusive rights on the work; no one else may make copies of it (in the software world: copy=use) unless he receives/buys a license from the author.
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-10!! :mad: I think that if a developer is too stupid to read the article in full and see that the code is released under the GPL then that is their or their company’s problem. Sounds to me like you’re trying to create a "Nanny" website. GPL code doesn't have to be copied. God forbid that a developer could actually read some code and not write their own implementation of it instead of getting through their career copying and pasting code. Although it has to be asked why developers are releasing code samples (I'm not talking about full apps) under GPL. This also shows ignorance that they could have picked BSD which I would have thought is a much better license for code samples.
Oh, uh, good question. Now technically speaking, uhh, let's say, put me down as a... 'Whatever'?
:(It takes time to rewrite an implementation. For example, if I found this great article about yet another ORM framework, wouldn't it defeat the purpose if I went to write my own ORM framework based on the ideas of that article?:doh: I understand it's an exercice with some academic value,:^) but when you're being paid 12€ per hour, or when you have an actual application to finish in time,:rose: it's so much more convenient to download the source code and add it to your project: instead of spending a couple days to a couple weeks coding something, I just spend three hours reading the article and the example project to understand how I'm going to use that code.:rolleyes: Of course, some people are actually going to write their own ORM framework, and those people will read the code, take inspiration, and write their own implementation.:-D I too think that developpers releasing code samples under GPL don't know what GPL is. They probably think that since every open source app is released under GPL, he should the same so his source code can be used by everyone!:~
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - Edsger Dijkstra
