{"id":5776,"date":"2020-08-25T10:49:03","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T14:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/?p=5776"},"modified":"2020-08-25T10:49:03","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T14:49:03","slug":"thinking-about-a-license-change-to-gpl-for-tsugi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/2020\/08\/thinking-about-a-license-change-to-gpl-for-tsugi\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking about a license change to GPL for Tsugi"},"content":{"rendered":"
I have been rolling around an idea a switch to GPL as the core license of Tsugi and am curious as to what you think.<\/div>\n
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This is definitely a switch in direction – the Apereo Foundation (and Sakai Foundation before that) – has historically been very pro Apache (and its second cousin once removed ECL).<\/div>\n
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I have done some writing over the years that is not particular friendly to GPL:<\/div>\n
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https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/2010\/01\/why-an-open-source-community-should-not-cede-leadership-to-a-commercial-entity-mysqloracle\/<\/a><\/div>\n
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https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/2014\/09\/how-to-achieve-vendor-lock-in-with-a-legit-open-source-license-affero-gpl\/<\/a><\/div>\n
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https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/2011\/10\/open-source-copyright-thoughts\/<\/a><\/div>\n
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But I have been GPL-curious for a long time:<\/div>\n
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https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/2004\/01\/gpl-i-am-going\/<\/a><\/div>\n
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Here is my 2020 summary of how we got here and where we might go from here:<\/div>\n
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– In 2003, GPL felt a lot more like an \u201cinfection\u201d – commercial companies were scared to go near it in case the the GPL infection might spread to their proprietary products (i.e. like in the Ring movie – if you look at GPL code you are forever marked). \u00a0 IBM built staffing firewalls where those who touched GPL code never interacted with \u201creal\u201d IBM engineers.<\/div>\n
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– Because of this, there was a notion that if you did GPL, companies would neither adopt nor help you. \u00a0Hence Sakai was militant pro Apache in 2004.<\/div>\n
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– In the by 2008, we kind of understood that modern companies were not afraid of GPL. \u00a0And frankly if a company was afraid of GPL – perhaps that was an indication that the company had a slightly different set of values w.r.t. open source. \u00a0 And it turns out that one company back in 2004 that was the most vocal against GPL *did* have some big plans that were not entirely shared with us. \u00a0Thankfully that company is no longer in existence – due in part because their strategy was not as profitable as they had hoped :)<\/div>\n
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– In the early days, when we spent a lot of time \u201ctransferring copyright ownership\u201d to the Foundation, using the Apache \/ ECL license felt better to a lot of folks. \u00a0But for \u201corganically grown\u201d code like Tsugi – and the new github world where collaborators flow in – it really does not matter.<\/div>\n
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If you look at my most blistering attack on GPL:<\/div>\n
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https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/2010\/01\/why-an-open-source-community-should-not-cede-leadership-to-a-commercial-entity-mysqloracle\/<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It is less an attack on GPL per se and more an attack on \u201cwho owns copyright\u201d.<\/div>\n
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What has happened in the past decade is a change in approach to copyright \u201cownership\u201d. \u00a0In the old days, Apache and Sakai\/Apereo transferred \u201cownership\u201d of the code to the Foundation. \u00a0And for the early part of Moodle – Martin Dougiamas owned all the code and any contributions were given to him.<\/div>\n
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Things are different today. \u00a0The Apache Foundation and Moodle lets contributors keep the copyright on their contributions and simply provide a non-expiring no limitations right to use.<\/div>\n
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This means that Moodle is no longer 100% owned by Martin. \u00a0It might be 80% owned by Martin (legacy) but 20% is owned but other people. \u00a0It is 100% *licensed* to the Moodle community and those licenses cannot be revoked.<\/div>\n
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This is a super important distinction as it has to do with the danger of someone like Martin or the Apereo Foundation going evil and selling their interest to some third party. \u00a0 Yes this is unlikely that Apereo will go evil – but if there was a complete turnover of the board – we Apereo could quit-claim their interest to some proprietary company.<\/div>\n
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But with multiple \u201cowners\u201d like Moodle has, Martin can only \u201cquit claim\u201d 80% of the code. \u00a0 The other 100 or so contributors also need to quit claim. \u00a0This effectively insures Martin can\u2019t really do a meaningful quit claim.<\/div>\n
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Once the \u201cwho owns the code\u201d and \u201cwho works on the code\u201d is resolved – the difference between GPL and Apache is that GPL is harder to fork and go proprietary. \u00a0It is trivial to fork and go open source.<\/div>\n
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And the key *advantage* of GPL is that GPL is seen as an \u201cactivist\u201d open source license. \u00a0Apache is pretty passive – there is little brand value to being Apache. \u00a0The Apache brand is about being very boring. \u00a0There *is* brand value being GPL because of the Free Software Foundation\u2019s promotion of your product:<\/div>\n
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https:\/\/static.fsf.org\/nosvn\/videos\/fsf-heroes\/<\/a><\/div>\n
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Sakai and Tsugi are not \u201copen enough\u201d to qualify as software that protects user freedom.<\/div>\n
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This might seem insignificant – but if by switching to GPL – we gain marketing and lose nothing – then why not.<\/div>\n
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Thoughts welcome.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been rolling around an idea a switch to GPL as the core license of Tsugi and am curious as to what you think. This is definitely a switch in direction – the Apereo Foundation (and Sakai Foundation before that) – has historically been very pro Apache (and its second cousin once removed ECL). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5776"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5778,"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5776\/revisions\/5778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}