That's the point!
GPL family of licenses would've made a difference in this aspect for libraries (because afair if you link to GPL code, you must be GPL). But for an app? You can use it, fork it, modify it... Just make sure you make your changes available under the same license. Seems very fair to me.
In practice, it does in many cases. Many companies have a blanket policy of avoiding these licences. But I agree that they make more sense for apps than libraries.
Think: smartphones (Android), routers, smarthome/IoT devices, other embedded devices.
It only governs distribution and especially prevents distributors from locking their users in, and from placing restrictions on their users' use of the software.
If software is GPLv2, it's penalized relative to more permissive options when it comes to picking one. In practice it means that it's avoided unless it's "too big to avoid", or because the very nature of what you're doing requires it - this is the case for e.g. Linux and R.
If software is GPLv3, it's considered radioactive and is avoided at all costs, even if it means rewriting large amounts of code from scratch.
The GPL licensed git.
If I'm forced to use MacOS, I'm fine installing git, GNU make or whatever I want for myself. But I don't see any downsides in Apple being unable to distribute those applications together with their OS.
Then again I've seen companies publishing stuff on GitHub, when asked about the license; slapping GPLv3 on it but also forcing you to take a license with them for commercial use. Yea no, thanks. You just made a poison pill somehow even more lethal.
It really does. It stops it being used by people who need or want to use other licences. I believe it stops it being used on iOS and (probably) Android apps. The GPL world and the permissive licence worlds are walled off from each other in significant ways for lots of reasons.
Source: I maintain an app where I didn't choose and can't change the licence. And I come across code I can't touch almost every week.
I fully agree that (A)GPLv3 code effectively stops code from being used by many large companies (every place I’ve worked in the last decade has a near blanket policy on refusing to use code licensed that way except in very specific and exigent circumstances), but it isn’t necessarily true that app developers can’t use (or can’t choose to license) (A)GPL code in their iOS apps, provided they abide by the terms of the license.
Most developers won’t — or can’t — but the advent of dynamic linking of libraries in iOS, as well as the EU-mandated third-party app stores (which aren’t available outside the EU, but still), make the situation a lot more grey from the black and white stands the FSF attempted to take in the early 2010s. And to my knowledge there have been no legal challenges about the use of GPL code in iOS apps, so the issue is essentially unsettled.
That said, in most of the cases where I have seen iOS apps use GPL code, the full app source was available (and that may or may not fulfill the redistribution requirements but I’m not a lawyer and I’m not going to cosplay as one).
On Android, where full Google Play alternatives like F-Droid are available, plenty of GPLv3 apps exist, even if they aren’t available on Google Play.
But yes, when it comes to incorporating GPL code into a non-GPL app, that is much more difficult in the realm of mobile than it is for other types of applications.
I'm not sure you can dynamically link to GPL in this case (LGPL maybe )? And I recall that there's also issues around signed bundles used on the various stores.
But the fact that we're not sure and the fact that we're having this conversation rather proves my point. People who aren't fully in the GPL world usually have to steer clear of GPL code entirely. This goes double for hobbyists and small orgs who can't afford a legal team.
> even if they aren’t available on Google Play.
As much as it's regretful this is a huge issue for most people who want to make apps that other people can use.
11. Patents.
A "contributor" is a copyright holder who authorizes use under this License of the Program or a work on which the Program is based. The work thus licensed is called the contributor's "contributor version".
A contributor's "essential patent claims" are all patent claims owned or controlled by the contributor, whether already acquired or hereafter acquired, that would be infringed by some manner, permitted by this License, of making, using, or selling its contributor version, but do not include claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification of the contributor version. For purposes of this definition, "control" includes the right to grant patent sublicenses in a manner consistent with the requirements of this License.
Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor version.
https://fsfe.org/activities/gplv3/patents-and-gplv3.en.html#...
Eben Moglen speaking at the GPLv3 launch, January 16th 2006
...
We recognise that for parties who have extensive portfolios that are extensively cross-licensed, what we are saying here for the first time creates questions concerning their cross-licenses in relation to their distribution.
We recognise also that to say that you must "act to shield" is not explicit enough. We recognise that this is a very hard problem and though we have worked long at it we have no unique solution to offer you, even as a beginning for conversation.
...Like seriously, maybe Oracle comes and sues Apple for patent infringement, and Apples only defense is to counter sue Oracle for using bash on their Macbooks?? They lost that defense when they stopped distributing bash, why not just distribute it under GPLv3 anyway?
Nevermind that Red Hat built a billion dollar business on top of GPL licensed code. Never mind the millions of embedded systems being sold with GPL code in them. Nevermind Google, Facebook, Netflix, etc., etc. all eating Microsoft's lunch a thousand times over using GPL code. Businesses better stay away! It's dangerous!
If there was no other choice, I may consider something LGPL or with the linking exception, but not until I had exhausted a search for something more permissive. To this day, I've never used GPL in any of my code, open source or closed. I've been writing code for 35 years daily.
Why? Do you also avoid libraries with an even number of consonants in the name?