Re: From Lua to Python?

[Russell Haley <russ.haley@...>]

On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 3:44 PM, Dibyendu Majumdar
<mobile@majumdar.org.uk> wrote:
> On 4 July 2017 at 23:34, Dibyendu Majumdar <mobile@majumdar.org.uk> wrote:
>> On 4 July 2017 at 23:25, Russell Haley <russ.haley@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I'm referring more to the IBMs, Oracles and Tata consultancies of the
>>> world. I have now seen two companies steam rolled because the original
>>> authors used FOSS underpinnings and a larger consultancy rolls in and
>>> just takes over the code because, well, it's GPL! I'm sure the
>>> situation was more complex that I have acknowledged, but I no longer
>>> trust the GPL. I'm really glad people want to share source code. I do
>>> too, but I want control over what I share.
>>>
>>
>> I am afraid your understanding of GPL is perhaps incorrect. None of
>> the corporations like GPL. In fact the reason they don't like it is is
>> that it is a viral license. It requires that any combined work must
>> also be licensed as GPL.
>>
>> The only major company that licensed something as GPL was Sun when
>> they released Java as GPL. This was because of the way GPL works which
>> meant that Sun could still rely on people wanting a commercial
>> license. Similar approach was taken by MySQL - before they were bought
>> by Sun.
>>
>> I don't particularly like GPL because of its viral nature, therefore I
>> prefer to use other licenses such as MIT. But these other licenses are
>> actually ones that can be exploited more easily as they do not require
>> that licensee gives anything back.
>>
>
> I should add that GPL has perhaps changed the world of software ...
> both because of its success (in Linux, GNU etc.) and also because it
> has forced companies to go opensource but in a more liberal way. The
> world before was very different. When I started programming I could
> not get hold of a C compiler because I could not afford to pay.

I agree. The world is much different due to GPL. Some of it very
positive, some of it very scary.

Russ