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Overview
Comment: | Rewrote the "GPL vs. BSD" section in www/fossil-v-git.wiki. See forum post here for justification and discussion: https://fossil-scm.org/forum/forumpost/3239c30fff |
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Downloads: | Tarball | ZIP archive | SQL archive |
Timelines: | family | ancestors | descendants | both | bsd-vs-gpl |
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68a7563ec7cee8f833982ebf92b344f8 |
User & Date: | wyoung 2019-07-12 04:57:16 |
Context
2019-07-12
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05:03 | Grammar fix to previous check-in: 7cfe191b user: wyoung tags: bsd-vs-gpl | |
04:57 | Rewrote the "GPL vs. BSD" section in www/fossil-v-git.wiki. See forum post here for justification and discussion: https://fossil-scm.org/forum/forumpost/3239c30fff check-in: 68a7563e user: wyoung tags: bsd-vs-gpl | |
04:11 | Assorted improvements to www/fossil-v-git.wiki: added hyperlinks, fixed some spelling, capitalization, and grammar problems, clarified "Linux" vs "Linux kernel", clarified the description of the git-worktree feature, moved punctuation inside double quotes (typography), and added a few detail paragraphs. check-in: fd990128 user: wyoung tags: trunk | |
Changes
Changes to www/fossil-v-git.wiki.
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is not a factor. One commentator has mused that Git records history according to the victors, whereas Fossil records history as it actually happened. <h3>2.9 GPL vs. BSD</h3> Git is covered by the GPL license whereas Fossil is covered by [https://fossil-scm.org/fossil/file/COPYRIGHT-BSD2.txt|a two-clause BSD style license]. Consider the difference between GPL and BSD licenses: GPL is designed to make writing easier at the expense of making reading harder. BSD is designed to make reading easier at the expense of making writing harder. To a first approximation, the GPL license grants the right to read source code to anyone who promises to give back enhancements. In other words, the act of reading GPL source code (a prerequiste for making changes) implies acceptance of the license which requires updates to be contributed back under the same license. (The details are more complex, but the foregoing captures the essence of the idea.) A big advantage of the GPL is that anybody can contribute to the code without having to sign additional legal documentation because they have implied their acceptance of the GPL license by the very act of reading the source code. This means that a GPL project can legally accept anonymous and drive-by patches. The BSD licenses, on the other hand, make reading much easier than the GPL, because the reader need not surrender proprietary interest in their own enhancements. On the flip side, BSD and similarly licensed projects must obtain legal affidavits from authors before new content can be added into the project. Anonymous and drive-by patches cannot be accepted. This makes signing up new contributors for BSD licensed projects harder. The licenses on the implementations of Git and Fossil only apply to the implementations themselves, not to the projects which the systems store. Nevertheless, one can see a more GPL-oriented world-view in Git and a more BSD-oriented world-view in Fossil. Git encourages anonymous contributions and siloed development, which are hallmarks of the GPL/bazaar approach to software, whereas Fossil encourages a more tightly collaborative, cliquish, cathedral-style approach more typical of BSD-licensed projects. <h2>3.0 Missing Features</h2> |
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is not a factor. One commentator has mused that Git records history according to the victors, whereas Fossil records history as it actually happened. <h3>2.9 GPL vs. BSD</h3> Git is covered by the GPL license, whereas Fossil is covered by [https://fossil-scm.org/fossil/file/COPYRIGHT-BSD2.txt|a two-clause BSD style license]. The key emphasis in the GPL is that if you distribute a binary built from a version of a piece of GPL-licensed source code that you changed, you must also distribute the source code used to produce that binary. To enforce that, the GPL licenses have their famous [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_license|viral provisions]. We can summarize the key emphasis of the BSD style licenses as "Please don't sue us." A BSD style license places very little restriction on what you are allowed to do with the source code or the binaries produced from that source code. This difference in outlook allows a GPL-based project to do without a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_License_Agreement|constributor license agreement] (CLA) because by the very act of distributing binaries, you are bound to also distribute the source under a compatible license. There are GPL-based projects that do require a CLA, but this is typically done in order to allow a corporation to "own" the contributions so that it can legally relicense them to those who do not wish to be subject to the GPL, usually for a hefty fee. A CLA is not necessary for the legal integrity of a GPL-based [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software|FOSS] project, so it's often dispensed with. Contrast a BSD-style project, where contributions are not automatically relicensed merely by being distributed with the preexisting BSD code. Such projects often require a CLA even when there is no corporate overlord or commercial-use relicensing option. It is one way to ensure that all contributions are compatibly licensed with the existing body of code. It's a way to add a "no takebacks" clause to the basic BSD license. The greater necesity for having a CLA in a BSD-licensed project makes signing up new contributors harder. Neither license affects the repository contents managed by either Fossil or Git. Nevertheless, one can see a more GPL-oriented world-view in Git and a more BSD-oriented world-view in Fossil. Git encourages anonymous contributions and siloed development, which are hallmarks of the GPL/bazaar approach to software, whereas Fossil encourages a more tightly collaborative, cliquish, cathedral-style approach more typical of BSD-licensed projects. <h2>3.0 Missing Features</h2> |