Linus’ thread: (CW: bigotry and racism in the comments) https://social.kernel.org/notice/AWSXomDbvdxKgOxVAm (you need to scroll down, i can’t seem to link to the comment in the screenshot)
Linus’ thread: (CW: bigotry and racism in the comments) https://social.kernel.org/notice/AWSXomDbvdxKgOxVAm (you need to scroll down, i can’t seem to link to the comment in the screenshot)
The idea is that for code to truly be free, you should be able to make it proprietary. If you can’t do that, then it isn’t really free. That’s how I understand the idea anyway
But that’s not being anti, just accepting the possibility of it. Like i consider myself a libertarian and if you wanna make it close source, ok, I may dislike it but I won’t regulate against it. But being anti would imply I would go out of my way to censor your ability to do close source.
It’s a GPL license thing. If you make a derivative work of GPL code, you’re NOT free to do what you want with it. This is where the 'anti come from.
There are two parts to this. On one side, you have the “please follow the GPL if you’re using GPL code” – which is really just asking someone to honor a contract, more or less.
Then you have people like RMS, who believe that there should not be such a thing as proprietary software. They don’t care if you aren’t using the GPL – no software should be proprietary, period.
I admire that RMS has a vision for the world and fights for it. World needs more people like this.
Ah. Well I’m pro theft so just use it and close it if you want and pray for the best! Hide the evidence to not get sued.
This happens from time to time. The offending party either removes the GPL code or they GPL the work. That’s life ;)
Why would they offend and then GPL
It costs money to rewrite entire libraries
You don’t need to rewrite it though. Just keep it closed source and import / copy paste whatever you want into your repo.
It’s may be possible to tell if there is GPL code included whether or not the source is reveal. A simple example is that some plain-text strings are visible in compiled binaries. In this way, poking around with a hexeditor may reveal strings which indicate part of the code is GPL.