Project:Sandbox

Barrier to commercialization[edit] Main article: Business models for open-source software The FreeBSD project has stated that "a less publicized and unintended use of the GPL is that it is very favorable to large companies that want to undercut software companies. In other words, the GPL is well suited for use as a marketing weapon, potentially reducing overall economic benefit and contributing to monopolistic behavior" and that the GPL can "present a real problem for those wishing to commercialize and profit from software".[117]

Richard Stallman wrote about the practice of selling license exceptions to free software licenses as an example of ethically acceptable commercialization practice. Selling exceptions here means that the copyright holder of a given software releases it (along with the corresponding source code) to the public under a free software license, "then lets customers pay for permission to use the same code under different terms, for instance allowing its inclusion in proprietary applications". Stallman considered selling exceptions "acceptable since the 1990s, and on occasion I've suggested it to companies. Sometimes this approach has made it possible for important programs to become free software". Despite that the FSF doesn't practice selling exceptions, a comparison with the X11 license (which is a noncopyleft free software license) is proposed for suggesting that this commercialization technique should be regarded as ethically acceptable. Releasing a given program under a noncopyleft free software license would permit embedding the code in proprietary software. Stallman comments that "either we have to conclude that it's wrong to release anything under the X11 license—a conclusion I find unacceptably extreme—or reject this implication. Using a noncopyleft license is weak, and usually an inferior choice, but it's not wrong. In other words, selling exceptions permits some embedding in proprietary software, and the X11 license permits even more embedding. If this doesn't make the X11 license unacceptable, it doesn't make selling exceptions unacceptable".[118]

Open-source criticism[edit] In 2005, open source software advocate Eric S. Raymond questioned the relevance of GPL at that point in time for the FOSS ecosystem, stating: "We don't need the GPL anymore. It's based on the belief that open source software is weak and needs to be protected. Open source would be succeeding faster if the GPL didn't make lots of people nervous about adopting it.".[119] Richard Stallman replied that: "GPL ensure that every user of a program gets the essential freedoms--to run it, to study and change the source code, to redistribute copies, and to publish modified versions... [Raymond] addresses the issue in terms of different goals and values--those of "open source," which do not include defending software users' freedom to share and change software."[120]

GPLv3 separates community further[edit] Some journalists[49][121][40] and Toybox developer Rob Landley[43] criticized that with the introduction of the GPLv3 in 2007 the split between the open source and free software community became wider than ever. As the significantly extended GPLv3 is essentially incompatible with the GPLv2,[88] compatibility between both is only given under the optional "or later" clause of the GPL, which was not taken for instance by the Linux kernel.[13] Bruce Byfield noted that before the release of the GPLv3, the GPLv2 was a unifying element between the open-source and the free software community.[49]

Lawrence Rosen, attorney and computer specialist, praised how the community using the Apache license were now able to work together with the GPL community in a compatible manner, as the problems of GPLv2 compatibility with Apache licensed software were resolved with the GPLv3. He said, "I predict that one of the biggest success stories of GPLv3 will be the realization that the entire universe of free and open source software can thus be combined into comprehensive open source solutions for customers worldwide."[122]