Re: Please, no GitHub

[Maxthon Chan]

> On Dec 13, 2015, at 10:57, Gregory Casamento <greg.casamento@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Maxthon,
> 
> On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 4:32 AM, Maxthon Chan <xcvista@me.com> wrote:
> < snipped for brevity... >
>> 
>> They exposed **every single** site functionality through the API (in fact,
>> the Web interface itself uses the API to do its business, so it is safe to
>> say that https://github.com/ is no more than one of the several available
>> front-ends for https://api.github.com/) so https://api.github.com/ is
>> satisfying this criteria.
>> 
> 
> I believe you are egregiously and entirely missing the point regarding
> what Richard is saying.  Whether or not GitHub exposes the
> functionality of the site via the API is COPLETELY immaterial to the
> argument regarding whether or not it should be used according to the
> FSF's rules.
> 
> GitHub as a whole does not satisfy their criteria and that is what the
> argument is about.
> 
> The unfortunate part of this is that GitHub has been successful at
> achieving a great deal of notoriety and going anywhere else would be
> considered "obscure.”

My point is that the website you see at https://github.com URL is not the 
actual component of Github that handles the business. It is 
https://api.github.com/ that does all the heavylifting.

>> Their website and API are license-blind. Github have a “choose a
>> license” website that put GPL at the same level of recommendation as
>> Apache 2.0 and MIT/X11 license. Due to **practical reasons** people
>> are **avoiding** GPLv3 (you may need to check the reason why folks
>> are doing this, or GPLv3 will soon become the license of past,) so their
>> recommendation is GPLv2+ for GPL.
> 
> I'm wondering where you get this impression.  GPLv3 is not being
> avoided by any means:
> 
> http://techrights.org/2007/10/27/gplv3-growth-palamida/
> http://www.cnet.com/news/gplv3-hits-50-percent-adoption/

You may want to check more recent data. World economy, and hence people’s pay 
checks and donations, changed a lot from pre-crisis 2007 to in-crisis 2015.

> A person is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
> The fact of the matter is, GPLv3 is extremely relevant when it comes
> to fighting patents as well as many other things.   While I,
> personally, am no fan of it's incompatibility with GPLv2 (as it
> adversely impacts some GNUstep apps due to those authors being
> unwilling to re-license or even add a "or later") I do understand what
> it's purpose is and why it's important.   So, please, don't lie to
> yourself or spread misinformation about it being a "thing of the past"
> as it certainly isn’t.

The Linux kernel, probably the single biggest GPL-licensed codebase, is 
GPLv2-only. GnuTLS, being another GNU package, relicensed itself, from LGPLv3+ 
to LGPLv2.1. And as of now the most popular free license is MIT/X11 and then 
followed by GPLv2, and then the list goes: Apache 2.0, 3-clause BSD then 
finally GPLv3. Please explain why the bulk of GPLv2-licensed projects are not 
moving to GPLv3.

Also why more and more people are moving away from GPL-licensed GCC compiler in 
favour of a permissive-licensed LLVM/clang compiler? Apple stopped contributing 
their change back since GCC relicensed to GPLv3+. 

> GC
> -- 
> Gregory Casamento
> GNUstep Lead Developer / OLC, Principal Consultant
> http://www.gnustep.org - http://heronsperch.blogspot.com
> http://ind.ie/phoenix/

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