Finally, someone has actually answered my questions. Thanks a lot @PulkoMandy for the information and the clarifications.
To return the favour, a few points:
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I never said that everything must be GPL. Not everything in GNU-Linux is GPL. I support copyleft licenses (GPL, LGPL, AGPL and others) as a strategy for preventing proprietary software companies from taking away rights from end users. But any license that allows source code to be freely shared, re-used, and modified, is a free software license (by the FSF’s definition). Even in the GNU-Linux distros endorsed by the FSF there are many programs under Apache, “BSD” / “MIT” and other non-copyleft licenses, and neither I nor the FSF consider this a problem (maybe a missed opportunity but …).
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“Who are we to decide which licence people should use to write their software? And why would we not distribute it if they allow us to do so?”
Of course you can’t decide which license people should use, the point is you can decide which software you distribute. One reason not to distribute proprietary software is that software’s license misuses copyright law to stop users doing things I believe they have a fundamental right to do with any software on their computer. That is; view the source code, modify is to suit their needs (or have someone else do so), and distribute the original or modified source to help others get better use our of their computer (as defined in the 4 freedoms).
Another reason is that although you have permission to distribute the proprietary code in your releases, that doesn’t automatically mean anyone else does. That makes Haiku much less attractive to people looking for an OS to distribute as the default OS with their hardware, as they would have to negotiated a whole bunch of commercial licenses with the companies who own that proprietary software. But if you don’t care whether Haiku gets used outside your hobby community, I guess that doesn’t matter.
- I’m very pleased to hear that some old BeOS apps have decided to release their code under free software licenses (which ones?). Many companies have also released their modified versions of GPL software, after being politely reminded that they are legally obliged to extend to others the same freedom that allowed their fork to exist. I agree there is a place for both carrot and stick.
@Rox has addressed your other points with much more technical knowledge than I could have brought to the table, and I thank him for taking the time.
@philcostin
"Surely anyone wishing to use the GPL could fork Haiku and GPL their copy."
As I mentioned above, the GPL is not actually what my OP was about. Also, you can’t really fork an OS because it is a collection of programs, not a single program. But yes, someone could remove all the proprietary bits of Haiku and distribute that as a free software OS under a new name (FreePoem or whatever). I’m curious to know if such an OS would be usable, or if it would be missing some essential components. Replacing those components with free code would then be the priority for anyone interested in creating a 100% free code distro of Haiku.
Also, yes people could fork any non-copyleft free software in Haiku, and relicense under GPL, for the same reason they can fork it and put it under a proprietary license. Non-copyleft licenses are essentially the same as putting software in the public domain, and relinquishing all copyright claims.
@Earl_Colby_Pottinger
You seem to misunderstand what I mean by “binary blobs”. I’m talking about situations where the compiled strings of zeros and ones are published, instead of actual source code that would allow people to audit or recompile the blobs for themselves (or their own modified versions). In your example, your source code is available (at least I presume it is when you say your program is “open source”), so that’s not a proprietary binary blob, and not a problem for inclusion in a free system distribution.
It’s a pleasure to get some constructive responses on this thread. Thanks for taking the time to reply.