Whether keyboard + mouse is better is somewhat determined by the intent of the game.

Do you think aiming a gun at someone's head when they're standing on a platform above and to your right is easy, if you're the one aiming a gun? It's certainly much easier to do accurately with a mouse (for most people). Sure, you're playing a game, your *character* is meant to have those abilities so you the *player* don't have to... but then you also have justification for automatically height adjusting shots for the player who isn't used to aiming, or where the degree of twitch aim the player can muster isn't the primary objective of the game.

It's more freedom because the code can be used in more ways than the GPL code.

Even if someone *did* take the source and use it in their own closed source product, the code is still out there, it's still free, on the MIT license. The source hasn't been closed, it's been incorporated.

That's freedom, man.

Why do you insist that I have a sense of entitlement? How do you know I am planning on violating someone else's license? I have no intention of doing so.

I am just saying, that someone is wanting to release some work to the public, and they want it to be open/free. They look through the various licenses, and see an MIT/BSD license, which is basically "free to use", then they see a GPL license, which is basically "free with conditions". Now that person has put his own time into his work, and if he thinks the GPL license is a better fit for his wishes, then he should absolutely use that license for his work. But he should not consider his work more open than if he'd used the MIT license, by definition it comes with more restrictions.

I personally feel no restriction, because I still have a choice of not using his work. Or am I still somehow saying that I want a handout, in your world?

I believe that is the point of Mojo... that is the set of APIs that give access to the phone features.

Check out UFO Alien Invasion. It's still in progress, but it seems a fantastic spiritual successor!
http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/

Correlation is not causation. Skill as a developer is not related to skill in choosing distribution licenses.

But to extend your argument, why do you suppose even better version control systems, AccuRev and ClearCase (before IBM got it), are released under proprietary licenses? Assuming the quality of the product is at all related to the purpose of the license.

Nobody's saying that the GPL doesn't work as it's intended. Obviously, if you include anything with a GPL license in your application, then your application must also be GPL licensed (loosely speaking). The ridiculous part is the sense that you're in the right by restricting the licence choices of your downstream users.

It may be a good idea to build a cooperative community around the software, but the GPL is not an option, let alone a good one. Mr Liu is worried about larger companies getting the software, but if it's GPL licensed, then every owner of his oscilloscope has access to the source code. If he were to go into cooperation with the other developers, then the GPL is possibly the worst license they could pick... based on Mr Liu's reasoning of course.

I don't get it. You can actually do this. If the dealerships refused to sell you cars at the normal price, then they are probably breaking the law.

The problem is not whether or not I need to use a GPL library, I'm more than happy to continue avoiding them. The problem is not whether you have the right to restrict my choice of license on my own work, the text of the GPL is reasonably clear on that. The problem is the attitude that you think you are doing the right thing by taking away my right to license my own work as I see fit. Really, the problem isn't a big one, but it does make the world a slightly sadder place.

I wish more people got this.

You're treading a very dangerous line there. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design, you may be infringing on the original copyright if you write a comparable system after having inspected the original source.

It makes it much easier for an amateur community to write programs, based on source code available in the communal pool. Some of that software is actually quite outstanding, sometimes to the point of being best in class.

More often, that software is obviously written by amateurs and is inferior to commercial alternatives. If the few good ideas in the software were available for reuse by the commercial alternative... and all competitors, for that matter... then the quality of every alternative goes up. Users win. If the amateur software is GPL, then users have a choice between a poor piece of software with a few good features, or a more polished alternative which is missing those features. Users lose.

Sure, it's pretty arrogant for the commercial entity to lift the features directly out of the community software. But isn't it also pretty arrogant for the developers of the community software to say you can only have those features if you accept our inferior product? Remember that we're currently talking in the context of "for the benefit of users".

That's actually the point. In the context of an application linking libraries (pointing to the function without copying the function), you're pretty much doing the same thing as the GP's recipe example. But under the GPS, merely linking to a library causes the entire work to be considered derivative of that library.

Note that I'm not debating the validity of the GPL. I'm not going to go violating the GPL because I disagree with it, I'm just saying that you need to call it how it is, and don't try to pretend that the license is more reasonable than reality. And for that matter, you're welcome to find the license perfectly reasonable. I personally think it is the least free license available to a developer.

The nethack license http://www.opensource.org/licenses/nethack.php seems to do this fine, without appearing viral.

The GPL doesn't actually do this, though. Instead, I use your GPL code, all of my customers get (access to) both. You get nothing, unless you're a customer, and I don't believe I'm under obligation to sell to you.

I agree, it's kind of against the spirit of the thing, and could be considered morally offensive. But personally, I find it morally offensive that you think you have a right to restrict my choice of licensing for my own labour. I will never willingly make such restriction on you, and when I give my code out I'll freely do so, to try to make the world a better place. So you use the GPL, which will make me sad, but I'll move on.