There was an initial surge of pro-mpeg votes by people connected to the WikiMedia Foundation and the technical team which would have been implementing it, then there were many days of mostly anti-mpeg voting when normal Wikipedia contributors heard about this idea.

As someone who has been campaigning for many years against software patents, it was very encouraging to see that the general Wikipedia populous (i.e. after the initial pro-mpeg surge from employees and pre-briefed technicians) was two-thirds against the use of patented formats.

> Since the programmer is a subset of the end-user and the
> programmer gets less freedom

Programmers get the same freedoms as normal users. Private modification isn't restricted by any free software licence.

The GPL puts extra requirements on distributors, and in particular distributors of modified versions. Someone who modifies and redistributes is not a mere end-user.

As I said, the users - the people who download and run the program - get the same freedoms. And this is also true for programmers who make private modifications.

> We don't "just sign it and scan it."

Then my delightful news for you is that not all contributions require assignment. FSF makes certain exceptions, including in cases where copyright assignment is not possible.

Some people's complaints about FSF should be taken with a pinch of salt.

> 20 years of GPL and legal advice is still coming in;

This has nothing to do with the GPL. You were talking about copyright assignment.

> therefor do not wonder that big non-profit academic organizations
> still consider GPL varieties "non-green" licenses:
> http://geant3.archive.geant.ne...

I've never heard of GEANT's software licence list. Since I've been working in the field for ten years, I can assure you it's not a reference. And if you read their document, you'll see it's based on an error. They classify just BSD, MIT, and Apache as "green" because they think that with every other licence "further authorisation is required". Nonsense. Somebody should contact them.

> The part where [GPLv3] doesn't allow them to distribute signed binaries

GPLv3 doesn't prohibit signed binaries.

What is it that you think Apple wanted to do, and you think is blocked by GPLv3?

> Apple simply couldn't fit gcc into their ecosystem anymore,
> what with the transition to GPLv3

What part of GPLv3 was a compiler problem for Apple?

> Stallman is an idiot. Remember the EGCS!

If he was an idiot, EGCS would today be a software package instead of a historical note.

> Our lawyers have forbidden us to touch anything GPL under any circumstances.

You need new lawyers.

> undermine's Stallman's argument about corporations not supporting

The LLVM model for attracting funding doesn't scale, and it defeats itself in the long term.

LLVM are only getting funding because Apple wants to undermine GCC. Most projects can't be used in that way, so they can't be of any interest to the Apple category of funders. And Apple's interest in funding the free parts of LLVM will dry up as soon as they (if they ever) achieve the goal of undermining GCC. The LLVM licence allows Apple to switch to a proprietary approach whenever they want. (Although, in reality, they'll continue to contribute the non-flashy bits of code - the stuff they want other people to maintain for them.)

> feeding back their changes upstream, despite not having to.

For Apple's plan to work, yes, they have to. For the moment.

Taking users and developers away from GCC is main point, so they have to get FreeBSD to switch, and get some of the free software community to switch, etc.

The goal is not about having a great free software compiler. If that was the goal, they would have just continued with GCC.

And if Apple's funding was about helping free software, they would have funded development of something we didn't already have.

> then LLVM would receive less contributions and GCC would reign supreme.

Except that Apple is funding LLVM. It suits their agenda, and their goal isn't to give a long and fruitful life to free software.

You'll be delighted to hear that for people in the USA and Germany, the process is now just sign it and scan it:

• 2011 announcement for USA
• 2012 announcement for Germany

More countries will follow as the legal advice comes in.

P.S. I phrased this badly:

> go with the flow, everyone do what they want.

I'm in favour of people doing what they want. The approach I meant to criticise is "everyone do whatever and let's not discuss it, let's just see what happens".

Everyone can and will do what they want, but I'm in favour of thinking about the options. If you want more free software to exist, choosing GPL makes sense.

For someone who isn't interested in free software or open source, your approach works: go with the flow, everyone do what they want.

The result it that some software turns into a hand-out for companies that, in the long term, are trying to make free software disappear.

If someone wants to be able to more with free software, then there's a question of strategies for achieving this. The user gets the same freedoms from BSD and GPL, but GPL says anyone building on top of the software has to contribute their improvements to the community. Only fair really.

So, yeh, the two can coexist, but the GPL does a lot more to ensure that we have great free software in the future. If you think that's a good thing, then use the GPL.

Background reading:

• Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism
• Why you shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next library

BSD, LGPL, and GPL are all free software licences. The user gets the same four freedoms in each case (use, study, modify, redistribute). But, using the BSD licence (or the LGPL) takes away an incentive to contribute to the free software project.

GCC's technical advances create a big incentive for developers who are interested in compilers, and for companies with a commercial interest in a good compiler existing for their platform, to contribut to GCC - helping free software whether that's their priority or not. With a BSD-licence project, developers can choose to ignore GCC and fork LLVM instead, so neither GCC nor LLVM benefits.

LLVM weakens GCC's ability to attract free software contributors. That's why Apple funds LLVM.

It's not difficult to see which approach works best: Which OS has more contributors, *BSD or GNU/Linux?

> more freedom to the person who uses and implements the software

Users have the same freedoms with GPL and BSD.

The BSD licence provides building blocks for non-free projects that compete against free software. The GPL provides building blocks only for free software projects.

GCC's technical value encourages developers with technical goals to contribute to the free software GCC project, regardless of whether helping free software is their priority or not. LLVM weakens this by providing an alternative project where people can work on technical progress without the need to contribute to the free software LLVM project.

So LLVM makes people less likely to help advance the state of free software.

(LLVM attracts some investment, such as that of Apple, up to a certain point, because Apple's goal is to undermine GCC.)

So it's not about user freedom. There's no difference there. It's about what's the smartest way to help our friends and each other, without helping the companies that are competing against us and trying to replace free software with their proprietary software.