> Interestingly, I wonder if the debates over the addition of C++, Python, and Perl to the base system language set were this acrimonious.
I think any projects that are run by people that see themselves as "X-people" (like Python-people, Perl-people) always have a bit "ick" reaction to new languages being added to projects they might see as part of a language's community.
So say you're a C++ developer, contributed to APT over the years, see all of it linked to the C++ community which you are part of too, and someone wants to start migrating parts of it to Rust/$NewLang. I think it might sometimes affect more for these people than just the code, might even be "attacking" (strong word perhaps) their sense of identity, for better or worse.
I was (and am still) a C++ person. But I somehow became also a Rust person. I am sure some people felt attacked, but imho Rust has most of the characteristics that made C++ a good language and that's why I "embraced" Rust rather than felt attacked.
Yeah rust is not C++ but it really compliments C++ well. Each has their niche and tbh I see them converging into the two kings of the systems space rather than actually competing with each other.
If anyone sees that horrible mess of hacks around pre-STL C++'s lacks of namespace in combination with latest C++ features as part of the C++ community I'd be very surprised :D
If APT were a hardcore C++ project surely we'd have like adopted namespaces everywhere by now.
> I think any projects that are run by people that see themselves as "X-people" (like Python-people, Perl-people) always have a bit "ick" reaction to new languages being added to projects they might see as part of a language's community.
I would say that Pythonistas are quite accustomed to "(other) languages being added" to the Python ecosystem. After all, NumPy relies on Fortran, as well as C.
Asserting that kind of "ownership" over code seems rather distasteful to me. Maybe there would be less acrimony if developers got paid for it somehow.
Yeah, maybe Python was a bad example, didn't really think specifically about the languages I made as examples, they were just examples with the hope of making it easier to understand what exactly I was talking about.
Some communities indeed are better at embracing multiple languages, Python, JavaScript and Java/JVM comes to mind, where it isn't uncommon to call out to other languages.
> So say you're a C++ developer, contributed to APT over the years, see all of it linked to the C++ community which you are part of too, and someone wants to start migrating parts of it to Rust/$NewLang. I think it might sometimes affect more for these people than just the code, might even be "attacking" (strong word perhaps) their sense of identity, for better or worse.
How is language relevant here? If someone just rewrote it in the same language instead of a different one, do you feel the reaction would be significantly better?
This is really a Rust specific thing, since so many C++ projects were 1-on-1 translated to Rust only changing the licence.
Rust has been the tool of choice for stealing GPL3 open source projects where some people have spent all their free time on at some point in their life.
Rewriting software is not "stealing" it. That is an absurd framing, and one that seems akin to the arguments employed against FOSS software in the first place back in the 1980s and 1990s.
In your view, was writing a BIOS re-implementation from scratch "stealing" from IBM? Are all of the vaguely Unix-compatible operating systems "stealing" from Unix (ATT/Bell)? Why is the "free time" of the original developer more sacrosanct than the "free time" of the re-implementer?
I don't think they mean stealing in a legal/ownership sense, but stealing in the "I can no longer say this is my project" (control/intellectual/credit) sense.
> Why is the "free time" of the original developer more sacrosanct than the "free time" of the re-implementer?
This has nothing to do with free time. It has to do with the fact that the former actually went through a ton of pain to get the project from its original conception and past bugs & design flaws into its current useful state, and the latter is merely translating the solution right in front of them. And not only is the latter going to deprive the former of the ability to even say "this is my project" (despite them having spent years or decades on its design etc.), but they're also probably going to be able to take the whole thing in a different direction, effectively leaving the original author behind.
Whether you feel this is a good or a bad thing for society aside, it should be obvious why this could be genuinely upsetting in some situations.
Sure, it's upsetting. IBM was upset about BIOS being cloned, Bell got upset about Unix being cloned, Oracle got upset about the JDK being cloned, etc. Many of them were upset enough to engage in decade-long lawsuits. But we'd ultimately be in a much worse place if "avoiding making original creators upset" was the primary factor in development, over things like compatibility, bugs, performance, security etc.
I happen to like living in a world where Pipewire can just be a drop in replacement for PulseAudio that can implement the same APIs and do everything that PulseAudio does but better. Or where I can play my games on Linux because Valve re-implemented DirectX and all the Windows platform libraries. Or where there are half a dozen "vim" clones to pick from if I want to. If there are broad, tangible benefits to rewriting a piece of software, then it ought to be rewritten, hurt feelings nonwithstanding.
I don't really understand the argument that the original author gets deprived of anything by a piece of free software being rewritten, certainly not credit. Obviously stealing the name would be a dick move and maybe open you up to legal action but that's not really what happens 99.99% of the time.
> Sure, it's upsetting. IBM was upset about BIOS being cloned, Bell got upset about Unix being cloned, Oracle got upset about the JDK being cloned, etc.
This is not like that though; moving from a pro-user license to a pro-business license is the reason for being upset, not just losing control over the product.
With the move, any future improvements run the very real risk of being extended then closed off by tech companies.
It's simply hubris for an entire community of developers to look at an existing working product that got popular due to the goal of being pro-user, then say to themselves "we can replace it with this new thing I created, but in order for my new thing to gain traction it must be immediately favourable to big business to close off".
If you view it in that light, then, yeah, you can understand why the upset people are upset, even if you don't agree with them.
> Many of them were upset enough to engage in decade-long lawsuits. But we'd ultimately be in a much worse place if "avoiding making original creators upset" was the primary factor in development, over things like compatibility, bugs, performance, security etc.
Original creators did frequently get upset, but the difference between "some individual forked the code or cloned the product" is very different to "an entire community celebrating a gradual but persistent and constant effort by the same community to move the ecosystem away from a pro-user license".
I hope this gives you some insight into why people are upset, even if you don't agree with them. Most of them aren't articulating it like I did.
[EDIT: I'm thinking of this like an Overton-Window equivalent, shifting from pro-user to pro-business. It seems like an accurate analogy: some people don't want this shift to happen while others are actively pushing for it. This is obviously going to result in conflict.]
You're conflating two different things. The purpose of rewriting it is not to change the license. The purpose of rewriting it is to provide a modernized alternative with some benefits from the choice of language -- and the choice of license is incidental.
Kinda like how the purpose of creating LLVM was to create a more extensible compiler framework, not to create a permissively licensed compiler. As it happens the license of LLVM has not really led to the proprietary hellscape that some people suggested it would, and in any case the technical benefits vastly outweigh the drawbacks. Companies like Apple that do have proprietary compilers based on LLVM are difficult to describe as "freeloaders" in practice because they contribute so much back to the project.
> The purpose of rewriting it is not to change the license.
I didn't say it was.
> The purpose of rewriting it is to provide a modernized alternative with some benefits from the choice of language
I did not contend that either.
> and the choice of license is incidental.
This I disagree with - the license choice is not incidental; it is foundational to gain popularity in a hurry, to gain widespread adoption at corporates.
The rewriter's intentions is to gain popularity over the incumbent software; using a pro-user license does not gain popularity for all those pro-business use-cases.
The license switch from pro-user to pro-business is not incidental. It's deliberate, and it's too achieve the stated goal of replacing the existing software.
This is one place where I feel that the ends do not justify the means.
The difference is in the cases you mention these are massive companies with plenty of money simply trying to protect their revenue streams, whereas here we're talking about open source maintainers that are often doing this for the sake of their love for the project and the users, and getting very little other than recognition or ability to influence the project in return. It's not like you're talking about making a billionaire make a million less than he otherwise would.
Moreover, often these folks have rare expertise in those subjects, and/or rare willingness to work on them as open side projects. If you tell them this is just something they have to deal with, I wouldn't be surprised if you also remove some of the incentives folks have to keep contributing to OSS voluntarily in the first place. Very little money, and massive risk of losing control, recognition, etc. even if you "succeed"... how many people are still going to bother? And then you get shocked, shocked that OSS is losing to proprietary software and dying.
The primary benefit of FOSS over proprietary software is, in fact, the ability and willingness to change things and open up changes to a wider pool of developers. Fiefdoms are actively hostile to open source principles. Obviously it's good to treat people with respect but you shouldn't let worse code win out just because of ego alone. Sometimes software gets forked or rewritten and sometimes the fork/rewrite wins out, that's evolution and competition and it keeps the ecosystem healthy.