FSF has provided evidence of the growing popularity of the GPL
The executive director of the Free Software Foundation, John Sullivan (John Sullivan), made a presentation at the FOSDEM 2012 conference, where he denied the recent opinion that the share of the GPL among Open Source licenses is declining. Some analysts even said that by September 2012 it will drop to 50% , while the MIT / Apache / BSD share is growing quite rapidly (see the graph based on statistics from Black Duck Software’s Open Source Resource Center).
John Sullivan strongly disagrees with the thesis of reducing the popularity of the GPL. In his presentation, he proves the opposite.
John Sullivan says that the FSF does not like to give figures of popularity and GPL statistics in comparison with other licenses. They do this only to support copyleft supporters, because providing such support is part of the work of the FSF.
First, says Sullivan, most of the research of open source projects is simply biased, because they do not take into account all existing projects, do not take into account differences in active or abandoned projects, large and small, projects for mobile platforms, the number of lines of code, packages with dual licenses . In other words, it is practically impossible to obtain truly objective statistics. If someone shows a decline in the share of the GPL, what does this really mean?
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In addition, the decline in popularity of the GPL can be challenged. John Sullivan collected GPL / LGPL / AGPL license statistics in packages for Debian GNU / Linux using this script . Here is what he did:
John Sullivan strongly disagrees with the thesis of reducing the popularity of the GPL. In his presentation, he proves the opposite.
John Sullivan says that the FSF does not like to give figures of popularity and GPL statistics in comparison with other licenses. They do this only to support copyleft supporters, because providing such support is part of the work of the FSF.
First, says Sullivan, most of the research of open source projects is simply biased, because they do not take into account all existing projects, do not take into account differences in active or abandoned projects, large and small, projects for mobile platforms, the number of lines of code, packages with dual licenses . In other words, it is practically impossible to obtain truly objective statistics. If someone shows a decline in the share of the GPL, what does this really mean?
- The rise in popularity of free software in general (because according to any research, in absolute figures there are more GPL projects and non-GPL projects)
- More corporations are accepting free software and encouraging the use of licenses that leave them eligible for proprietary software.
- New software distribution structures such as the Apple App Store prohibit the use of the GPL
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In addition, the decline in popularity of the GPL can be challenged. John Sullivan collected GPL / LGPL / AGPL license statistics in packages for Debian GNU / Linux using this script . Here is what he did:
- Sarge. Released 06.05.2005, a total of 15 195 packages, of which 10 730 are under the GPL-family, i.e. 71%
- Etch. 04/08/2007, a total of 18,043 packages, 2,848 new ones, 13,872 under the GPL-family, i.e. 77%
- Lenny (the first after the appearance of GPLv3). 02.14.2009, a total of 21,994 packages, 3,951 new ones, 19,218 under the GPL-family, i.e. 87% , 630 packages under GPLv3 or LGPLv3
- Squeeze. 02/06/2011, a total of 28,126 packages, 6132 new ones, 26,271 under the GPL-family, i.e. 93% , 3154 packages under GPLv3 or LGPLv3
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/139375/
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