Why manufacturers of electronic computing and communication devices, supported by various IT and software development groups, are pushing the so called "latest and greatest technologies" that require never ending updates, upgrades and fixes of the software which controls their gadgets? And then after few months of useful life those personal communication/computing gadgets become outdated so the makers can sell you more of the same, but called newer and better, which will need immediate software updates or upgrades.
Why software developers by themselves, sometimes called engineers for some strange reason, do the the same things as the electronic gadget makers - continuously push or offer the latest or greatest software solutions that don't provide much value or improvements over the the prior?
I have been involved in various aspects of Real Life (visible and tangible) industrial, mechanical, aircraft and jet engine developmental engineering, as a technician, for almost 40 years. But, I had never experienced the level and frequency of continues changes, updates, upgrades and fixes that I noticed in IT and software development.
Are you referring to OpenSource?
I believe the GPL contributes to this by going too far in its viralness, and needs to be amended. At minimum, GPL or any other license should not dictate opensource libraries it uses through dynamic linking, including of other versions of its libraries. Once they figure that out, LGPL versions 2 & 3 libraries can be cleaned up, and additionally be made to work with GPL 2. Code under LGPL can be cleaned up anyway, and it may be well worth it for those coming from an ideology of permissive licensing and file-based licenses to a balance of somewhere between GPL. LGPL still has a problem with the ability of being absorbed into GPL directly, which is a problem, but so do permissive licenses. Any opensource library intended for widespread use, should be able to be used as a library through dynamic linking to another piece of opensource software without being absorbed by the GPL.
Opensource libraries need to be restricted from being aborbed into more restrictive terms, and should always allow dynamic linking to and from. Software which isn't intended to be a library should have a choice to not allow dynamic linking from it for it to be used as a library. All opensource software should be allowed to dynamically link to reasonable opensource libraries, without forcing a potential for hostile alteration through forcing its own licensensing.
Viral licenses add on to the issue of piling on unecessary dependencies. Someone can take the time to fix them, but someone who owns a dual license benefits improportionally to work contributed by others. Their product gets better, but other competitors are disadvantaged. There's a leverage by the one who owns a dual license over both the opensource community and over other competitors. As long as the viralness of a license doesn't extend into opensource libraries through dynamic use, that's enough. Then, others can choose which license they want from those improved boundaries, depending on purpose.
Under permissive licenses, unnecessary upgrades aren't needed. We can see that in how well FreeBSD's base is designed. However, the issue is, when permissively licensed code can get absorbed, it can get outcompeted through leverage of some other license which takes and doesn't give back. Someone can make 10x the work on permissively licensed code, then someone can make 1/10th the effort on permissively licensed code, then slap a viral license on it, and those contributions can't go towards the original code.
There needs to be a standard linking exception to GPL 2 & 3 to automatically allow use of dynamic linking to other opensource libraries without inserting its viralness on them. These include from Apache, MPL and LGPL3. Then, GPL can be chosen from that standpoint, and can be into a more acceptable license, with other options depending on what they want to do.
Also, I was thinking of a license based on FreeBSD's license, plus an Apache 2.0 patent clause, plus 2 more sections, that it be completely directory based (which is a subset of file-based) instead of merely file-based, and also that dynamic linking to and from cannot be restricted from code under it on that premise. This would be the perfect mix between viral licenses, file-based licenses and permissive licenses.
github.com
