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* Translatting by name1e5s * [Translated]The decline of GPL?.md
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The decline of GPL?
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Image by : opensource.com
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A little while ago I saw an interesting tweet from Stephen O'Grady at RedMonk [on the state of open source licensing][2], including this graph.
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This graph shows how license usage has changed from 2010 to 2017\. In reading it, it is clear that usage of the GPL 2.0 license, one of the purest copyleft licenses around, has more than halved in usage. According to the chart it would appear that the popularity of open source licensing has subsequently shifted to the [MIT][3] and [Apache][4] licenses. There has also been a small increase in [GPL 3.0][5] usage.
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So, what does all this mean?
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Why has GPL 2.0 usage dropped so dramatically with only a marginal increase in GPL 3.0 usage? Why has MIT and Apache usage grown so dramatically?
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Of course, there are many interpretations, but my guess is that this is due to the increased growth in open source in business, and a nervousness around the GPL in the commercial world. Let's dig in.
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### The GPL and business
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Now, before I get started, I know I am going to raise the ire of some GPL fans. Before you start yelling at me, I want to be very clear: I am a huge fan and supporter of the GPL.
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I have licensed every piece of software I have ever written under the GPL, I have been an active financial supporter of the [Free Software Foundation][6] and [Software Freedom Conservancy][7] and the work they do, and I advocate for the usage of the GPL. My comments here are not about the validity or the great value of the GPL—it is an unquestionably great license—but more about the perception and interpretation of the license in the industry.
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About four years ago, I was at an annual event called the Open Source Think Tank. This event was a small, intimate, annual gathering of executives in the open source industry in the California wine country. The event focused on networking, building alliances, and identifying and addressing industry problems.
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At this event, there was a group case study in which the attendees were broken into smaller groups and asked to recommend an open source license for a real-world project that was building a core open source technology. Each group read back their recommendations, and I was surprised to see that every one of the 10 or so groups suggested a permissive license, and not one suggested the GPL.
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I had seen an observational trend in the industry towards the Apache and MIT licenses, but this raised a red flag at the time about the understanding, acceptance, and comfort of the GPL in the open source industry.
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It seems that in recent years that trend has continued. Aside from the Black Duck research, a [license study in GitHub][8] in 2015 found that the MIT license was a dominant choice. Even observationally in my work at XPRIZE (where we chose a license for the [Global Learning XPRIZE][9]), and my work as a [community leadership consultant][10], I have seen a similar trend with many of my clients who feel uncomfortable licensing their code under GPL.
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With an [estimated 65% of companies contributing to open source][11], there has clearly been a growth in commercial interest and investment since 2010\. I believe this, tied with the trends I just outlined, would suggest that the industry does not feel the GPL is generally the right choice for an open source business.
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### Interfacing community and company
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To be honest, GPL's declining popularity is not entirely surprising, and for a few reasons.
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Firstly, as the open source industry has evolved, it has become clear that finding the right balance of community engagement and a business model that... y'know... actually works, is a key decision. There was a misconception in the early days of open source that, "If you build it, they will come." Sure, they often came to use your software, but in many cases, "If you built it, they wouldn't necessarily give you any money."
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As the years have progressed we have seen various companies, such as Red Hat, Automattic, Docker, Canonical, Digital Ocean, and others, explore different methods of making money in open source. This has included distribution models, services models, open core models, and more. What has become clear is that the traditional software scarcity model doesn't work with open source code; therefore, you need to choose a license that supports the needs of the model the company chooses. Getting this balance between revenue and providing your technology for free is a tough prospect for many.
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This is where we see the rub. While the GPL is an open source license, it is fundamentally a Free Software license. As a Free Software license, much of the stewardship and support for the GPL has been driven by the Free Software Foundation.
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As much as I love the work of the Free Software Foundation, their focus has ultimately been anchored from the perspective that software absolutely has to be 100% free. There isn't much room for compromise with the FSF, and even well-recognized open source projects (such as many Linux distributions) have been deemed "non-free" due to a tiny bit of binary firmware.
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This proves complicated for businesses where there is rarely a black and white set of choices and there is instead a multitude of grey. Few businesses share the pure ideology of the Free Software Foundation (or similar groups such as the Software Freedom Conservancy), and thus I suspect businesses are less comfortable about choosing a license that is so connected to such a pure ideology.
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Now, to be clear, I don't blame the FSF (and similar organizations such as the SFC) for this. They have a specific mandate and mission focused on building a comprehensive free software commons, and it is perfectly reasonable for them to draw their line in the sand wherever they choose. The FSF and SFC do _phenomenal_ work and I will long continue to be a supporter of them and the many wonderful people who work there. I just believe that a consequence of such purity is that companies may feel uneasy being able to meet the mark, and thus chose to use a different choice of license than the GPL.
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I suspect what has also affected GPL usage is a change in dynamic as open source has grown. In the early days, one of the core fundamental reasons why projects would start was a rigorous focus on openness and the ethical elements of software freedom. The GPL was unsurprisingly a natural choice for this projects, with Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Linux, and many others as examples.
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In recent years though we have seen a newer generation of developers form for whom there is a less critical, and if I dare say it, less religious focus on freedom. For them, open source is a pragmatic and practical component in building software as opposed to an ethical choice, and I suspect this is why we have seen such a growth in the use of MIT and Apache licenses.
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### The future?
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What does this mean for the GPL?
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My guess is that the GPL will continue to be a popular choice of license, but developers will view it increasingly as a purer free software license. I suspect that projects that have an ethical commitment to software freedom will prioritize the GPL over other licenses, but for businesses where there needs to be the balance we discussed earlier, I suspect the MIT and Apache licenses will continue to grow in popularity.
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Either way, the great news is that open source and free software is growing, and while there may be complexity and change in how licenses are used, what matters more is that technology is increasingly becoming open, accessible, and available to everyone.
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作者简介：
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Jono Bacon - Jono Bacon is a leading community manager, speaker, author, and podcaster. He is the founder of Jono Bacon Consulting which provides community strategy/execution, developer workflow, and other services. He also previously served as director of community at GitHub, Canonical, XPRIZE, OpenAdvantage, and consulted and advised a range of organizations.
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via: https://opensource.com/article/17/2/decline-gpl
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作者：[Jono Bacon][a]
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译者：[译者ID](https://github.com/译者ID)
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校对：[校对者ID](https://github.com/校对者ID)
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本文由 [LCTT](https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject) 原创编译，[Linux中国](https://linux.cn/) 荣誉推出
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[a]:https://opensource.com/users/jonobacon
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[1]:https://opensource.com/article/17/2/decline-gpl?rate=WfBHpUyo5BSde1SNTJjuzZTJbjkZTES77tcHwpfTMdU
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[2]:https://twitter.com/sogrady/status/820001441733607424
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[3]:https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
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[4]:http://apache.org/licenses/
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[5]:https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
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[6]:http://www.fsf.org/
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[7]:https://sfconservancy.org/
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[8]:https://github.com/blog/1964-open-source-license-usage-on-github-com
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[9]:http://learning.xprize.org/
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[10]:http://www.jonobacon.org/consulting
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[11]:https://opensource.com/business/16/5/2016-future-open-source-survey
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[12]:https://opensource.com/user/26312/feed
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[13]:https://opensource.com/article/17/2/decline-gpl#comments
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[14]:https://opensource.com/users/jonobacon
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GPL 没落了吗？
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Image by : opensource.com
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不久之前我看到了 RedMonk 的 Stephen O'Grady 发了一个[关于开源协议的有趣的推特][2]，那个推特里面有这张图。
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这张图片显示了从 2010 到 2017 年间各种开源协议之间的使用率的变化。在这张图片里，显然 GPL 2.0，最纯净的 copyleft 协议之一，的使用率不只是折了个半。表格表明，开源项目中 [MIT][3] 协议和 [Apache][4] 协议开始受欢迎。[GPL 3.0][5] 的使用率也有所上涨。
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这些意味着什么？
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为什么 GPL 2.0 的使用率跌的这么多但是 GPL 3.0 仅仅是涨了一丁点？为什么 MIT 和 Apache 的使用率涨了那么多?
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当然，有很多原因可以解释这件事情，但是我想这是因为商业开源项目的增多，以及商业社会对于 GPL 协议的担心导致的，我们细细掰扯。
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### GPL 协议与商业社会
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我知道我要说的可能会激怒一些 GPL粉，所以在你们开始喷之前，我想说明：我支持 GPL，也是 GPL 粉丝。
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我写过的所有软件都使用的 GPL 协议，我也是一直是出资支持 [自由软件基金会][6] 以及 [软件自由保护组织][7] 以及他们的工作的，我支持使用 GPL 协议。我在这说的无关 GPL 的合法性或者 GPL 的巨大价值 —— 毫无疑问这是一个好协议 —— 我在这要说的是商业社会对于这个协议的看法。
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大概四年之前，我参加了一个叫做 开源智库 的峰会。这个峰会是一个私人小型峰会，每年都会把各大开源企业的管理人员请到加利福尼亚的酒庄。这个峰会聚焦于网络，构建联盟，识别报告企业问题。
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在这个峰会上，有一个小组研究，在这个小组研究中，与会者被分成小组，被要求给一个真实存在的核心开源技术推荐一个开源协议。每个小组都给出了回应。不到十分之一的小组推荐了公共许可证，没有热推荐 GPL 许可证。
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我看到了开源行业对于 Apache 以及 MIT 协议的逐步认可，但是他们却对花时间理解，接受，熟悉 GPL 这件事高高挂起。
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在这几年里，这种趋势仍在蔓延。除了 Black Duck 的调查之外， 2015 年 [GitHub 上的开源协议调查][8] 也显示 MIT 是人们的首选。我还能看到，在我工作的 XPRIZE （我们为我们的 [Global Learning XPRIZE][9] 选择了开源协议），在我的职位，[社区领导顾问][10]，我也能感觉到那种倾向，因为越来越多的客户觉得把他们的代码用 GPL 发布不舒服。
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随着 [大约 65% 的公司对开源事业做贡献][11] ，自从 2010 年以后显然开源行业已经有了不少商业资本和投资。我相信，我之前说的那些趋势，已经表明这行业不认为 GPL 适合搞开源生意。
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### 连接社区和公司
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说真的，GPL 的没落不太让人吃惊，因为有如下原因。
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首先，开源行业已经转型升级，它要在社区发展以及...你懂的...真正能赚钱的商业模型中做出均衡，这是它们要做的最重要的决策。在开源思想发展之初，人们有种误解说，“如果你搞出来了，他们就会用”，他们确实会来使用你的软件，但是在很多情况下，都是“如果你搞出来了，他们不一定会给你钱。”
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随着历史的进程，我们看到了许多公司，比如 Red Hat, Automattic, Docker, Canonical, Digital Ocean 等等等等，发展着在开源领域中赚钱的法子。他们发展过分发模型，服务模型，开源核心服务模型等等等等。现在可以确定的是，传统的商业软件赚钱的方式已经不在开源软件这适用；因此，你得选择一个能够支持你的公司的营业方式的开源协议。在赚钱和免费提供你的技术之间找到平衡在很多情况下是很困难的一件事。
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这就是我们看到那些变化的原因。尽管 GPL 是一个开源协议，但是它还是自由软件协议，作为自由软件协议，它的管理以及支持是由自由软件基金会提供的。
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我喜欢自由软件基金会的作品，但是他们已经把观点局限于软件必须 100 % 绝对免费。对于 FSF 没有多少可以妥协的，甚至很多出名的开源项目（比如很多 Linux 发行版）仅仅是因为一丁点二进制固件就被认为是 “非免费” 软件。
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对于商业来说，最复杂的就是它不是非黑即白，更多的时候是两者混合的灰色，很少有公司有自由软件基金会（或者类似的组织，比如软件自由保护组织）的那种纯粹的理念，因此我想那些公司也不喜欢选择和那些理念相关的协议。
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我需要说明，我不是在这是说 FSF 以及类似的组织（比如 SFC）的错。他们有着打造完全免费的软件的目标，对于他们来说，走它们选择的路十分合理。FSF 以及 SFC 做了_了不起_的工作，我将继续支持这些组织以及为他们工作的人们。我相信，这种纯粹性的高要求的一个后果就是让那些公司认为自己难以达到要求，因此，他们使用了非 GPL 的其他协议。
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近年来，尽管我们已经看到了不再那么挑剔的一代开发者的出现，但是他们却缺少对于自由的关注。对于他们来说开源软件是务实实用的构建软件的一部分，而不是关乎伦理的问题。我想，这就是为什么我们发现 MIT 和 Apache 协议的流行的原因。
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### 未来 ?
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这对于 GPL 意味着什么？
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我的猜想是 GPL 依然将是一个主要选项，但是开发者将将他视为纯粹的自由软件协议。我想对于软件的纯粹性有高要求的项目会优先选择 GPL 协议。但是对于商业软件，为了保持我们之前讨论的平衡，他们不会那么做。我猜测， MIT 以及 Apache 依然会继续流行下去。
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不管怎样，好消息是开源/免费软件行业确实在增长。无论使用的协议会发生怎样的变化，技术确实变得更加开放，可以接触，人人都能使用。
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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作者简介：
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Jono Bacon - Jono Bacon is a leading community manager, speaker, author, and podcaster. He is the founder of Jono Bacon Consulting which provides community strategy/execution, developer workflow, and other services. He also previously served as director of community at GitHub, Canonical, XPRIZE, OpenAdvantage, and consulted and advised a range of organizations.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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via: https://opensource.com/article/17/2/decline-gpl
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作者：[Jono Bacon][a]
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译者：[name1e5s](https://github.com/name1e5s)
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校对：[校对者ID](https://github.com/校对者ID)
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本文由 [LCTT](https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject) 原创编译，[Linux中国](https://linux.cn/) 荣誉推出
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[a]:https://opensource.com/users/jonobacon
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[1]:https://opensource.com/article/17/2/decline-gpl?rate=WfBHpUyo5BSde1SNTJjuzZTJbjkZTES77tcHwpfTMdU
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[2]:https://twitter.com/sogrady/status/820001441733607424
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[3]:https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
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[4]:http://apache.org/licenses/
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[5]:https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
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[6]:http://www.fsf.org/
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[7]:https://sfconservancy.org/
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[8]:https://github.com/blog/1964-open-source-license-usage-on-github-com
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[9]:http://learning.xprize.org/
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[10]:http://www.jonobacon.org/consulting
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[11]:https://opensource.com/business/16/5/2016-future-open-source-survey
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[12]:https://opensource.com/user/26312/feed
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[13]:https://opensource.com/article/17/2/decline-gpl#comments
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[14]:https://opensource.com/users/jonobacon
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