GPL as a Compliance Based Model

Compliance based modes of enforcing rules work by making compliance easy and useful for actors.

Most sociologists have have focused on compliance models have focused on areas like the regulation of industry. However, in looking at and thinking about the GNU GPL it seems to me that it is, totally apart from the Joomla! issue, a very powerful example of a compliance based model. It's well known in the world of people who think about these things, the the Free Software Foundation almost never ends up before a judge. How do they achieve this?

Of course, there is not one way, but several.

The GPL model is sometimes referred to as "viral" because when a program--someone's bit of code-- gets involved with a gpl program in certain ways that program needs to itself be gpl compatible (which means it must have one of the licenses approved by the FSF). The current debate within the Joomla! ecosystem is is about what kinds of involvement do or do not require the Joomla! GPL to "infect" extensions to Joomla!. Of course, the promoters of the GPL do not like this particular analogy since conventionally infection implies illness and some kind of harm and in an HIV infected world probably death. Proprietary (i.e. non GPL) developers worry about infection and so, as a result, they tend to be quite cautious about how their software interacts with GPL software. They decide to "go GPL" because they see a benefit. They may not be happy but they have done the analysis and decided that the gpl requirements which they may not like are worth adopting.

But is this--so really the main way that the GPL propogates? I tend to think not. Instead, I think that the GPL mainly spreads because it is easier. First, an awful lot of programming is started by copying existing gpl code. The GPL makes this possible by its very terms. Someone could attempt to code everything from scratch, but in the vast majority of cases the benefit of avoiding the GPL is not worth the time.

But what if you are working for yourself, coming up with something from scratch, why would you GPL? Well, the truth is, of all the software appropriate licenses it is the easiest to use. The instructions are simple and it is a known quantity. No lawyers needed, because the legal work has already been done. Your work is protected, and you get credit. No one can steal your work. The FSF is there to help you enforce it.

On top of all this, however, is a social process which is bigger. The GPL is established and widespread enough that it has become the norm as opposed to the exception. Users--developers, end users, everyone--understand it and know how to handle it, even when they don't like it. How often do people actually read the GPL? Not often, because they don't need to. Even people who hate the gpl know what it means and how to avoid it. So in that sense it is the dominant frame--frame isn't the right word and neither is paradigm-- for people writing code for distribution and for teens downloading software. Just as Americans have an idea that they know what 'the first amendment" means without reading case law or the constitution, people know what free software means. In this, the GPL has fundamentally shaped the way people, particularly people in the computer world, think about copyright and information even though they don't know it.

Fundamentally the GPL and the web more generally is about a way of thinking about ideas and inventions and what they mean.

So, the way the GPL really gets people to comply is not through force or intimidation or lawsuits. It isn't through disease models. It is through changing the patterns of thinking of embedded in the culture.