Intel's giant screw up with the Intel Threading Library TBB

I got in a discussion on a forum about the Intel Threading Library and now that discussion turned into a rant. I have now decided to cross post that rant here to my blog. (I encourage you to read the entire thread of discussion on the Ogre3d forums, because there is a lot of interesting follow-up conversation. And, by the way, the purpose of this rant is to shame Intel into fixing their ridiculous licensing decision on a handful of header files.)

A very legitimate question to me would be, John, why did you write the JobSwarm threading library when Intel already has an awesome open source threading library called TBB?

Yeah, good question.

Here's the answer why......

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>>This exception is actually very unrestrictive, in fact, that exception makes the licence of TBB less restrictive than LGPL. It is definitely usable in commercial applications and does not enforce GPL on your own code....

We must not be reading the same thing. According to the announcement, TBB is under GPL2. On their site they refer to a commercial version and a commercially 'aligned' version whatever that is supposed to mean. At the end of the day it is released under GPL.

Please read the GPL license located here: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

It is a massive and dense document that would require an attorney to figure out. Now, I'm not an attorney but, but let me tell you this, our attorneys tell us that under no circumstances can we use any GPL code in any way shape or form in any of our projects here at work. I don't care what little 'caveat' Intel shoved into their readme file so long as it has the word 'GPL' anywhere near it, I cannot touch it at my job period.

Realize that all of the source I release is also used by me at my job. I consult with my employer and we make selective decisions as to what code we will release open source and what we will not. We release open source for a variety of reasons: generating good karma, generally being a nice guy, and hoping that we will benefit from improvements and bug fixes made by others, or from software created by others that incorporates our code.

By comparison, here is the MIT license. I don't need to provide a separate link because it is so short and sweet one is not needed. It says the source is free, do with it as you will, and don't blame me if something goes wrong. That, in my opinion, is the only license any true 'open source' project should be in. It certainly should be no more than a paragraph or two, a couple of hundred words at best, and not a massive document such as GPL.

By the way, I am not alone in my opinion on this topic. Here is a link to a developer who says almost word for word the same thing I just said. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5935

If you can't tell by now, I’m really annoyed that Intel has this fantastic threading library that they ‘want everyone to use’ but then release it under GPL; a license that prevents virtually any commercial software developer from using it; based on company policy if nothing else.

(WHAT IS EVEN WORSE IS THAT OPEN-SOURCE DEVELOPERS CAN'T USE IT EITHER! BECAUSE GPL IS A VIRUS AND EVEN IF MY OPEN-SOURCE PROJECT IS MIT THE MOMENT I PUT GPL CODE INTO MY PROJECT IT IS NOW INFECTED WITH THIS DISGUSTING VIRAL MEME THUS MAKING MY PROJECT USELESS!!!)

As I assume you know, it is corporate policy at virtually all companies that no GPL code can be used period. And, because of the damage GPL issues have raised, now many companies won’t allow any open source code of any kind, no matter what the license. Which makes the job of a commercial software developer a giant pain in the ass when he has to completely rewrite open source code just so that his company now ‘owns it’.

I know of one major company in particular that I do consulting for that has this restriction. I know from personal experience just how frustrating this can be. Until Intel removes the phrase 'GPL license' from TBB it will never be adopted by virtually any commercial projects.

The MIT license:

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.