With GPL, you're programming Freedom. With MIT, you're programming for free.

nomadjoanne , 7 days ago

Tannenbaum is fucking asshole. Isn’t he the idiot that told Torvalds “you certainly would have failed my class if you submitted your OS as a final project?”

The guy deserves no respect.

MystikIncarnate , 7 days ago

I’ve seen busybox in a lot of software that’s not free. One notable example is VMware. It runs on top of esxi as a package to provide command line functions to VMware hosts.

I’m pretty sure (IDK, I don’t do development for vmw) that it’s running on top of VMware’s kernel, and they have binaries that you execute from busybox that interface with the vmkernel to accomplish things.

I don’t have all the details and I’m far from an operating system guru/developer/whatever. I think that’s permissible under copyleft, since they’re not running things that you paid for on top of busybox, but I have no idea. I’m also not a lawyer, but they’ve been doing it forever, as far as I know.

Does anyone know more about it? I’m just surprised that smaller fish have fried for infringement, but someone like VMware is shipping busybox without reprocussions.

Maybe it’s not busybox? Maybe it’s something that just looks and acts like busybox? Idk.

nUbee , 7 days ago

When I think of Copyleft licenses, I just think of it as “Use this program as you see fit, but if you share/redistribute it, you may not add any restrictions to it.”

I don’t understand why there are communities that hate GPL so much. It is such a powerful license that practically guarantees that the program will be free for any who wants it, it just won’t allow someone to add restrictions to it.

I’ve heard arguments against the GPL like: “It’s too restrictive!” Only if you want your program to be muddled with any kind of program that doesn’t respect freedom. Saying the GPL is too restrictive to developers is like saying the 13th amendment of the US Constitution is too restrictive to slave owners.

douglasg14b , 7 days ago

I’m going to guess because of the tools that don’t use LGPL.

Which makes them quite limiting and kind of controversial since you have to adopt their license from my understanding, even if used as a library.

I try and use LGPL on all my projects since it allows others to use the Library as a library, and anyone that wants to modify or use the source has to copy left.

HappyFrog , 7 days ago

I find MIT to be good for libraries as you can get companies using it and working on it. However, apps and binaries should be copyleft to not get fucked over.

douglasg14b , 7 days ago

This is what LGPL is for.

You can still use a library like a library freely, without restriction, but you are keeping your IP protected from being copied cloned and modified elsewhere.

woelkchen , 7 days ago

Interestingly enough, Tanenbaum doesn’t seem to mind what intel did.

Yeah, duh. Intelligent people read licenses before they pick one.

But there are some examples out there of people regretting releasing their work under a permissive license.

That’s like signing a contract before reading it and then complaining that it contains provisions that surprise you when they are enacted. I’m baffled on a regular basis by how many people understand FOSS licenses only on the basis for hearsay, for example when people insist that GPLed source code must be made available free of charge for everyone. The GNU project has a FAQ about the GPL that spells it out that this is not the case and yet hardly anyone discussing FOSS licenses has even read the FAQ.

widw , 7 days ago (edited 7 days ago)

Controversial opinion: Copyleft is actually more free than permissive licenses.

Because the way the GPL works is how the world would be if there were no licenses and no copyright at all. Because then anything made public is free to use. And if I were to reverse-engineer a binary then I could still add that code to my software.

But since we live in a world where we play make-believe that you can make something public and still “own it” at the same time (e.g. copyright) and where using reverse-engineered code can still get you into legal trouble, the GPL is using their own silly logic against them (like fighting fire with fire) to create a bubble of software that acts like a world without any licenses.

Permissive licenses don’t do that, they allow your open software to just get repurposed under a non-free paradigm which could never occur in a world with no licenses. And so ironically permissive licensing in a world that is (artifically) non-permissive by default does not reflect a world with no licenses, and is thus less free than Copyleft.

grrgyle , 7 days ago

Well you’ve convinced me. I always thought copyleft sounded cool, but never thought of it in this way of more/less free

woelkchen , 7 days ago

And if I were to reverse-engineer a binary then I could still add that code to my software.

That’s actually an important factor for ancient software whose source code was lost. A developer could, for example, declare all their old Atari 2600 games to be under GPL by just announcing it in their news blog. Collectors could then hunt for the binary files and decompile them. Decompiled software is still a derivative work, so that source code would still be under GPL. Sadly I’m just aware of one case from years ago where I can’t even remember the specifics who and which software it was but he was like “I found some floppy disks from the 1980s, I lost the source code but binaries under GPL, so have fun”.

rottingleaf , 7 days ago

TIL openssh, xorg, apache, nginx, all of *bsds are cuck-licensed.

While GPL-licensed linux, used by every corp out there, is not.

but since it’s protected under the GPL, Busybox developers were able to sue them and gain some money in the process.

Don’t need to steal anything. Lots of today’s usage doesn’t involve giving a binary to the customer. Thus Google, FB and who else don’t have to share any of their internal changes to Linux.

nickwitha_k , 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

Really?..

Just about every FOSS and Source-Available license that I’ve seen is perfectly valid. As a software developer, one has the option to choose how they wish to license their software. This can be based upon one’s personal philosophical view or what seems most appropriate for the piece of software.

Not everyone is motivated by profit. Most software that I develop personally is permissively licensed because IDGAF as long as I have enough to get by. If I write some code that makes someone else’s life better or easier, that’s more than enough for me.

Wait. What am I saying? This is the Internet and, according to the rules of corpo social media, we’re all supposed to be dicks to each other to further “engagement”. WHICH ONE OF YOU SAVAGES IS USING TAB INDENTATION INSTEAD OF BLOCKS IN YOUR LICENSE FILES?!?;!!!111one

robigan , 7 days ago

I like your idea about using permissive licenses as long as it helps people. But as you said, “if … that makes someone else’s life better or easier …”, what would you do if someone used it to hurt people instead? I’d personally feel like shit if my software were used for that, and as others said in this post, they’d prefer to have entities request an exemption rather than have their code used in ways they don’t approve of. So what say you?

nickwitha_k , 7 days ago

what would you do if someone used it to hurt people instead? I’d personally feel like shit if my software were used for that, and as others said in this post, they’d prefer to have entities request an exemption rather than have their code used in ways they don’t approve of. So what say you?

I’ve a few thoughts on this:

• Anyone who wants to use anything that I release for harm, will probably do so regardless of license. Bad actors are going to act badly. Plus, chances are that they’d see no legal repercussions as underdogs winning in court is the exception, not the rule. The legal system is heavily stacked against the little guy.
• I tend to specifically avoid working on things that are weaponizable to reduce the chance of ethical conflict.
• The projects that I’ve released or plan to release tend to be pretty esoteric. The one that saw the most interest was years ago and it was an adapter between abandoned gallery plugin and an abandoned social media CMS thing. It would take some great creativity to hurt people with that, other than making them read my horrible code from that era. My current projects are more about FPGA and mixed reality stuff.
• Once I’ve created something and shared it freely, it is no longer wholely mine. I cannot dictate how one uses it, anymore than a musician can dictate how someone listens to the radio. As long as one abstains from creating tools intended to harm (or that can be predictably turned to harm), I don’t see legitimate ethical culpability. We only have control over ourselves.

robigan , 7 days ago

Interesting, I see why you’re saying that who wants to do harm with your code can do so however they want. Although licenses are the rules of the system which gives a fighting chance to stop such abuse if I can. Not that the system works properly most of the time, but it doesn’t mean it never will.

nickwitha_k , 7 days ago

Exactly. Bad actors are going to act badly. Unfortunately, something that we have to accept as reality (and something that some political philosophies fail to plan for). Bad actors will break the rules and, if they are wealthy, they will more often than not get away with it in the current state of affairs.

However, I would say that you bring an interesting point. It would be worthwhile, philosophically to have a “Pacifist MIT” license, being permissive but explicitly denying legal use to MIC.

Aux , 8 days ago

Public domain or GTFO!

dejected_warp_core , 8 days ago

The two licenses have distinct use cases, and only overlap for some definitions of “free” software. I also think both the comic artist and OP set up a fallacious argument. I’ll add that in no way do I support Intel’s shenanigans here.

The comic author takes one specific case of an MIT licensed product being used in a commercial product, and pits it against another GPL product. This ignores situations where MIT is the right answer, where GPL is the wrong one, situations where legal action on GPL violations has failed, and all cases where the author’s intent is considered (Tanenbaum doesn’t mind). From that I conclude that this falls under The Cherry Picking Fallacy. While humorous, it’s a really bad argument.

But don’t take it from me, learn from the master of logic himself.

commonly referred to as “cuck licenses”

This sentiment makes the enclosing sentence an Ad-hominem fallacy, by attacking the would-be MIT license party as having poor morals and/or low social standing. Permissive licenses absolutely do allow others to modify code without limit, but that is suggested to be a bad thing on moral grounds alone. That said, I’d love to see a citation here because that’s the first I’ve heard of this pejorative used to describe software licensing.

trolololol , 8 days ago

Dude are you a bot?

hglman , 8 days ago

Just a cooperate lawyer, so yes.

xenoclast , 8 days ago

I know you meant copyright… but this made me laugh.

hglman , 8 days ago

I actually ment corporate ha

xenoclast , 7 days ago

Even funnier. Stupid English and it’s stupid words.

namingthingsiseasy , 8 days ago

I was surprised that comment this got so many upvotes, so I’ll respond by saying that, with all due respect, I think your argument is much more fallacious than the one you are trying to debunk.

The comic author takes one specific case of an MIT licensed product being used in a commercial product, and pits it against another GPL product.

Yes, this is called an example. In this case, the author is using a particularly egregious case to make a broader conclusion: namely that if you release software under a “do whatever you want” license, it may come back to bite you in the future when it’s used in a product that you don’t like.

This comic is a warning to developers that choosing MIT/BSD without understanding this fact is a bad choice.

This ignores situations where MIT is the right answer, where GPL is the wrong one

It does not ignore those situations. All situations are multifaceted and need to take multiple considerations into account. The author is trying to argue that people should take care not to overlook the particular one to which he is trying to draw attention.

situations where legal action on GPL violations has failed

Just because legal efforts have failed does not mean that they are not worthwhile. There may be many cases where people avoided misappropriating GPL software because they did not want to deal with the license - there may be cases where people were less hesitant about doing so with MIT/BSD because they knew this risk was not there.

From that I conclude that this falls under The Cherry Picking Fallacy. While humorous, it’s a really bad argument.

Just because the author used a single example does not preclude the existence of others. That is a much more fallacious assumption that invalidates much of your argument.

and all cases where the author’s intent is considered (Tanenbaum doesn’t mind).

Just because Tanenbaum didn’t mind does not mean that other developers who mistakenly use MIT/BSD will not either. Also, it honestly shouldn’t matter what Tanenbaum thinks because we don’t know what his rationale is. Maybe he thinks malware is a good thing or that IME is not a serious issue - if that’s the case, do we still consider his sentiments relevant?

commonly referred to as “cuck licenses”

This sentiment makes the enclosing sentence an Ad-hominem fallacy

It does not, in fact. Just because the author used a slang/slanderous term to describe the licenses he doesn’t like does not mean that his logical arguments are invalid. Ad-hominem fallacies are when you say “the person who argued that is $X, therefore his logic is invalid”, not when he uses a term that may be considered in poor taste.

by attacking the would-be MIT license party as having poor morals and/or low social standing.

Misrepresentation. The author is not arguing that they have poor morals, he is arguing that they are short-sighted and possibly naive with regards to the implications of choosing MIT/BSD.

My conclusion: I appreciate the author for making this post. People should be more aware of the fact that your software could be used for nefarious purposes.

So unless you really don’t care about enabling evil people, you should be defaulting to using GPL. If people really want to use your copyleft software in a proprietary way, then it is easily within their means (and resources) to get an exemption from you. The fact that there is so much non-GPL software out there makes the GPL itself weaker and makes it easier for nefarious interests to operate freely.

(Not that I would ever release software under GPL myself. I think software licenses are stupid. But no license basically has the same non-derivative limitation as GPL so it doesn’t matter as far as I’m aware.)

xenoclast , 8 days ago

I’d like to counter both these arguments with:

ssj2marx , 8 days ago

situations where MIT is the right answer

Genuinely curious, when is this the case? If you’re programming on your own then it just takes the option of controlling what others do to your work off the table for no benefit - if you go copyleft and someone uses it and you don’t “mind” them using it then you can give/sell them an exemption while retaining the ability to go after uses that you don’t like.

dejected_warp_core , 7 days ago

I’ve been in situations where I wanted to retain credit/ownership of ideas and code, but wanted to be able to use them in the workplace. So building a MIT/BSD licensed library on the weekend and then importing it on Monday was the only game in town. I get the portfolio piece and my job is easier as a result. But I stick to non-novel and non-patentable stuff - “small” work really, as Stallman is quoted here..

In some work environments, GPL or “GPL with an exception” would never get the kind of traction it should. Lots of places I’ve worked lack the legal and logistical framework for wrangling licenses and exceptions. It’s hard to handle such cases if there’s literally nobody to talk to about it, while you have automated systems that flag GPL license landmines anyway. The framing is a kind of security problem, not a license problem, so you never really get to start.

JackbyDev , 8 days ago

and all cases where the author’s intent is considered (Tanenbaum doesn’t mind).

I think you’re ignoring that most people wouldn’t want their code used like that. Just because the author doesn’t mind doesn’t make that typical. Look at Mongo and Elastic. They felt the need to use an arguably non-free license for their code because of perceived abuses. AppGet is another example of something similar.

woelkchen , 7 days ago

I think you’re ignoring that most people wouldn’t want their code used like that.

That’s why you should read and understand a license before choosing it. MIT license is just a couple of lines of easy language, so it’s not like you need a degree to understand basic English. Anybody who’s surprised by the contents of the MIT license has no sympathy from me. Reading the text requires no more than one minute of time.

JackbyDev , 7 days ago

People generally aren’t surprised by the effects of the MIT license, they’re surprised by the behavior of other humans. Less permissive licenses protect against that.

woelkchen , 7 days ago

People generally aren’t surprised by the effects of the MIT license, they’re surprised by the behavior of other humans.

Wait, people give other people the right to make proprietary variants of released source code and then are surprised when they exercise that right?

Less permissive licenses protect against that.

No, other licenses don’t protect against not understanding which rights are granted. The GPL, for example, allows to make proprietary web services using GPL code and to never release any modifications to that code. Many people were very surprised many years ago that some web-based messenger could use Pidgin’s libpurple to connect to ICQ etc. without ever giving anything back.

JackbyDev , 7 days ago

Wait, people give other people the right to make proprietary variants of released source code and then are surprised when they exercise that right?

It’s more like being angry when people try to abuse charities and get money when they don’t need it. Like growing an apple tree in your yard and telling people they’re free then being upset when someone comes and takes all of them. Or a better example, being angry about people taking all the candy from a Halloween bowl.

No, other licenses don’t protect against not understanding which rights are granted.

That’s not what I meant, I meant protect against people taking advantage of your code in a way most people would view as wrong. (Just because something isegal doesn’t mean people believe it is right.)

Also, that’s why I use AGPL.

glitchdx , 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

I’m an idiot making a thing, and I need to pick a license. Where’s a good place to talk to people more knowledgeable than myself on the subject?

EDIT: so my thing isn’t software, i probably should have mentioned that. I am making a ruleset and setting for something similar to but not exactly a tabletop rpg. The ORC license sounds promising, but the legalese makes my brain gray out. ChatGPT tells me to use a version of the Creative Commons license, but ChatGPT isn’t exactly reliable.

AceD , 8 days ago

Wish someone would reply to this guy. I am also, a fellow idiot making a thing.

don , 8 days ago

Some did, check the replies.

TheImpressiveX , 8 days ago

Not an expert by any means, but it depends.

Are you okay with people potentially making a closed-source fork of your code? If yes, then choose a permissive license like MIT, BSD, or Apache. If you do not want people to make closed-source versions of your code, and want all forks to remain open-source, then go with GPL.

Remember that choosing the GPL means other people, especially businesses, will be less likely to consider your project because that would mean they would have to make their versions open-source, which some people may not want to do.

EDIT: As always, this is not legal advice and I am not a lawyer.

AlpacaChariot , 8 days ago

Just a small note that the businesses only have to open source their version if they release it. If they just use it internally then they don’t have to distribute the source code. So it depends on the use case.

Senshi , 8 days ago

choosealicense.com

Very simple guide with in depth examples if you want further clarification.

woelkchen , 8 days ago

Rule of thumb: if your full license text is longer than your actual source code, you’ve probably picked the wrong license.

Senshi , 8 days ago

That is actually a really bad rule, though you probably are only joking.

There are many examples of short, but very valuable code. Just think about anything math or physics related.

A totally new or even just a very efficient implementation of an already existing algorithm can be gigantic if others need to build upon it.

And many licenses are verbose not because they are complicated in intent, but merely because they need extensive legalese prose to cover against many possible avenues of attack.

woelkchen , 7 days ago

That is actually a really bad rule, though you probably are only joking.

No, I wasn’t.

There are many examples of short, but very valuable code. Just think about anything math or physics related.

A rule of thumb is not a strict law. I never disputed that there are certain edge cases. What has to be considered but is not on the radar of most people: Threshold of originality. A “valuable” 3 LOC bash script is likely not being able to be copyrighted in the first place. In cases where the work is tedious but not creative, the work may also not be able to be copyrighted (depending on jurisdiction). See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow whether a certain jurisdiction protects tedious work or not.

GreyEyedGhost , 8 days ago

I’ll throw my opinions in here.

If you’re publishing a standard or a reference application, a permissive license makes sense. What better way to guarantee compatibility than being able to use the reference code in your product. This is what happened with the TCP/IP stack, and it was used in its original form in Windows for years.

If you’re making something that you want to build a community around, something more akin to the GPL may be more aligned with your goals. The nice part is, you can include MIT licensed projects as part of your GPL project. This means there is nothing stopping you from building your standard with a MIT license while building your community-driven application using GPL, maximizing the reach of your standard while reducing the risk to your community.

Note that either option opens you to EEE (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish), the GPL option just takes an extra step (clean room implementation of a published standard).

s_s , 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

Sometimes you just wanna get fucked. --MIT

Sometimes you want to start a beautiful family that makes the world a better place. --GPL

Match your license with your feelings about the project.

Just don’t, you know, pick the former and mistake it for the latter because your ego gets stroked. If you pick MIT, you increase your chances of collaborating, but get in and get out.

glukoza , 8 days ago

You sound like someone i know xD

But I think gpl isn’t limited to software, or is it ? Anyhow, you have different varaites of Create Commons, depending on much limits you put, from 0(nothing) to 4(no commercial use, no remix etc.) they have license chooser on website here

JackbyDev , 8 days ago (edited 7 days ago)

My personal philosophy:

1. Is this trivially small? Don’t bother licensing. People will just copy and paste regardless of what I do and I don’t care. But it gives you the option to change your mind later. Licenses are irrevocable. (I specifically mean not applying a license and maintaining all rights.)
2. Is it a small part of a whole that people need to use? LGPL. But take this with a grain of salt. FSF says to prefer GPL.
3. Otherwise, AGPL. If there was a more strict but also commonly used license I’d use it instead.

dan , 7 days ago (edited 7 days ago)

Doesn’t bother licensing

That’s usually not what someone would want to do. The default if you don’t provide a license is essentially “all rights reserved”, and you’re not granting anyone else permission to use it in any way. Everyone that wants to use it has to get explicit permission.

If you really want “no license” then you probably actually want to release it as public domain.

JackbyDev , 7 days ago

For truly small random pieces of code I’m putting online, yes, that is what I generally want. (Also, that’s sort of presumptuous to believe you know what I want better than myself.) I’m not going to hunt down people who are infringing on projects like this: github.com/JacksonBailey/julian

I made that because I was bored and thought I could easily solve a problem my wife described having at work. If someone copies and pastes it into their own project do I care? I mean, sort of? Not really. It’s just too small to worry about. Specifically leaving it unlicensed gives me.the freedom and flexibility to license it as I choose in the future and also pursue people using it if they refused to stop. (Although this example is particularly trivial. I probably wouldn’t do that. But that’s my whole point, I’m only choosing to do this with trivial code.) Applying a license doesn’t give me that flexibility though.

(Apologies for typos, I just woke.uo.and don’t have my glasses on either.)

dan , 7 days ago

I’m not going to hunt down people who are infringing on projects like this:

It’s more that people won’t use the code at all if there’s no license attached. For someone that’s looking for a snippet of code to reuse, it’s much easier to instead find a permissively licensed piece of code that performs a similar function, instead of contacting the author of the unlicensed code and trying to figure out what to do.

Also, that’s sort of presumptuous to believe you know what I want better than myself

Sorry - I meant to address it to readers of your comment rather than you. I edited the comment to make it clearer.

JackbyDev , 7 days ago

I think you’re putting a lot of faith in people when you say that. When’s the last time you properly obeyed a license when copyijg and pasting from Stack Overflow? When’s the last time you think the average dev did?

Also, no hard feelings about the presumptuous thing. Idk why I got defensive.

And as an aside, I think I’ve heard that in some jurisdictions there is no concept of public domain and in others you cannot willfully put things into it. So licenses like CC0 or the awfully named Unlicense are better alternatives. (Bad name because Unlicense and Unlicensed are so close in spelling but wildly different.)

mm_maybe , 8 days ago

I am a consultant who sometimes writes code to do certain useful things as part of larger systems (parts of which may be commercial or GPL) but my clients always try to impose terms in their contracts with me which say that anything I develop immediately becomes theirs, which limits my ability to use it in my next project. I can to some extent circumvent this if I find a way to publish the work, or some essential part of it, under an MIT license. I’m never going to make money off of my code directly; at best it’s middleware, and my competitors don’t use the same stack, so I’m not giving them any real advantage… I don’t see how I’m sabotaging myself in this situation; if anything the MIT license is a way of securing my freedom and it benefits my future customers as well since I don’t have to rebuild from scratch every time.

Rayspekt , 8 days ago

Can’t you just publish the work under the GPL license? I have no idea of programming, maybe this is a dumb question.

brianorca , 8 days ago

If someone is paying you to write code, they have some say in the contract about how it is licensed. You could be upfront about only doing GPL, and they could be upfront about saying no. But if you try to do it after the fact, that’s a violation of the contract.

mm_maybe , 8 days ago

The problem is, that would limit my own option to make a version of the software and sell it under a more limited license in the future. Whomever I sell it to then has the right to go ahead and redistribute it, competing with me. Sure, my current, highly niche code already carries that risk, but the MIT license doesn’t stop me from releasing a modified version I may write that is more valuable as software, and then protecting that release with other licensing terms.

best_username_ever , 8 days ago

that would limit my own option to make a version of the software and sell it under a more limited license in the future

Nope. As the author you’re free to license your stuff however you want. You can use 10 different licenses for 10 clients if you want. You could write a custom version of your application and give a non-free license to a specific client if you want.

GreyEyedGhost , 8 days ago

It really depends. If the contract gives ownership of the work created to the purchaser, he has no rights to it whatsoever. Moreover, trying to do a clean room implementation of your own code is almost impossible without help. A permissive license would give the purchaser unlimited use of the product, including resale while still allowing the producer unlimited use, as well. If the contract is written correctly, the producer might even retain ownership, with the right to use different licenses, while the purchaser would have few or no restrictions.

merc , 8 days ago

Work for hire is a completely different situation. You have to accept the terms of whoever’s paying you to do the work.

This comic is more about someone doing something as a hobby project, or writing their own software not under someone else’s direction, where they have full freedom to choose their own license.

ILikeBoobies , 8 days ago

I support MIT because I believe that’s how all software should be

Everyone builds upon each other

s_s , 8 days ago

I mean, essentially, the GPL just obligates someone borrowing from you to keep doing things “how it should be”.

ILikeBoobies , 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

Yeah but I don’t really care if someone takes it to sell, it creates an endpoint branch but someone else will create a growing branch

One assumes even an endpoint will pass things upstream

corsicanguppy , 8 days ago

Intel went ahead and used it to build Management Engine, arguably one of the most widespread and invasive pieces of malware in the world, without even as much as telling him.

Is that arguable because it’s complete bunk? You may as well say the same about IPMI.

uis , 8 days ago

IPMI isn’t required to boot regular desktop

calcopiritus , 8 days ago

If I choose MIT it’s because I don’t care if people “steal” the code. This meme is stupid and condescending, if he didn’t mind that Intel used it’s code it’s because he didn’t mind, that why he chose MIT. Why is Intel beating him in the meme? It makes no sense. You are proyecting your thoughts onto him as if that’s how he felt, but then you show that he didn’t feel the same way you do. Why?

When I see a GPL license I don’t see freedom. I only see forced openness, which makes me immediately avoid that library, since I can’t statically link to it.

Freedom means that everyone can use your code. Yes, that means for-profit corporations. For free, without restrictions.

If I want to make a piece of software to improve people’s lives and I don’t care to do it for free, I’ll choose MIT. If it gets “stolen” by a for-profit corporation it only makes it better, because now my software has reached more people, thus (theoretically) improving their lives.

Chakravanti , 8 days ago

When I see a GPL license I don’t see freedom.

Blind tyrannical instructions that no one knows who the CPU itself answers to and follows because it doesn’t matter who paid for the hardware when no one knows what the instructions were given to because they were closed source software.

I only see forced openness,

It’s not forced. Use any other lie you’d like. It’s the ability to read and know what the instruction given are. I needn’t have to be able to read when I can trust the masses who can and I’ll take that over ONE jackass we know better than to trust.

which makes me immediately avoid that library

Bye. Don’t give a flying fuck about you or your software. YOU are that jackass we stopped.

since I can’t statically link to it.

Starts generating tears with the happiest smile on face you’ve ever seen.

Midnight1938 , 8 days ago

Its like saying people enjoying a moment collectively in a park means forcing people to give up their smart phones to force communication

Chakravanti , 8 days ago

Yeah, GPL is forcing anyone to do anything because the the code is…oh wait…that’s not possible because it’s open source…and hence…FREEDOM.

calcopiritus , 8 days ago

You seem angry at me because I don’t license my code as GPL. Is that what freedom means now? Freedom means everyone has to use the license I want or I’ll bully them!

It’s the code I wrote, let me license it however the fuck I want if I’m not using your code.

Midnight1938 , 8 days ago

You can eat wild berries too, noones stopping you, just people saying there are better options

Chakravanti , 8 days ago

How the fuck is the shitty mod here a removed for the enemy? I hope he dies soon. He prolly doesn’t realize that his best bet right now but whatever. I don’t really care about them

Midnight1938 , 8 days ago

Uh, wrong post?

Chakravanti , 8 days ago

You seem angry

Well it’s a good thing you can read emotions from text. Shows that your a true sycophant to tyranny.

Is that what freedom means now?

No. Cuz no one gives a flying fuck about you, wannabe.

bully

Nice try kid.

It’s the code I wrote, let me license it however the fuck I want if I’m not using your code.

Apologies. I can’t even insult you about this cuz I can’t stop laughing AT you.

calcopiritus , 8 days ago

.ml and antagonizing everyone for not having the exact same opinions. Name a better duo.

bonnetbee , 8 days ago

If I want to make a piece of software to improve people’s lives

If that is your intention, GPL would make more sense, as every improvement and development would be forced to be made available to those people, thus helping them further.

I doubt that your code helps anyone who needs/deserves to be helped, after beeing processed by big corpo.

You could think about your definition of freedom. For me: My freedom ends, where it restricts others people freedom - I shouldn’t be free to rob people and call it restriction if someone forbids this.

calcopiritus , 8 days ago

GPL means big corporations just won’t use it. If they have to make their software open source, they will just search for an alternative or make their own.

witx , 8 days ago

Great, I’ll be a bit absolute and say that if a corporation doesn’t want to use my GPL code I see it as a good thing, corporations tend to be soulless leeches.

lemmyvore , 8 days ago

Freedom means that everyone can use your code. Yes, that means for-profit corporations. For free, without restrictions. If I want to make a piece of software to improve people’s lives and I don’t care to do it for free, I’ll choose MIT.

Why not put the code in public domain then? Why MIT?

DreamlandLividity , 8 days ago

Two reasons:

1. public domain is not very well legally recognized, so code licensed under MIT is easier to use internationally than code in public domain.
2. MIT includes disclaimer of liability, which as an author you want just to be safe.

lemmyvore , 8 days ago

See that’s the thing, all licenses want to draw up some boundaries. As far as I’m concerned MIT and GPL are just interested in different ones.

Licenses aren’t “restrictive”, they’re permissive. Without a license you can’t do anything with the content, a license gives you some rights instead of none.

kilgore_trout , 8 days ago

Intel Management Engine improve no one’s life.

It is very sad how you don’t see that “forced openness” is good for everyone.

calcopiritus , 8 days ago

Yes, end products licensed as GPL are good. I use many of them. Libraries, however, are just avoided by companies and they just develop their own.

I prefer my libraries MIT licensed because then there’s a chance that people out there use it to develop products. If I make a GPL library then only products that were already GPL would use it. And there are way more proprietary products than GPL.

ShortFuse , 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

I don’t care if people make money to use my code. I just want my name attached to it somehow, even if you make it closed sourced which is MIT and OpenBSD. I hope you do use my code and even if you heavily reference it to make something new, carry that forward so more can learn and benefit.

I also don’t understand “better for the end user” arguments either. I have a library that people want to be included in another project, but that project is GPL. They won’t merge my code unless I change my code to be GPL. So everyone who wants them merged is out of luck. I can’t merge their code either with mine. What is supposed to happen is I freely give up my name to the code and restrict it to only being GPL and for GPL projects. Essentially, assimilate and join with the Borg. No, thanks.

And while that’s from my experience, I’ve also seen good projects get traction, have excitement over it, and fall off the earth because they end up making it GPL. Everyone interested in adopting it, personal or business, just disappear. Then something with less restrictions comes along and gets adopted.

End-users move to what’s better for them, and if you have a library that is only for GPL, you can end up limiting your options with a wasteful purity test. If you want it to be free you’d give freely with no restrictions. And if you think, “You can contact me to discuss licensing” that doesn’t happen. It’s still a restriction and almost nobody actually bothers.

veniasilente , 8 days ago

They won’t merge my code unless I change my code to be GPL.

If you are the author of the code you want to merge, you can double-license it you know. Hand them a GPL license, they’ll be able to use your copy under the same terms, while you and everyone else use your current license.

ShortFuse , 8 days ago

GPL has no requirements for author attribution which is contrary to the entire point of an MIT license.

That’s why I described it as joining the Borg. You release individualism and freely give it to the collective. That’s cool, and I get the ethos behind all that, but I don’t want to add any of those constraints to my code. I just don’t want credit for my work or the others to get lost. I don’t think it’s a hard ask.

Regardless, we ended up ultimately being a full replacement for the other project.

GreyEyedGhost , 8 days ago

There is nothing stopping a GPL project using MIT-licensed code except for lack of desire to do the work. They are one-way compatible.

toaster , 8 days ago

I’ve actually noticed more GPL-licensed projects give attribution to not only the original author but all contributors.

Whereas I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked on proprietary software where the company didn’t give attribution for MIT-licensed code. Unlike GPL’d code, the author has no way of knowing that they weren’t attributed since the code is proprietary.

I believe GPL does have an attribution requirement btw:

Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, for material you add to a covered work, you may (if authorized by the copyright holders of that material) supplement the terms of this License with terms:

a) Disclaiming warranty or limiting liability differently from the terms of sections 15 and 16 of this License; or

b) Requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed by works containing it;

ShortFuse , 8 days ago

There is no section 15 or 16 in GPLv3, but I did find section 7 saying:

Requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed by works containing it; or

But that’s an optional thing that you must add onto the GPLv3 license. I’ll have to keep that in mind for the future.

That would explain why what I’ve read mentioned it’s not guaranteed in GPLv3 (when comparing to MIT). I’ll have to figure out what that notice would look like.

AHemlocksLie , 8 days ago

When I see a GPL license I don’t see freedom. I only see forced openness, which makes me immediately avoid that library, since I can’t statically link to it.

One of the arguments in favor of GPL and other “forced openness” licenses is that users should have the right to understand what their own device is doing. You paid for your computer. You own it. You should dictate how it operates. You should at least have the option of understanding what is being done with your machine and modifying it to fit your needs. Closed source software may provide utility, but it doesn’t really further collective knowledge since you’re explicitly refusing to publicly release the code, and it provides obscurity for developers to hide undesirable functionality like data collection or more directly malicious activity.

I’m not personally sure how I feel about that argument myself, but I can at least readily acknowledge it as a valid one whether I agree with the decision to force openness or not.

calcopiritus , 8 days ago

Yes, of course GPL is good for some things. But it being called the pinnacle of freedom is just wrong. It claims that it’s freedom for the users, but that’s not true.

In the case of libraries, the users of the libraries are not the end users of the program. The users of the library are the developers. GPL is NOT freedom for developers.

I completely agree that programs having a GPL license is positive. You can even use them with complete freedom in commercial settings!

merc , 8 days ago

The one freedom the GPL removes is the freedom to be a leech. If you’re linking to GPL code, you are agreeing to follow the same rules as everybody else who has contributed to that code. Nobody gets a pass

AHemlocksLie , 8 days ago

In the case of libraries, the users of the libraries are not the end users of the program. The users of the library are the developers.

Except the end user does inevitably become the user of the library when they use the software the developer made with it. They run that library’s code on their machine.

It claims that it’s freedom for the users, but that’s not true.

In light of the above, this is incorrect. By using GPL, you preserve the end user’s freedom to understand, control, and modify the operation of their hardware. In no way does the end user suffer or lose any freedoms.

calcopiritus , 8 days ago

I know that the end user is the focus of GPL. But me, when choosing a library, as a user, I tend to avoid using GPL ones, because they restrict my freedom. In consequence, my end users (of which there are aproximately 0 anyway) don’t get GPL code either way.

ZILtoid1991 , 8 days ago

Forced openness is good for certain things, but not so good on others. That’s the reason why I licensed my game engine under BSL (whith some components of course under MIT, ZLib, and Apache), within the game development community things like that more accepted. It does have branding material, which anyone can use unless they were either behaved really badly, or being used for non-engine related material. Certain engine assets are under yet another license (public domain).

AHemlocksLie , 8 days ago

As you’ve phrased it, this seems to me to be a question of how to balance the rights of the developer versus those of the end user. The developer wants to monopolize commercial usage while the end user wants full control and authority on their machine.

Some would argue that the developer’s goals are unethical, but I think it’s an unfortunate consequence of a societal system that would see them starve on the streets if they didn’t earn with their work. In an ideal world, end users would prevail unquestionably, but so long as developers must operate under capitalism where ownership is critical, concessions will have to be made.

tshlye , 8 days ago

Implying you can’t profit with open code.

calcopiritus , 8 days ago

You can, but for most software companies that would mean changing the business model.

If a company has to change its business model just to use a library, they just won’t use that library.

nialv7 , 8 days ago

If it gets “stolen” by a for-profit corporation it only makes it better, because now my software has reached more people, thus (theoretically) improving their lives.

well that’s a very idealistic, and capitalistic way of looking at this (i.e. for-profit corporation is making a profit only because it’s making people’s lives better). which just isn’t the case in real life.

realistically, when you release something in a permissive license, you are more likely to improve someone’s bottom line, than to improve people’s lives in general.

calcopiritus , 8 days ago

Well, it did improve someone’s live, didn’t it? I’m not claiming my library that has 3 stars on GitHub is gonna revolutionize all of humanity. But it’s a little improvement. That contributes to having a more complete software ecosystem.

That code is now available to everyone that wants it. If they need it, it’s there to use. Better than every company having to reimplements for the thousandth time the same closed software.

Which brings me to another point I didn’t mention before. If a company uses an open source library, even if they are not required to publish their improvements to the library, they might do anyway because it is easier than maintaining their own fork and migrating every upstream change.

s_s , 8 days ago

If it gets “stolen” by a for-profit corporation it only makes it better, because now my software has reached more people, thus (theoretically) improving their lives.

Or it could be “stolen” by Raytheon, and helping ruin lives better.

And I’m not poopoo’ing, what you’re saying, I just want you to consider all consequences, because it kinda seems like you haven’t.

calcopiritus , 8 days ago

How does GPL prevent Raytheon from using their software?

Open source is open source.

If I don’t want my software being used to make weapons I just won’t make weapon-related software. If they wanna use my 3D graphics library to display their missiles, cool, idgaf, that’s like putting ethical burden on a restaurant that serves food to soldiers because a military base was built nearby. The restaurant was there before the military base opened, and it’s not like they’re gonna use their food to kill people.

namingthingsiseasy , 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

If I want to make a piece of software to improve people’s lives and I don’t care to do it for free, I’ll choose MIT. If it gets “stolen” by a for-profit corporation it only makes it better, because now my software has reached more people, thus (theoretically) improving their lives.

I’m not completely sure about this.

Suppose you write a library that a company like Facebook finds useful. Suppose that they incorporate it into their website. I’m sure I can skip the portion of this post where I extol the harms that Facebook has wrought on society. Do you think your software has improved people’s lives by enabling Facebook to do those sorts of things? They would not have been able to do them if you had used AGPL instead.

And I don’t want to make it seem like we should never do anything because someone might use the product of our work in a sinister way (because that would quickly devolve into nihilism). If 99 people use it for good and 1 for evil, that’s still a heavy net positive. But at the same time, I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that the 1 person using it for evil still would make me feel bad.