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I don't understand how can someone argue "your licence is too free, you should make it more restrictive so fewer people can use your software", but what do I kn

I don't understand how can someone argue "your licence is too free, you should make it more restrictive so fewer people can use your software", but what do I know

rbultje 8y ago
The concern is typically from developers (the copyright owners), not end users.
zodiac 8y ago
If your definition of a good license is "the terms are as unrestrictive as possible" why not release all software into the public domain? There's legitimate arguments to be made for more restrictive licenses, even if I don't agree with them all the time.
- oddevan 8y ago
  IIRC, "public domain" means different things in different countries, and can make it hard to enforce as a software license. See https://opensource.org/faq#public-domain https://opensource.org/faq#public-domain A BSD-style license is probably the closest to public domain while still being easy to read/understand.
tialaramex 8y ago
The choice makes no difference to who can use this version of this software, but copyleft protects users from future derivatives getting locked away in exchange for forbidding proprietary derivatives altogether. In the case of popularising a video codec the rise of some proprietary derivative seems an acceptable risk but for some random program what's the upside?
- prablenha 8y ago
  The upside is us getting the iPhone or the PS4, for example.
ripdog 8y ago
I take issue with BSD/MIT because of situations like the PS4. Sony took FreeBSD, heavily modified and improved it to make it into the OS for their new console, and upstreamed (afaik) absolutely nothing, nor did they donate a cent. They were perfectly within their rights to do this due to the license, but holy shit it was a dickish move. Linux would not be in such a strong position, IMO, if they were not GPL. So many companies have been forced to reluctantly release things like drivers for their hardware because they wanted to leverage the power of linux in their products. BSDs will never get contributions like that. For video decoders though, contributions are less important and so I think BSD is a good idea. We desperately need AV1 to succeed, and that means everyone and their dog using it.
- atonse 8y ago
  But they followed the license. That's kind of the point, isn't it? That this license doesn't force you to push your stuff back out, like the GPL does.
  - ripdog 8y ago
    Well, yes. I did say they followed the license. I think it's a bad license for an OS because it doesn't encourage/require bad community members to open their source. Companies like Sony have no excuse for not upstreaming their improvements. They didn't because they weren't required to.
    - prablenha 8y ago
      I think it's a good licence for an OS or for any software because it gets more products pushed out there which all in all gives society more stuff to play with, which is kind of the point of writing free software, at least for me.
- tingletech 8y ago
  Why is that "dickish"? Was the FreeBSD team upset?
  - 8y ago
adrianmalacoda 8y ago
Copyleft does not restrict "use," only distribution. In the case of VLC, the only people who would be restricted are people who want to make proprietary versions of it, and I can see why VideoLAN aren't too concerned about these "users."

I don't understand how can someone argue "your licence is too free, you should make it more restrictive so fewer people can use your software", but what do I know

rbultje 8y ago

The concern is typically from developers (the copyright owners), not end users.

zodiac 8y ago

If your definition of a good license is "the terms are as unrestrictive as possible" why not release all software into the public domain? There's legitimate arguments to be made for more restrictive licenses, even if I don't agree with them all the time.

oddevan 8y ago
IIRC, "public domain" means different things in different countries, and can make it hard to enforce as a software license. See https://opensource.org/faq#public-domain https://opensource.org/faq#public-domain A BSD-style license is probably the closest to public domain while still being easy to read/understand.

tialaramex 8y ago

The choice makes no difference to who can use this version of this software, but copyleft protects users from future derivatives getting locked away in exchange for forbidding proprietary derivatives altogether. In the case of popularising a video codec the rise of some proprietary derivative seems an acceptable risk but for some random program what's the upside?

prablenha 8y ago
The upside is us getting the iPhone or the PS4, for example.

ripdog 8y ago

I take issue with BSD/MIT because of situations like the PS4. Sony took FreeBSD, heavily modified and improved it to make it into the OS for their new console, and upstreamed (afaik) absolutely nothing, nor did they donate a cent. They were perfectly within their rights to do this due to the license, but holy shit it was a dickish move. Linux would not be in such a strong position, IMO, if they were not GPL. So many companies have been forced to reluctantly release things like drivers for their hardware because they wanted to leverage the power of linux in their products. BSDs will never get contributions like that. For video decoders though, contributions are less important and so I think BSD is a good idea. We desperately need AV1 to succeed, and that means everyone and their dog using it.

atonse 8y ago
But they followed the license. That's kind of the point, isn't it? That this license doesn't force you to push your stuff back out, like the GPL does.
- ripdog 8y ago
  Well, yes. I did say they followed the license. I think it's a bad license for an OS because it doesn't encourage/require bad community members to open their source. Companies like Sony have no excuse for not upstreaming their improvements. They didn't because they weren't required to.
  - prablenha 8y ago
    I think it's a good licence for an OS or for any software because it gets more products pushed out there which all in all gives society more stuff to play with, which is kind of the point of writing free software, at least for me.
tingletech 8y ago
Why is that "dickish"? Was the FreeBSD team upset?
- 8y ago

adrianmalacoda 8y ago

Copyleft does not restrict "use," only distribution. In the case of VLC, the only people who would be restricted are people who want to make proprietary versions of it, and I can see why VideoLAN aren't too concerned about these "users."