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Fascinating article, and one that matches my recent thinking. I am a part of a large GPL open source project, but am not sure that the GPL made a big differenc

by bojanz 8y ago

Fascinating article, and one that matches my recent thinking. I am a part of a large GPL open source project, but am not sure that the GPL made a big difference there, since "distribution" is a loophole large enough to drive a truck through. If you extend & modify software just for your site / your client's site, you have no obligations. Conceptually, a great followup article is Kyle E. Mitchell's "Unhappy Coincidences", published last year: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/08/28/Unhappy-Coincidences.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/08/28/Unhappy-Coincidenc... Nowadays, I gravitate towards permissive licenses because I feel that people and companies contribute largely out of self interest, not because a license compels them to.

blotter_paper 8y ago
I prefer permissive licenses, but doesn't AGPL address the distribution "problems" of GPL? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_Lice...
- bojanz 8y ago
  Yes. And by closing the loophole while staying viral, it makes it unlikely that anyone would ever use AGPL code. For example, if you use an AGPL CMS to power your website, you now need to open source the entire thing. So, I'm not saying that it is necessary to have a stronger copyleft license, I am saying that the existing copyleft license was successful because people were able to often ignore it. A lot of energy has been spent discussing the reach of GPL's virality, and its loopholes. When it comes to copyleft, the Mozilla Public License 2.0 has a much saner approach by avoiding virality all together. Share changes to the code you received, keep the rest.
dannyobrien 8y ago
Also more recently by Kyle: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/03/17/License-Utopia.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/03/17/License-Utopia.htm... (Thank you for linking to this site — it is truly fascinating Also thank you to Steve for starting a great and timely debate.)

by bojanz 8y ago

blotter_paper 8y ago

I prefer permissive licenses, but doesn't AGPL address the distribution "problems" of GPL? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_Lice...

bojanz 8y ago
Yes. And by closing the loophole while staying viral, it makes it unlikely that anyone would ever use AGPL code. For example, if you use an AGPL CMS to power your website, you now need to open source the entire thing. So, I'm not saying that it is necessary to have a stronger copyleft license, I am saying that the existing copyleft license was successful because people were able to often ignore it. A lot of energy has been spent discussing the reach of GPL's virality, and its loopholes. When it comes to copyleft, the Mozilla Public License 2.0 has a much saner approach by avoiding virality all together. Share changes to the code you received, keep the rest.

dannyobrien 8y ago

Also more recently by Kyle: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/03/17/License-Utopia.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/03/17/License-Utopia.htm... (Thank you for linking to this site — it is truly fascinating Also thank you to Steve for starting a great and timely debate.)