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I have a feeling that the jury is still out on this one. My observations are that: * MIT license increases adoption of OS projects, increasing pool of potenti

I have a feeling that the jury is still out on this one. My observations are that: * MIT license increases adoption of OS projects, increasing pool of potential contributors and derivative works * People like sharing what they create, hence derivative works are likely to be shared with the world as well. I know there are companies that utilize tons of free code without contributing enough back. Overall to me the difference: * MIT license increases throughput, hence increases participation in absolute terms * GPL licenses limit throughout, but improves overall quality of participation

Arkanosis 7y ago
That's my observations as well. I'd add that people share derivative work not only because they like it, but because it makes sense: upstream means much less maintenance and infrastructure work, many more opportunities for improvements. I believe in FOSS so much that I'm confident anyone smart enough will end up using it and contributing to it to some level. It might take a lot of time, but it'll happen. Companies not doing FOSS have a competing disadvantage in the long run. Sure, not everything will be contributed back. And so what? It wouldn't have been anyway if the license terms had discouraged the use of FOSS in the first place. What matters to me it that /more/ is being contributed back. Short version: part of much more > everything of much less. So, I'm very fine with any non-FOSS reuse of FOSS projects. It directly increases the likehood of improvements to these projects and indirectly increases the likehood of improvements of FOSS in general, by making it more and more relevant in still-non-FOSS environments (the long tail of small FOSS projects is what makes it ubiquitous). Just don't ask me to use non-FOSS derivatives :)
- forkerenok 7y ago
  > Short version: part of much more > everything of much less. Well said. A net win for FOSS.
mcguire 7y ago
Historically, this is false. See Sun, HP, SGI, IBM, and a good host of others.

Arkanosis 7y ago

That's my observations as well. I'd add that people share derivative work not only because they like it, but because it makes sense: upstream means much less maintenance and infrastructure work, many more opportunities for improvements. I believe in FOSS so much that I'm confident anyone smart enough will end up using it and contributing to it to some level. It might take a lot of time, but it'll happen. Companies not doing FOSS have a competing disadvantage in the long run. Sure, not everything will be contributed back. And so what? It wouldn't have been anyway if the license terms had discouraged the use of FOSS in the first place. What matters to me it that /more/ is being contributed back. Short version: part of much more > everything of much less. So, I'm very fine with any non-FOSS reuse of FOSS projects. It directly increases the likehood of improvements to these projects and indirectly increases the likehood of improvements of FOSS in general, by making it more and more relevant in still-non-FOSS environments (the long tail of small FOSS projects is what makes it ubiquitous). Just don't ask me to use non-FOSS derivatives :)

forkerenok 7y ago
> Short version: part of much more > everything of much less. Well said. A net win for FOSS.

mcguire 7y ago

Historically, this is false. See Sun, HP, SGI, IBM, and a good host of others.