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> Even though we have Linux, I would love to see more dominant GPL projects out there. It is an excellent license when used strategically and I think it's dismi

> Even though we have Linux, I would love to see more dominant GPL projects out there. It is an excellent license when used strategically and I think it's dismissed as too extreme too often. Unfortunately, the startup/business world has largely taken over most forms of open source development, and they've put a lot of pressure to change the default license for new projects from (A/L)GPL to ASL. That change enables a lot more exploitation of software projects and open source software developers and it's almost embarrassing how often open source projects and commercial open source entities are surprised when it happens. I wish we could live in a world where the default was to contribute with time and/or money to support each other, but we don't. If we did, I think we wouldn't even need share-alike licenses. But we don't, so we do.

dehrmann 6y ago
> they've put a lot of pressure to change the default license for new projects from (A/L)GPL to ASL How have they put pressure? I've written some libraries personally and licensed them under the Apache or BSD license because I want it to be helpful for anyone who needs it. I'm really not concerned if they make money off it or not or if they contribute back. If you're talking larger projects, a lot of the big, recent ones have come out of companies--projects like MongoDB, Cassandra, React, Kubernetes. Some like Hadoop were inspired by work at big companies.
- est31 6y ago
  Google literally can't even use something that's AGPL licensed due to internal policy. Apple has a war on GPL, shipping outdated versions of GNU tools that still have GPLv2, and funding clang development which has a non-copyleft license.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    For reference, here is Google's AGPL policy: https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ As an advocate of the AGPL, and someone who releases software under it, I think Google's argument is pushing FUD.
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      Google refusing to use AGPL software actually makes the license more appealing. The way AGPL wards off corporations like google is almost as though it has a 'do no evil' clause.
- jimktrains2 6y ago
  > I've written some libraries personally and licensed them under the Apache or BSD license because I want it to be helpful for anyone who needs it. I'm really not concerned if they make money off it or not or if they contribute back. It's not about getting contributions back, but ensuring that everyone who needs it can use it includes end users.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Indeed. Permissive licenses are about protecting the rights of developers; free software licenses are about protecting the rights of end users.
CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
> I wish we could live in a world where the default was to contribute with time and/or money to support each other But we can. One Thing that is absolutely evident from the fantastically vibrant open source communities forming around every conceivable niche, it is exactly how much energy and enthusiasm to do just that is out there. We “just“ need to scale it up.
- jariel 6y ago
  "I wish we could live in a world where the default was to contribute with time and/or money to support each other" Hmm, maybe we could 'exchange' our services and creative works for some kind of 'credit system, or currency' - not controlled by a 'central source' - but, you know, acting as 'free acting agents and groups of agents' - freely exchanging our products services for one another, setting our own prices and terms with one another. Hmmm ... I wonder if there's a term for that kind of system ...
  - CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
    I imagine some form of market economy will always be an important part of organizing human endeavors. The driving force in a market economy is _extrinsinc_ though. Or as some in thread put it, “greed”. What we are talking about here is carving out a complementary arrangement scaling up _intrinsicly_ motivated production. One interesting thing that happens when trying to use extrinsic rewards to encourage some behavior is that it tends to suppress any intrinsic motivation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory Also for more on the intersection of open source development culture and economic systems I warmly recommend to checkout “The Wealth of Networks” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks
    - jariel 6y ago
      I disagree. A market economy is not based on greed, it's based on the willingness of people to provide services for one another whereupon actor's first motivation may be individual wealth creation, but the side effects of trade, division of labour and especially competition create massive surpluses, usually for the buyers, i.e. consumers. Most importantly, companies are only successful if they focus really hard on doing things that others (i.e. 'the market') believe is valuable. Paradoxically - it is 'intrinsically motivated' behaviour that is 'greedy' or purely self-oriented. To think that someone - anyone - deserves some kind of high standard of material living because 'they want to do whatever they want all day' - irrespective of the net utility they create for the community ... is selfish. 'Intrinsically motivated work' already has a name, it's called 'art'. And in that I would lump the vast majority of OSS which was designed to meet the makers view of what is useful, not 'the market's view', which is why most of it is not used. Nothing could be less healthy on the whole than letting Engineers build 'whatever they want' because most of it will be completely useless, and projects will generally not produce enough material input to be able to do anything at scale. Another bit of paradox is that if there were more efficient means to fairly license and maintain software - 90% of OSS makers would happily do that. I don't believe they are ideologically tied to OSS - if they could tool away on their favorite bit of software and earn what they though was a 'fair living' by selling it - they would do it in a heartbeat. Intrinsically motivated initiatives are important, and frankly, nobody would do Engineering if they didn't like it on some level, but it's only one ingredient, and not the primary driver. And of course, most labour has zero possibility for intrinsic motivation: 40-80% of jobs would instantly be vacated if that were the only motivator as they're just too grinding, boring, difficult for someone to do mostly on that basis. The market forces people to 'serve others' and that's ironically want people don't want to do ... because it's a grind. What people really 'want to do' is 'whatever they want' which probably won't bode well on the whole for having a broadly high standard of living.

dehrmann 6y ago

> they've put a lot of pressure to change the default license for new projects from (A/L)GPL to ASL How have they put pressure? I've written some libraries personally and licensed them under the Apache or BSD license because I want it to be helpful for anyone who needs it. I'm really not concerned if they make money off it or not or if they contribute back. If you're talking larger projects, a lot of the big, recent ones have come out of companies--projects like MongoDB, Cassandra, React, Kubernetes. Some like Hadoop were inspired by work at big companies.

est31 6y ago
Google literally can't even use something that's AGPL licensed due to internal policy. Apple has a war on GPL, shipping outdated versions of GNU tools that still have GPLv2, and funding clang development which has a non-copyleft license.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  For reference, here is Google's AGPL policy: https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ As an advocate of the AGPL, and someone who releases software under it, I think Google's argument is pushing FUD.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    Google refusing to use AGPL software actually makes the license more appealing. The way AGPL wards off corporations like google is almost as though it has a 'do no evil' clause.
jimktrains2 6y ago
> I've written some libraries personally and licensed them under the Apache or BSD license because I want it to be helpful for anyone who needs it. I'm really not concerned if they make money off it or not or if they contribute back. It's not about getting contributions back, but ensuring that everyone who needs it can use it includes end users.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Indeed. Permissive licenses are about protecting the rights of developers; free software licenses are about protecting the rights of end users.

CuriousSkeptic 6y ago

> I wish we could live in a world where the default was to contribute with time and/or money to support each other But we can. One Thing that is absolutely evident from the fantastically vibrant open source communities forming around every conceivable niche, it is exactly how much energy and enthusiasm to do just that is out there. We “just“ need to scale it up.

jariel 6y ago
"I wish we could live in a world where the default was to contribute with time and/or money to support each other" Hmm, maybe we could 'exchange' our services and creative works for some kind of 'credit system, or currency' - not controlled by a 'central source' - but, you know, acting as 'free acting agents and groups of agents' - freely exchanging our products services for one another, setting our own prices and terms with one another. Hmmm ... I wonder if there's a term for that kind of system ...
- CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
  I imagine some form of market economy will always be an important part of organizing human endeavors. The driving force in a market economy is _extrinsinc_ though. Or as some in thread put it, “greed”. What we are talking about here is carving out a complementary arrangement scaling up _intrinsicly_ motivated production. One interesting thing that happens when trying to use extrinsic rewards to encourage some behavior is that it tends to suppress any intrinsic motivation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory Also for more on the intersection of open source development culture and economic systems I warmly recommend to checkout “The Wealth of Networks” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks
  - jariel 6y ago
    I disagree. A market economy is not based on greed, it's based on the willingness of people to provide services for one another whereupon actor's first motivation may be individual wealth creation, but the side effects of trade, division of labour and especially competition create massive surpluses, usually for the buyers, i.e. consumers. Most importantly, companies are only successful if they focus really hard on doing things that others (i.e. 'the market') believe is valuable. Paradoxically - it is 'intrinsically motivated' behaviour that is 'greedy' or purely self-oriented. To think that someone - anyone - deserves some kind of high standard of material living because 'they want to do whatever they want all day' - irrespective of the net utility they create for the community ... is selfish. 'Intrinsically motivated work' already has a name, it's called 'art'. And in that I would lump the vast majority of OSS which was designed to meet the makers view of what is useful, not 'the market's view', which is why most of it is not used. Nothing could be less healthy on the whole than letting Engineers build 'whatever they want' because most of it will be completely useless, and projects will generally not produce enough material input to be able to do anything at scale. Another bit of paradox is that if there were more efficient means to fairly license and maintain software - 90% of OSS makers would happily do that. I don't believe they are ideologically tied to OSS - if they could tool away on their favorite bit of software and earn what they though was a 'fair living' by selling it - they would do it in a heartbeat. Intrinsically motivated initiatives are important, and frankly, nobody would do Engineering if they didn't like it on some level, but it's only one ingredient, and not the primary driver. And of course, most labour has zero possibility for intrinsic motivation: 40-80% of jobs would instantly be vacated if that were the only motivator as they're just too grinding, boring, difficult for someone to do mostly on that basis. The market forces people to 'serve others' and that's ironically want people don't want to do ... because it's a grind. What people really 'want to do' is 'whatever they want' which probably won't bode well on the whole for having a broadly high standard of living.