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Would I like a strong open source community? Absolutely, could you fork this and make money off of it right now? No not even close. Maybe in the future I would

Would I like a strong open source community? Absolutely, could you fork this and make money off of it right now? No not even close. Maybe in the future I would consider a different license but at the end of the day if you take this and make it profitable good for you :) my goal wasn’t to make money

naikrovek 6y ago
I am also pro-MIT. For me, "freedom" doesn't mean "restricting what users can do." GPL restricts what users can do, and thus restricts freedom in my eyes. Not sure why anyone would care but it seemed like a good time to explain my thoughts on that while agreeing with you. This kind of thing has been needed for some time, so thank you for creating it.
- Brian_K_White 6y ago
  MIT freedom is like the freedom to enslave. Restricting the freedom to use your work to restrict others' freedom, is not nearly so onerous or hypocritical as GPL bemoaners try to characterize it. I feel absolutely zero sympathy for the argument.
- j1elo 6y ago
  Realize how I oriented my question around how it might affect building an OSS community. A MIT or Apache license might detract contributors, because essentially these licenses say "your contribution is OSS today, but it might end up resulting as unintended free labor that helps build a commercial product of which you won't be part of". However some see GPL licenses as a guarantee that external contributions are actually contributions to the overall Open-Source community as a whole, because they cannot be turned into other non-OSS product without explicit permission of all people who built it. So yes, copyleft is more restrictive than non-copyleft. But only in the subtle sense of ensuring that no further restrictions will get added by any third party, ever. Which is a strong promise that should encourage contributions. Ultimately, my objective is to learn if this theory matches the practice.
  - GRVYDEV 6y ago
    Yes and this makes 100% sense. This is my first Open Source project so its definitely something to think about!
  - busterarm 6y ago
    > because essentially these licenses say "your contribution is OSS today, but it might end up resulting as unintended free labor that helps build a commercial product of which you won't be part of". Contributions to non-copyleft OSS licenses _are_ actual contributions to the open source community as a whole. There's nothing preventing your GPL'd project from being used to make a commercial product that you are not a part of either. You're talking about enforcing perpetual conditions on the future of the product/license for your free labor. This is the reason why projects like MAME have contributor agreements now. Even if through some process the license changes in the future, your contributions were still to an open source license and that version of the code will remain open forever. I haven't seen anyone discouraged from contributing to OSS-licensed projects that are not GPL unless they are an extreme ideologue. I myself generally prefer to license my work with something like MIT or Apache (read: the ISC license, generally) and that choice is absolutely fine.
    - falcolas 6y ago
      > There's nothing preventing your GPL'd project from being used to make a commercial product that you are not a part of either. Copyright law does exactly this. The role of the GPL is to carve out explicit exceptions to the "you can't copy this" rights granted by copyright law.
      - busterarm 6y ago
        A lot of people seem to confuse Commercial with Proprietary... They are not the same.
        falcolas 6y ago
        Doesn't matter. Copyright, without the licensing exceptions, won't allow EvilCorp Inc. use your code even if you publish it in the clear on the internet. Also, more relevant to the discussion I was responding to, the GPL license doesn't allow re-licensing without consent (or a pre-arranged copyright assignment - a contributor's agreement). And it's copyright law which enforces this.
- TheChaplain 6y ago
  Actually those who prefer GPL see things from the perspective of the code, not the users. GPL ensures the code is freely available at all times, and anyone can use it, change it, distribute it but not take it away or restrict access to it. From the code pov, MIT/Apache is freedom to take away and restrict access.
- CarVac 6y ago
  Depends on how you define "user". A developer is the "user"? MIT is freer for the dev, but the dev is free to restrict the end-user. End-users are the users? GPL restricts developers from closing the source, empowering end users to become developers too.
  - j1elo 6y ago
    At least in the case of GPL, "user" refers to the end user, and yes, the license is all about some freedoms that are guaranteed to percolate towards the end users, indeed empowering them to become developers themselves, if they wanted: > It is absolutely essential to permit users who wish to help each other to share their bug fixes and improvements with other users. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#WhyDoesTheGPLPermitUsersToPublishTheirModifiedVersions https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#WhyDoesTheGPLPe...
- lucideer 6y ago
  > For me, "freedom" doesn't mean "restricting what users can do." > GPL restricts what users can do, and thus restricts freedom in my eyes. A few sibling commenters have already rebutted, but to add to that, a way of looking at this is that all licences necessarily restrict users (with the possible/arguable exception of things like CC0). The difference with GPL vs MIT is that MIT gives users the "freedom" to further restrict other users in future, whereas GPL restricts users from ever further restricting other users
j1elo 6y ago
Thanks! As I said, I'm not trying to push for this or that license, just want to have a perspective of the choice for new OSS projects. Mostly the usual lesson is that authors typically don't really think through much about the licensing choice when they are hyped about an upcoming first release. Technical concerns are, understandably, what gets most attention at the beginning. Your position is the most common one I've found for small-ish projects.

naikrovek 6y ago

I am also pro-MIT. For me, "freedom" doesn't mean "restricting what users can do." GPL restricts what users can do, and thus restricts freedom in my eyes. Not sure why anyone would care but it seemed like a good time to explain my thoughts on that while agreeing with you. This kind of thing has been needed for some time, so thank you for creating it.

Brian_K_White 6y ago
MIT freedom is like the freedom to enslave. Restricting the freedom to use your work to restrict others' freedom, is not nearly so onerous or hypocritical as GPL bemoaners try to characterize it. I feel absolutely zero sympathy for the argument.
j1elo 6y ago
Realize how I oriented my question around how it might affect building an OSS community. A MIT or Apache license might detract contributors, because essentially these licenses say "your contribution is OSS today, but it might end up resulting as unintended free labor that helps build a commercial product of which you won't be part of". However some see GPL licenses as a guarantee that external contributions are actually contributions to the overall Open-Source community as a whole, because they cannot be turned into other non-OSS product without explicit permission of all people who built it. So yes, copyleft is more restrictive than non-copyleft. But only in the subtle sense of ensuring that no further restrictions will get added by any third party, ever. Which is a strong promise that should encourage contributions. Ultimately, my objective is to learn if this theory matches the practice.
- GRVYDEV 6y ago
  Yes and this makes 100% sense. This is my first Open Source project so its definitely something to think about!
- busterarm 6y ago
  > because essentially these licenses say "your contribution is OSS today, but it might end up resulting as unintended free labor that helps build a commercial product of which you won't be part of". Contributions to non-copyleft OSS licenses _are_ actual contributions to the open source community as a whole. There's nothing preventing your GPL'd project from being used to make a commercial product that you are not a part of either. You're talking about enforcing perpetual conditions on the future of the product/license for your free labor. This is the reason why projects like MAME have contributor agreements now. Even if through some process the license changes in the future, your contributions were still to an open source license and that version of the code will remain open forever. I haven't seen anyone discouraged from contributing to OSS-licensed projects that are not GPL unless they are an extreme ideologue. I myself generally prefer to license my work with something like MIT or Apache (read: the ISC license, generally) and that choice is absolutely fine.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    > There's nothing preventing your GPL'd project from being used to make a commercial product that you are not a part of either. Copyright law does exactly this. The role of the GPL is to carve out explicit exceptions to the "you can't copy this" rights granted by copyright law.
    - busterarm 6y ago
      A lot of people seem to confuse Commercial with Proprietary... They are not the same.
      - falcolas 6y ago
        Doesn't matter. Copyright, without the licensing exceptions, won't allow EvilCorp Inc. use your code even if you publish it in the clear on the internet. Also, more relevant to the discussion I was responding to, the GPL license doesn't allow re-licensing without consent (or a pre-arranged copyright assignment - a contributor's agreement). And it's copyright law which enforces this.
TheChaplain 6y ago
Actually those who prefer GPL see things from the perspective of the code, not the users. GPL ensures the code is freely available at all times, and anyone can use it, change it, distribute it but not take it away or restrict access to it. From the code pov, MIT/Apache is freedom to take away and restrict access.
CarVac 6y ago
Depends on how you define "user". A developer is the "user"? MIT is freer for the dev, but the dev is free to restrict the end-user. End-users are the users? GPL restricts developers from closing the source, empowering end users to become developers too.
- j1elo 6y ago
  At least in the case of GPL, "user" refers to the end user, and yes, the license is all about some freedoms that are guaranteed to percolate towards the end users, indeed empowering them to become developers themselves, if they wanted: > It is absolutely essential to permit users who wish to help each other to share their bug fixes and improvements with other users. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#WhyDoesTheGPLPermitUsersToPublishTheirModifiedVersions https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#WhyDoesTheGPLPe...
lucideer 6y ago
> For me, "freedom" doesn't mean "restricting what users can do." > GPL restricts what users can do, and thus restricts freedom in my eyes. A few sibling commenters have already rebutted, but to add to that, a way of looking at this is that all licences necessarily restrict users (with the possible/arguable exception of things like CC0). The difference with GPL vs MIT is that MIT gives users the "freedom" to further restrict other users in future, whereas GPL restricts users from ever further restricting other users

j1elo 6y ago

Thanks! As I said, I'm not trying to push for this or that license, just want to have a perspective of the choice for new OSS projects. Mostly the usual lesson is that authors typically don't really think through much about the licensing choice when they are hyped about an upcoming first release. Technical concerns are, understandably, what gets most attention at the beginning. Your position is the most common one I've found for small-ish projects.