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If the FSF says public domain is a free license, then I'm mistaken. I remember years ago that there was discussion of difficulties in copyright caused by "publ

If the FSF says public domain is a free license, then I'm mistaken. I remember years ago that there was discussion of difficulties in copyright caused by "public domain" licensing. You can rely on the FSF, they are experts on licensing. Yes, you will always be able to use what you wrote. But, let's say some corporation takes it up, makes some significant improvements, and builds a billion dollar corporation on it: you would have no access to the improved version, and you would not share in the rewards. "Embrace, extend, extinguish." But, if you use the GPL, the corporation can come to you and negotiate a proprietary license that would be dual with the GPL version. So the GPL protects your rights, should you need to exercise them. It protects you from abuse.

hutzlibu 6y ago
"If the FSF says public domain is a free license, then I'm mistaken. " They clearly say it is not a free license, but compatible to them. " Public domain material is compatible with the GNU GPL" But they are not clear further on, when they recommend the CC0 over public domain: "If you're working on a project that doesn't have formal contribution policies like that, CC0 is a good tool that anyone can use. " " For works of software it is not recommended, as CC0 has a term expressly stating it does not grant you any patent licenses." So anyone can use it, but not recommended for software projects. Because of something with patents. ... so at some point I need to figure out, if there is some caveat, if this would be an issue to me. I think not. "But, if you use the GPL, the corporation can come to you and negotiate a proprietary license" Or ... the corporation does not come to you, but still benefits, because they are either out of your reach in china, use your code in secret and keep their people shut up with NDA's - or, if they play by the rules - just reimplement your work in a way, they can incorporate into their corporate culture. (Algorithms are sometimes more valuable, than the implementation). Which is not too hard, if you have boring, but steady teams of reasonable skilled software developers and the source code at hand. Then they have something they control fully. In other words. I rather avoid that scenario alltogether. If enough people see value in my work, they will support me, as a thank you and/or for further updates. And those who see the value, but are too selfish or constrained in their ways - I rather have them also use it, than something else. I won't loose in that scenario. But I don't see any win with restricting it. We will see, how it works out for me.

hutzlibu 6y ago

"If the FSF says public domain is a free license, then I'm mistaken. " They clearly say it is not a free license, but compatible to them. " Public domain material is compatible with the GNU GPL" But they are not clear further on, when they recommend the CC0 over public domain: "If you're working on a project that doesn't have formal contribution policies like that, CC0 is a good tool that anyone can use. " " For works of software it is not recommended, as CC0 has a term expressly stating it does not grant you any patent licenses." So anyone can use it, but not recommended for software projects. Because of something with patents. ... so at some point I need to figure out, if there is some caveat, if this would be an issue to me. I think not. "But, if you use the GPL, the corporation can come to you and negotiate a proprietary license" Or ... the corporation does not come to you, but still benefits, because they are either out of your reach in china, use your code in secret and keep their people shut up with NDA's - or, if they play by the rules - just reimplement your work in a way, they can incorporate into their corporate culture. (Algorithms are sometimes more valuable, than the implementation). Which is not too hard, if you have boring, but steady teams of reasonable skilled software developers and the source code at hand. Then they have something they control fully. In other words. I rather avoid that scenario alltogether. If enough people see value in my work, they will support me, as a thank you and/or for further updates. And those who see the value, but are too selfish or constrained in their ways - I rather have them also use it, than something else. I won't loose in that scenario. But I don't see any win with restricting it. We will see, how it works out for me.