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As a user, I'll always prefer a permissively licensed piece of software over a GPL one, ceteris paribus. I hate the whole idea of intellectual property, so the

As a user, I'll always prefer a permissively licensed piece of software over a GPL one, ceteris paribus. I hate the whole idea of intellectual property, so the less time I (and everyone, really) have to spend caring about it, the better. MIT and BSD licenses allow everyone to care as little as legally possible about copyright, so in that regard any other choice is inferior. And the "companies will be forced to give back to the project" argument never made sense to me.

wtallis 5y ago
As a user, the GPL doesn't do anything to restrict you. It only comes into play when you want to redistribute software. Hating the idea of intellectual property doesn't make it go away. Neither do permissive licenses. Which is why your "ceteris paribus" statement is effectively worthless. > And the "companies will be forced to give back to the project" argument never made sense to me. Care to explain where you think it falls apart? So far, it simply seems like you're fed up with the system and would rather rage in denial than try to improve the system or use it to your advantage. That may give you some degree of satisfaction, but it's silly for you to assert that everyone benefits from the same. And if you really just want to stop caring about copyright, I don't see why you'd bother advocating for MIT or BSD over GPL instead of just turning to casual piracy like most people who can't be bothered to respect software copyright.
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Nursie 5y ago
> MIT and BSD licenses allow everyone to care as little as legally possible about copyright Unless that person is in receipt of a binary, in which case they are SOL.
drran 5y ago
As user, permissive license means "no source for you", because vendor is not obligated to share source with end user by permissive license. For end user, there is no difference between permissive and proprietary licenses. The GPL license is the only license which protects end-user rights to see and modify source code of the software they use.
Seirdy 5y ago
The purpose of a permissive license is to encourage proprietary derivatives that come with intellectual property restrictions, EULAs, SaaS with vendor lock-in, etc. The purpose of a copyleft license is to encourage derivatives that don't come with such restrictions. Copyleft therefore helps reach a local maximum of freedom for everyone as a function of restrictions on redistribution.

wtallis 5y ago

As a user, the GPL doesn't do anything to restrict you. It only comes into play when you want to redistribute software. Hating the idea of intellectual property doesn't make it go away. Neither do permissive licenses. Which is why your "ceteris paribus" statement is effectively worthless. > And the "companies will be forced to give back to the project" argument never made sense to me. Care to explain where you think it falls apart? So far, it simply seems like you're fed up with the system and would rather rage in denial than try to improve the system or use it to your advantage. That may give you some degree of satisfaction, but it's silly for you to assert that everyone benefits from the same. And if you really just want to stop caring about copyright, I don't see why you'd bother advocating for MIT or BSD over GPL instead of just turning to casual piracy like most people who can't be bothered to respect software copyright.

deleted 5y ago
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Nursie 5y ago

> MIT and BSD licenses allow everyone to care as little as legally possible about copyright Unless that person is in receipt of a binary, in which case they are SOL.

drran 5y ago

As user, permissive license means "no source for you", because vendor is not obligated to share source with end user by permissive license. For end user, there is no difference between permissive and proprietary licenses. The GPL license is the only license which protects end-user rights to see and modify source code of the software they use.

Seirdy 5y ago

The purpose of a permissive license is to encourage proprietary derivatives that come with intellectual property restrictions, EULAs, SaaS with vendor lock-in, etc. The purpose of a copyleft license is to encourage derivatives that don't come with such restrictions. Copyleft therefore helps reach a local maximum of freedom for everyone as a function of restrictions on redistribution.