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Depends on which freedoms a given software author prioritizes. For authors who want to maximize the freedoms of developers who directly download their software
by jkaplowitz 5y ago
Depends on which freedoms a given software author prioritizes.
For authors who want to maximize the freedoms of developers who directly download their software to make and redistribute derivatives and reverse dependencies and to redistribute the whole stack of their application under their choice of license with no obligations other than a notice requirement, yes, MIT and BSD style licenses maximize those freedoms.
For authors who want to maximize the ability of indirect downstream end users of their code, even those who are unaware of the origin of the code running on their system, to make sure they can fix it or have it fixed to remove bugs or better meet their needs, copyleft licenses such as the GPL do better protect those freedoms.
For the user-style freedoms in the above paragraph as applied to direct (rather than indirect) downstream users of the software author, either license is equally protective.
All of these licenses protect software freedoms, but they differ a lot in the details.