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I typically land on the side of pragmatism over idealism, and as a lifelong observer of human behavior and psychology, I would say the argument carries some wei

I typically land on the side of pragmatism over idealism, and as a lifelong observer of human behavior and psychology, I would say the argument carries some weight. A project I can start using without even thinking of licensing issues, and grow to become dependent on, is one I'm much more likely to contribute towards, simply out of selfish necessity and convenience.

ajross 15y ago
Sure. But that's only pragmatism in the sense of "I want what's best for me and my project". It's the kind of "pragmatism" that led Andy Rubin to demand rewriting the GPL userspace with a clearly inferior one for Android, for example. After enough years and enough projects, I find my perspective is broader. The GPL helps more than it hurts. Efforts to explicitly avoid the GPL (not just to use permissive licenses for free software projects -- that's clearly a good thing) tend to hurt more than they help.
- WiseWeasel 15y ago
  How does saying "If you use my code, you have to give me your code" make me want to use it, let alone join your "community"? It seems toxic and coercive to me. It's suggesting that my code is of much lower value than your code, so don't worry about it. This might be correct most of the time, but when it's not, it's a problem. Good communities are founded on mutual respect and voluntary engagement.
  - ajross 15y ago
    OK, and on reading "toxic and coercive" I just point you back to the point before where I said that the opinion has more to do with our emotional reaction to the license and not any true practical concern. Let's just say that it doesn't seem that way at all to me (I'd tend to use words like "fair" and "sharing", which don't seem so bad) and agree to drop this.
  - Avshalom 15y ago
    >"If you use my code, you have to give me your code" No, the GPL says "If you use my code, you have to let people use yours too"
    - WiseWeasel 15y ago
      An important point, it's true, but you've gone too far in the other direction. It's more like: "If you use my code, you have to share yours under the terms I determine." It muddies my main point about the relative value of the code in question, however.

ajross 15y ago

Sure. But that's only pragmatism in the sense of "I want what's best for me and my project". It's the kind of "pragmatism" that led Andy Rubin to demand rewriting the GPL userspace with a clearly inferior one for Android, for example. After enough years and enough projects, I find my perspective is broader. The GPL helps more than it hurts. Efforts to explicitly avoid the GPL (not just to use permissive licenses for free software projects -- that's clearly a good thing) tend to hurt more than they help.

WiseWeasel 15y ago
How does saying "If you use my code, you have to give me your code" make me want to use it, let alone join your "community"? It seems toxic and coercive to me. It's suggesting that my code is of much lower value than your code, so don't worry about it. This might be correct most of the time, but when it's not, it's a problem. Good communities are founded on mutual respect and voluntary engagement.
- ajross 15y ago
  OK, and on reading "toxic and coercive" I just point you back to the point before where I said that the opinion has more to do with our emotional reaction to the license and not any true practical concern. Let's just say that it doesn't seem that way at all to me (I'd tend to use words like "fair" and "sharing", which don't seem so bad) and agree to drop this.
- Avshalom 15y ago
  >"If you use my code, you have to give me your code" No, the GPL says "If you use my code, you have to let people use yours too"
  - WiseWeasel 15y ago
    An important point, it's true, but you've gone too far in the other direction. It's more like: "If you use my code, you have to share yours under the terms I determine." It muddies my main point about the relative value of the code in question, however.