4 ms·

MIT license? If by chance this evolves into something big, it will be eaten alive by commercial interests. Look at the conflict between Linux devs and nVidia fo

MIT license? If by chance this evolves into something big, it will be eaten alive by commercial interests. Look at the conflict between Linux devs and nVidia for example. Look at the IBM/RedHat stuff trying to circumvent the spirit of the GPL, if maybe not the text of it. If it becomes a thing, the most active developers will be paid by corporations and they will not be sharing code with you when it suits them - which can be at the drop of a hat. I'd recommend changing to GPLv3 while your number of contributors is low enough to do it. Otherwise you're just doing free work for your future masters.

winstonewert 3y ago
It seems to me that your examples rather show the futility of trying to use a license to force good behaviour rather than a reason to change licenses.
- yoyohello13 3y ago
  The only reason there is one Linux kernel everyone uses is because of the license. If it wasn't GPL2 there would be "Microsoft Linux", "Google Linux", "Oracle Linux" all with different features and potential incompatibilities. At least with the GPL2 license those flavors have to contribute changes back upstream so everyone gets the benefits.
  - wizzwizz4 3y ago
    They don't have to contribute them upstream: they just have to give their users the permission to do so.
- phkahler 3y ago
  >> It seems to me that your examples rather show the futility of trying to use a license to force good behaviour rather than a reason to change licenses. If not for the license there would be NO good behavior. Notice that nVidia is relatively Linux friendly with some exceptions and RedHat seems to be under pressure to make more money but is otherwise very Linux friendly. Without the license, all sorts of others would be blatantly ripping it off. I contend the difference in popularity and success between the BSDs and Linux is most likely due to the GPL license.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wizzwizz4 3y ago
> I'd recommend changing to GPLv3 I'd recommend AGPLv3, to avoid the Windows 365 loophole. (As I understand, you'd still be able to run a web server without sharing the source code of the kernel.)
yoyohello13 3y ago
The amount of hate for GPL on HN is disturbing.
- phkahler 3y ago
  >> The amount of hate for GPL on HN is disturbing. I agree. I'm really baffled by the Rust community pretty much standardizing on MIT license. People laugh at "Rewrite it in Rust" which I think is a good thing but completely ignore the whole "strip users of their freedom" that is coming with it one day.
  - bigstrat2003 3y ago
    This FUD always comes up from people who support the GPL and it's so annoying. Let's say that Maestro takes off and gains popularity, and then someone decides to turn it into a commercial OS. What, exactly, is supposed to be so bad about that? Nobody loses a damn thing - if you want to use the MIT licensed original project, it hasn't gone anywhere. And for those who find that there's value in the commercial version, they have that available to them too. Everyone wins in that scenario. There's no loss of freedom with permissive licenses.
    - yoyohello13 3y ago
      Copy left protects against embrace extend extinguish techniques. It ensures everyone benefits from improvements, not just users who are willing to pay bigco.
      - yazaddaruvala 3y ago
        But... in fairness its not feasible to extinguish rando person's school / hobby project. Even if it "takes off", how can a commercial entity extinguish a person's motivation to keep building something they want?
    - F3nd0 3y ago
      > What, exactly, is supposed to be so bad about that? The eventual users of the hypothetical commercial OS lose their freedom. (Or don't get their freedom, depending on your point of view.) Permissive licences grant users freedom, but don't preserve those freedoms in derivative works, so the original work can end up helping derived software disrespect users' freedom. For those who believe that users' freedom should always be respected, this is a very bad thing that needs to be avoided.

winstonewert 3y ago

It seems to me that your examples rather show the futility of trying to use a license to force good behaviour rather than a reason to change licenses.

yoyohello13 3y ago
The only reason there is one Linux kernel everyone uses is because of the license. If it wasn't GPL2 there would be "Microsoft Linux", "Google Linux", "Oracle Linux" all with different features and potential incompatibilities. At least with the GPL2 license those flavors have to contribute changes back upstream so everyone gets the benefits.
- wizzwizz4 3y ago
  They don't have to contribute them upstream: they just have to give their users the permission to do so.
phkahler 3y ago
>> It seems to me that your examples rather show the futility of trying to use a license to force good behaviour rather than a reason to change licenses. If not for the license there would be NO good behavior. Notice that nVidia is relatively Linux friendly with some exceptions and RedHat seems to be under pressure to make more money but is otherwise very Linux friendly. Without the license, all sorts of others would be blatantly ripping it off. I contend the difference in popularity and success between the BSDs and Linux is most likely due to the GPL license.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

wizzwizz4 3y ago

> I'd recommend changing to GPLv3 I'd recommend AGPLv3, to avoid the Windows 365 loophole. (As I understand, you'd still be able to run a web server without sharing the source code of the kernel.)

yoyohello13 3y ago

The amount of hate for GPL on HN is disturbing.

phkahler 3y ago
>> The amount of hate for GPL on HN is disturbing. I agree. I'm really baffled by the Rust community pretty much standardizing on MIT license. People laugh at "Rewrite it in Rust" which I think is a good thing but completely ignore the whole "strip users of their freedom" that is coming with it one day.
- bigstrat2003 3y ago
  This FUD always comes up from people who support the GPL and it's so annoying. Let's say that Maestro takes off and gains popularity, and then someone decides to turn it into a commercial OS. What, exactly, is supposed to be so bad about that? Nobody loses a damn thing - if you want to use the MIT licensed original project, it hasn't gone anywhere. And for those who find that there's value in the commercial version, they have that available to them too. Everyone wins in that scenario. There's no loss of freedom with permissive licenses.
  - yoyohello13 3y ago
    Copy left protects against embrace extend extinguish techniques. It ensures everyone benefits from improvements, not just users who are willing to pay bigco.
    - yazaddaruvala 3y ago
      But... in fairness its not feasible to extinguish rando person's school / hobby project. Even if it "takes off", how can a commercial entity extinguish a person's motivation to keep building something they want?
  - F3nd0 3y ago
    > What, exactly, is supposed to be so bad about that? The eventual users of the hypothetical commercial OS lose their freedom. (Or don't get their freedom, depending on your point of view.) Permissive licences grant users freedom, but don't preserve those freedoms in derivative works, so the original work can end up helping derived software disrespect users' freedom. For those who believe that users' freedom should always be respected, this is a very bad thing that needs to be avoided.