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You say that like big tech doesn't use these tools when they are gpl. The primary advantage here is big tech employees can safely read and contribute to these t
by surajrmal 2y ago
You say that like big tech doesn't use these tools when they are gpl. The primary advantage here is big tech employees can safely read and contribute to these tools without fear of upsetting some internal lawyers or getting explicit permission. No one is arbitrarily forking, extending, and keeping that new source hidden despite placing it in some commercial product. Working upstream is far less costly for long term maintenance and everyone knows that. Sure there are exceptions but far from the common case
- blueflow 2y ago> The primary advantage here is big tech employees can safely [...] contribute to these tools without fear of upsetting some internal lawyers Doesn't GPL do that better by mandating that changes must be accessible to the public? Like, if an employee worked out some patch, it would be a violation of the license to not make it accessible to the public.
- surajrmal 2y agoNo, because the fear of possibly not complying is enough to stop folks from even getting near it. I would argue that's worse for the ecosystem.