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I don’t mind sharing my software with others, even folks who want to make a profit. Of course, that’s easy for me to say since I’ve only released a few small pr

I don’t mind sharing my software with others, even folks who want to make a profit. Of course, that’s easy for me to say since I’ve only released a few small projects open source. But when I do, I make my projects fully public domain. I’m not interested in feeling any sense of obligation to those who try the software out, so I free them from any obligation to me as well. That said, I fully support larger projects being GPL, which I think is a more reasonable license for projects that involve dozens or hundreds of contributors and are depended on by millions around the world. But the role of the MIT and Apache style licenses has always felt a little more confusing.

sublimefire 2y ago
This makes no sense, you want to make sure software gets updated in the future, however small. Permissive licensing allows companies to hide improvements and this in the long term erodes the original. Individuals on the other hand are not bound by legal teams and can work with GPL and similar.
- LegionMammal978 2y ago
  The idea behind permissive licensing like this is that you don't particularly care about "eroding the original": you don't see its ineffable status in relation to others' work as something that must forever be maintained. I've also leaned toward CC0-style licensing for some of my smaller projects, that are shared for explanatory or artistic purposes. The reasoning is that GPL-style licenses give the code its own 'weight' as a unit, that keeps others from lifing good ideas from the code and incorporating them into their own projects as they wish, at any point in the next ~135 years. (The barriers aren't just the stereotypical "how dare they make me share my code!" but also the realities of license compatibility, having to make sure never to lose any version of the source, and so on.) I agree with GP that this isn't necessarily the best idea for large projects that exist for their own sake and that companies might find great profit in copying. But it's not like all projects fit that description.
pferde 2y ago
But they wouldn't be under any obligation to you. They would be under obligation to whoever they distribute their modifications of your code. That's it.

sublimefire 2y ago

This makes no sense, you want to make sure software gets updated in the future, however small. Permissive licensing allows companies to hide improvements and this in the long term erodes the original. Individuals on the other hand are not bound by legal teams and can work with GPL and similar.

LegionMammal978 2y ago
The idea behind permissive licensing like this is that you don't particularly care about "eroding the original": you don't see its ineffable status in relation to others' work as something that must forever be maintained. I've also leaned toward CC0-style licensing for some of my smaller projects, that are shared for explanatory or artistic purposes. The reasoning is that GPL-style licenses give the code its own 'weight' as a unit, that keeps others from lifing good ideas from the code and incorporating them into their own projects as they wish, at any point in the next ~135 years. (The barriers aren't just the stereotypical "how dare they make me share my code!" but also the realities of license compatibility, having to make sure never to lose any version of the source, and so on.) I agree with GP that this isn't necessarily the best idea for large projects that exist for their own sake and that companies might find great profit in copying. But it's not like all projects fit that description.

pferde 2y ago

But they wouldn't be under any obligation to you. They would be under obligation to whoever they distribute their modifications of your code. That's it.