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Every thread about software licenses always devolves into a firehose of debate and conflicting beliefs. How, in 2025, are we still in a state where, on HN of al

Every thread about software licenses always devolves into a firehose of debate and conflicting beliefs. How, in 2025, are we still in a state where, on HN of all places, nobody has any idea what the specifics of LGPL really means or how it has to be implemented? How is it so convoluted, confusing, and up to interpretation? There's demonstrably room for innovation here - coming up with some new system that actually makes sense, that people can actually understand. I suppose there's licenses like MIT that fall in that bucket. Everyone is pretty clear about something like the MIT license. But the various GPL licenses and other, more custom/convoluted licenses ideally need to be replaced by something much better.

kelnos 1y ago
> But the various GPL licenses and other, more custom/convoluted licenses ideally need to be replaced by something much better. What, though? I expect that people with a greater understanding of copyright law and how to write legal documents, have tried and failed. The GPL, LGPL, the Affero variants have specific goals around keeping software open. I don't think writing a license to achieve those goals can be simple or straightforward.
dcow 1y ago
It’s because the genesis of these convoluted license terms is rooted deeply in the archaic copyright law in the US. Until that is fixed, these legal hacks will be necessary. If you’re not pushing an agenda, you have the public domain or the unlicense as options completely simple understandable options.
belorn 1y ago
That is legaleze for you, and it not at all surprising that we are still discussing how such a text should be interpreted. Its mostly impossible to create a legal text that has unchanged interpretation for several decades, or centuries for that matter. Just look how courts often discussion the interpretation and enforcement of specific laws, even laws that are older than the judges themselves.
nightpool 1y ago
> Everyone is pretty clear about something like the MIT license I don't think this is really true. I think people are often upset or surprised when their MIT-licensed programs are used in ways they don't agree with, or they reuse MIT-licensed programs in ways that violate their license terms (e.g. it takes many companies many, many years to realize they have to actually include a way for users to view copyright notices). Open source software is built on many different fuzzy notions of community and collaboration, encoded into an imperfect-but-legally-robust set of protocols that try to establish common language for people to build on. These protocols have proven very, very successful in encouraging collaboration and minimizing exploitation, but there's still a regularization/compromise process that's necessary so that everybody has a common ground to work from. For another perspective, think about them like security software—I personally might not know why TLS uses DH key exchange, or how it works, but if I threw it out in hopes of making thing simpler, things would probably go pretty badly for me when someone else notices.
JCattheATM 1y ago
> How is it so convoluted, confusing, and up to interpretation? I don't think it is so much as many people mistaking their beliefs for facts.
sigseg1v 1y ago
Arguably, I do not think that everyone is clear on how MIT works. Huge amounts of software, dare I say most, don't even include a way to view the license, which is a requirement to use MIT.

kelnos 1y ago

> But the various GPL licenses and other, more custom/convoluted licenses ideally need to be replaced by something much better. What, though? I expect that people with a greater understanding of copyright law and how to write legal documents, have tried and failed. The GPL, LGPL, the Affero variants have specific goals around keeping software open. I don't think writing a license to achieve those goals can be simple or straightforward.

dcow 1y ago

It’s because the genesis of these convoluted license terms is rooted deeply in the archaic copyright law in the US. Until that is fixed, these legal hacks will be necessary. If you’re not pushing an agenda, you have the public domain or the unlicense as options completely simple understandable options.

belorn 1y ago

That is legaleze for you, and it not at all surprising that we are still discussing how such a text should be interpreted. Its mostly impossible to create a legal text that has unchanged interpretation for several decades, or centuries for that matter. Just look how courts often discussion the interpretation and enforcement of specific laws, even laws that are older than the judges themselves.

nightpool 1y ago

> Everyone is pretty clear about something like the MIT license I don't think this is really true. I think people are often upset or surprised when their MIT-licensed programs are used in ways they don't agree with, or they reuse MIT-licensed programs in ways that violate their license terms (e.g. it takes many companies many, many years to realize they have to actually include a way for users to view copyright notices). Open source software is built on many different fuzzy notions of community and collaboration, encoded into an imperfect-but-legally-robust set of protocols that try to establish common language for people to build on. These protocols have proven very, very successful in encouraging collaboration and minimizing exploitation, but there's still a regularization/compromise process that's necessary so that everybody has a common ground to work from. For another perspective, think about them like security software—I personally might not know why TLS uses DH key exchange, or how it works, but if I threw it out in hopes of making thing simpler, things would probably go pretty badly for me when someone else notices.

JCattheATM 1y ago

> How is it so convoluted, confusing, and up to interpretation? I don't think it is so much as many people mistaking their beliefs for facts.

sigseg1v 1y ago

Arguably, I do not think that everyone is clear on how MIT works. Huge amounts of software, dare I say most, don't even include a way to view the license, which is a requirement to use MIT.