4 ms·

The entire reason people choose "permissive licenses" is so that it won't last forever. At best, the community can fork the old version without any future featu

by o11c 1y ago

The entire reason people choose "permissive licenses" is so that it won't last forever. At best, the community can fork the old version without any future features. Only viral licenses are forever.

woodruffw 1y ago
I don't think this is true -- a license's virality doesn't mean that its copyright holders can't switch a future version to a proprietary license; past grants don't imply grants to future work under any open source license.
- notpushkin 1y ago
  Correct; however, without a CLA and assuming there are outside contributors, relicensing the existing code would be mildly painful, if not downright impossible.
  - woodruffw 1y ago
    You're saying that would be more painful in a viral license setting, right? If so I agree, although I think there's a pretty long track record of financially incentivized companies being willing to take that pain. MongoDB's AGPL transition comes to mind. But, to refocus on the case at hand: Astral's tools don't require contributors to sign a CLA. I understand (and am sympathetic) to the suspicion here, but the bigger picture here is that Astral wants to build services as a product, rather than compromising the open source nature of its tools. That's why the announcement tries to cleanly differentiate between the two.
    - stackskipton 1y ago
      They have no need to, current repos show everything is under MIT/Apache. They could close the source at any time and not worry about CLA. >bigger picture here is that Astral wants to build services as a product What services? pyx? Looks nice but I doubt my boss is going to pay for it. More likely they just say "Whatever, package is in PyPi, use that." UV, Ruff, Ty. Again, maybe they can get some data/quant firm who REALLY cares about speed to use their products. Everyone else will emit a long sigh, grab pip/poetry, black and mypy and move on.
      - pepoluan 1y ago
        It ultimately depends on a company's risk appetite. Some companies specify that packages need to be hosted on their internal repository/artifactory, and for these companies, pyx might be a good tool.
        jamespo 1y ago
        Exactly, allowing employees to install pypi packages from the internet isn't different to allowing them to install any software from the internet.
    - pxc 1y ago
      > I think there's a pretty long track record of financially incentivized companies being willing to take that pain. MongoDB's AGPL transition comes to mind. MongoDB had a CLA from the start, didn't it? > Astral's tools don't require contributors to sign a CLA. That's a pretty vital difference!
      - Epa095 1y ago
        >> Astral's tools don't require contributors to sign a CLA. > That's a pretty vital difference Not really when the license is MIT/Apache. They can create a closed source fork and continue development there.
        pxc 1y ago
        Ah yeah, whoops. Either a CLA or permissive license is enough on its own to facilitate such a license change.
    - notpushkin 1y ago
      Yeah, only the (viral license + no CLA) combo has this effect of preventing you from changing license down the road. In your case (permissive license, no CLA) you still can relicense uv or Ruff. Not saying that you will do it, of course :-) I do like your strategy, hope it works out!
  - knowitnone2 1y ago
    yeah? who's going to court for multiple years to fight giants? Maybe they'll pull a RedHat and put the code behind a subscription service. Still OSS right?
krupan 1y ago
I think you are making a good point, but please don't use the old Steve Baller FUD term, "viral." Copyleft is a better term
- Muromec 1y ago
  The word "left" is now very charged too, maybe even more than "viral".
  - HiPhish 1y ago
    Every word is charged now, so you might as well use it. "Copyleft" is a fine pun on "copyright".
    - neutronicus 1y ago
      Careful, or you'll get the copyleftists calling you a neo-libre-al.
      - knowitnone2 1y ago
        they call everybody a nazi so by definition, they like living in a nazi country
- ameliaquining 1y ago
  I don't think the connotation these days is particular negative, in the sense it's being used here. See, e.g., "viral video".
- codethief 1y ago
  Politics aside, "copyleft" originates from a pun and is hardly self-explanatory, whereas "viral" is.
actinium226 1y ago
By viral, do you mean licenses like GPL that force those who have modified the code to release their changes (if they're distributing binaries that include those changes)? Because FWIW CPython is not GPL. They have their own license but do not require modifications to be made public.
thayne 1y ago
Or they want to get more people to use it.
bigstrat2003 1y ago
This is just plain false and honestly close-minded. People choose permissive licenses for all sorts of reasons. Some might want to close it off later, but lots of people prefer the non-viral nature of permissive licenses, because it doesn't constrain others' license choice in the future. Still others think that permissive licenses are more free than copyleft, and choose them for that reason. Please don't just accuse vast groups of people of being bad-faith actors just because you disagree with their license choice.

by o11c 1y ago

The entire reason people choose "permissive licenses" is so that it won't last forever. At best, the community can fork the old version without any future features. Only viral licenses are forever.

woodruffw 1y ago

I don't think this is true -- a license's virality doesn't mean that its copyright holders can't switch a future version to a proprietary license; past grants don't imply grants to future work under any open source license.

notpushkin 1y ago
Correct; however, without a CLA and assuming there are outside contributors, relicensing the existing code would be mildly painful, if not downright impossible.
- woodruffw 1y ago
  You're saying that would be more painful in a viral license setting, right? If so I agree, although I think there's a pretty long track record of financially incentivized companies being willing to take that pain. MongoDB's AGPL transition comes to mind. But, to refocus on the case at hand: Astral's tools don't require contributors to sign a CLA. I understand (and am sympathetic) to the suspicion here, but the bigger picture here is that Astral wants to build services as a product, rather than compromising the open source nature of its tools. That's why the announcement tries to cleanly differentiate between the two.
  - stackskipton 1y ago
    They have no need to, current repos show everything is under MIT/Apache. They could close the source at any time and not worry about CLA. >bigger picture here is that Astral wants to build services as a product What services? pyx? Looks nice but I doubt my boss is going to pay for it. More likely they just say "Whatever, package is in PyPi, use that." UV, Ruff, Ty. Again, maybe they can get some data/quant firm who REALLY cares about speed to use their products. Everyone else will emit a long sigh, grab pip/poetry, black and mypy and move on.
    - pepoluan 1y ago
      It ultimately depends on a company's risk appetite. Some companies specify that packages need to be hosted on their internal repository/artifactory, and for these companies, pyx might be a good tool.
      - jamespo 1y ago
        Exactly, allowing employees to install pypi packages from the internet isn't different to allowing them to install any software from the internet.
  - pxc 1y ago
    > I think there's a pretty long track record of financially incentivized companies being willing to take that pain. MongoDB's AGPL transition comes to mind. MongoDB had a CLA from the start, didn't it? > Astral's tools don't require contributors to sign a CLA. That's a pretty vital difference!
    - Epa095 1y ago
      >> Astral's tools don't require contributors to sign a CLA. > That's a pretty vital difference Not really when the license is MIT/Apache. They can create a closed source fork and continue development there.
      - pxc 1y ago
        Ah yeah, whoops. Either a CLA or permissive license is enough on its own to facilitate such a license change.
  - notpushkin 1y ago
    Yeah, only the (viral license + no CLA) combo has this effect of preventing you from changing license down the road. In your case (permissive license, no CLA) you still can relicense uv or Ruff. Not saying that you will do it, of course :-) I do like your strategy, hope it works out!
- knowitnone2 1y ago
  yeah? who's going to court for multiple years to fight giants? Maybe they'll pull a RedHat and put the code behind a subscription service. Still OSS right?

krupan 1y ago

I think you are making a good point, but please don't use the old Steve Baller FUD term, "viral." Copyleft is a better term

Muromec 1y ago
The word "left" is now very charged too, maybe even more than "viral".
- HiPhish 1y ago
  Every word is charged now, so you might as well use it. "Copyleft" is a fine pun on "copyright".
  - neutronicus 1y ago
    Careful, or you'll get the copyleftists calling you a neo-libre-al.
    - knowitnone2 1y ago
      they call everybody a nazi so by definition, they like living in a nazi country
ameliaquining 1y ago
I don't think the connotation these days is particular negative, in the sense it's being used here. See, e.g., "viral video".
codethief 1y ago
Politics aside, "copyleft" originates from a pun and is hardly self-explanatory, whereas "viral" is.

actinium226 1y ago

By viral, do you mean licenses like GPL that force those who have modified the code to release their changes (if they're distributing binaries that include those changes)? Because FWIW CPython is not GPL. They have their own license but do not require modifications to be made public.

thayne 1y ago

Or they want to get more people to use it.

bigstrat2003 1y ago

This is just plain false and honestly close-minded. People choose permissive licenses for all sorts of reasons. Some might want to close it off later, but lots of people prefer the non-viral nature of permissive licenses, because it doesn't constrain others' license choice in the future. Still others think that permissive licenses are more free than copyleft, and choose them for that reason. Please don't just accuse vast groups of people of being bad-faith actors just because you disagree with their license choice.