4 ms·

Why would I want to give free labor to massively wealthy AAA studios who don't want to give back anything? If they want to use my code in their proprietary prod

Why would I want to give free labor to massively wealthy AAA studios who don't want to give back anything? If they want to use my code in their proprietary products, they can pay me to license it, just like they expect others to pay them. I don't see how it's "standing with me" to use my code to make the next Madden, without giving back either code or cash.

teamonkey 13y ago
> massively wealthy AAA studios Straw man. > who don't want to give back anything Straw man.
- eropple 13y ago
  Yup. Personally, as an indie developer who is certainly not massively wealthy, I've submitted a PR to GLFW (my windowing/input system) to support Retina screens on OS X. Of my other open-source dependencies (boost, vorbisfile, logog, physfs, and GLEW), there's just nothing I've needed to patch. Otherwise I would've. There's nothing under GPL/LGPL I need or particularly want, but I do benefit from BSD-based stuff if only because I can't statically link LGPL stuff and I find the GPL unethical. Of course I'll give back where I change stuff, because I'm not an asshole. But GPL/LGPL ignores reality in too many ways to be viable; I personally like the CDDL quite a bit but nobody uses it.
justinhj 13y ago
By this logic why would anyone contribute to the OSS of large corporations like Oracle or Facebook? I'm also a game developer and was able to open source a chunk of AI software to the development community which has been used in commercial games but also many education and personal projects. That would not be possible without licenses like MIT.
- lutorm 13y ago
  That's not correct. If you wrote the software you can do whatever you want with it, including releasing it under the GPL.
  - sillysaurus2 13y ago
    If you wrote the software you can do whatever you want with it, including releasing it under the GPL. Nope. Gamedevs are covered under both non-disclosure and non-compete agreements. There's a lot of red tape to cut through to release something as open source. Even if you've written it at home on your own time, companies have made a big deal about employees open-sourcing code before. This is doubly true in the finance industry. Without MIT licensing, there would be an extra hurdle of "GPL? We cannot under any circumstances be associated with GPL." It's absolutely silly, but absolutely true. I'm speaking as someone with firsthand, I've-been-there-in-person-and-dealt-with-this experience. Also, by releasing it as GPL, no other gamedevs can use it. We gamedevs like to release code that other gamedevs can use.
    - Morgawr 13y ago
      That doesn't sound like a GPL problem, it sounds like an industry problem. As a game developer I'd rather complain with the industry and try to follow an ethical path (i.e. freedom with GPL) rather than complain to those people who release their hard work for free under the GPL. I admire those people.
      - justinhj 13y ago
        Some game developers have been able to contribute software using LGPL to get around the restrictions of both corporate legal departments and the confidentiality agreements you have to make with Sony, Microsoft and so on. Electronic Arts for example made a port of Webkit which can run Playstation and Xbox, which is a linkable library and includes no reference to third party API's. Personally I choose a license relevant for the kind of software and what it will be used for. When that includes software I want people to be able to use in commercial software I use MIT. I'm still releasing hard work for free, I don't have your admiration, but people get to use it. Facebook uses the PHP license for HHVM which is a very significant OSS contribution, and has very similar terms to MIT.
      - teamonkey 13y ago
        I can't reply to justinhj's comment for some reason, but here's the link to EA's LGPL contributions, including the Webkit port. http://gpl.ea.com/ http://gpl.ea.com/
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
perbu 13y ago
Yes! If my work can generate wealth for other it makes me happy. It's not a zero sum game.

teamonkey 13y ago

> massively wealthy AAA studios Straw man. > who don't want to give back anything Straw man.

eropple 13y ago
Yup. Personally, as an indie developer who is certainly not massively wealthy, I've submitted a PR to GLFW (my windowing/input system) to support Retina screens on OS X. Of my other open-source dependencies (boost, vorbisfile, logog, physfs, and GLEW), there's just nothing I've needed to patch. Otherwise I would've. There's nothing under GPL/LGPL I need or particularly want, but I do benefit from BSD-based stuff if only because I can't statically link LGPL stuff and I find the GPL unethical. Of course I'll give back where I change stuff, because I'm not an asshole. But GPL/LGPL ignores reality in too many ways to be viable; I personally like the CDDL quite a bit but nobody uses it.

justinhj 13y ago

By this logic why would anyone contribute to the OSS of large corporations like Oracle or Facebook? I'm also a game developer and was able to open source a chunk of AI software to the development community which has been used in commercial games but also many education and personal projects. That would not be possible without licenses like MIT.

lutorm 13y ago
That's not correct. If you wrote the software you can do whatever you want with it, including releasing it under the GPL.
- sillysaurus2 13y ago
  If you wrote the software you can do whatever you want with it, including releasing it under the GPL. Nope. Gamedevs are covered under both non-disclosure and non-compete agreements. There's a lot of red tape to cut through to release something as open source. Even if you've written it at home on your own time, companies have made a big deal about employees open-sourcing code before. This is doubly true in the finance industry. Without MIT licensing, there would be an extra hurdle of "GPL? We cannot under any circumstances be associated with GPL." It's absolutely silly, but absolutely true. I'm speaking as someone with firsthand, I've-been-there-in-person-and-dealt-with-this experience. Also, by releasing it as GPL, no other gamedevs can use it. We gamedevs like to release code that other gamedevs can use.
  - Morgawr 13y ago
    That doesn't sound like a GPL problem, it sounds like an industry problem. As a game developer I'd rather complain with the industry and try to follow an ethical path (i.e. freedom with GPL) rather than complain to those people who release their hard work for free under the GPL. I admire those people.
    - justinhj 13y ago
      Some game developers have been able to contribute software using LGPL to get around the restrictions of both corporate legal departments and the confidentiality agreements you have to make with Sony, Microsoft and so on. Electronic Arts for example made a port of Webkit which can run Playstation and Xbox, which is a linkable library and includes no reference to third party API's. Personally I choose a license relevant for the kind of software and what it will be used for. When that includes software I want people to be able to use in commercial software I use MIT. I'm still releasing hard work for free, I don't have your admiration, but people get to use it. Facebook uses the PHP license for HHVM which is a very significant OSS contribution, and has very similar terms to MIT.
    - teamonkey 13y ago
      I can't reply to justinhj's comment for some reason, but here's the link to EA's LGPL contributions, including the Webkit port. http://gpl.ea.com/ http://gpl.ea.com/

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

perbu 13y ago

Yes! If my work can generate wealth for other it makes me happy. It's not a zero sum game.