3 ms·

This is an ideological argument rather than a practical one, but the usual counterpoint is that even pure leeches of OS development contribute to its success by

by polemic 12y ago

This is an ideological argument rather than a practical one, but the usual counterpoint is that even pure leeches of OS development contribute to its success by displacing competitors, training users and developers, and there is always a chance they'll change their position on code contributions when it's in their interests. I personally prefer 3 clause BSD because it gets used without some developer, entrepreneur or corporation engaging lawyers to sort out these issues. Freedom from legal BS is the best freedom I can gift to users. IMO the AGPL cuts off your nose to spite your face. I understand the rationale, but I find it excessively onerous and complex for the users I really care about (other devs).

majika 12y ago
I wrote this large reply to a sibling comment on the whole practicality argument against copyleft licenses: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7886353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7886353 The popularity of a project, derived or not, is not relevant. By that measure, FreeBSD is running on 10% of desktop computers, and it's better off because of that? I don't think so. FreeBSD has its merits, and I think it's a cool project, but the popularity of its derivations has nothing to do with its quality. I can understand the legal-freedom angle of non-copyleft. I really can. I released Macrofun [0] under the MIT license, because it's not actually useful, and so I didn't care what people did with it. I later released a similar, useful project, Libpp [1], under the AGPL. I think we just differ on ideology. Like I said, I believe that nonfree software is harmful [2], so I don't want to contribute to it at all. When I want to release a body of code as free software, but not have that code be used to develop nonfree software (nor DRM, nor patent abuse, ...), legal complexity has to come into the picture. The MIT and BSD licenses are really simple, and I get that appeal. I long for an AGPL-like license that doesn't run over 600 lines. Thankfully, the GNU project has a lot of documentation of its licenses, so the most common questions are already answered. I think the GPL licenses are only problems for people (or employees) who - implicitly or explicitly - are trying to avoid contributing to free software. I care little for their convenience. [0]: https://github.com/mcinglis/macrofun https://github.com/mcinglis/macrofun [1]: https://github.com/mcinglis/libpp https://github.com/mcinglis/libpp [2]: http://minglis.id.au/blog/2014/04/09/free-software-free-society.html http://minglis.id.au/blog/2014/04/09/free-software-free-soci...

by polemic 12y ago

majika 12y ago

I wrote this large reply to a sibling comment on the whole practicality argument against copyleft licenses: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7886353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7886353 The popularity of a project, derived or not, is not relevant. By that measure, FreeBSD is running on 10% of desktop computers, and it's better off because of that? I don't think so. FreeBSD has its merits, and I think it's a cool project, but the popularity of its derivations has nothing to do with its quality. I can understand the legal-freedom angle of non-copyleft. I really can. I released Macrofun [0] under the MIT license, because it's not actually useful, and so I didn't care what people did with it. I later released a similar, useful project, Libpp [1], under the AGPL. I think we just differ on ideology. Like I said, I believe that nonfree software is harmful [2], so I don't want to contribute to it at all. When I want to release a body of code as free software, but not have that code be used to develop nonfree software (nor DRM, nor patent abuse, ...), legal complexity has to come into the picture. The MIT and BSD licenses are really simple, and I get that appeal. I long for an AGPL-like license that doesn't run over 600 lines. Thankfully, the GNU project has a lot of documentation of its licenses, so the most common questions are already answered. I think the GPL licenses are only problems for people (or employees) who - implicitly or explicitly - are trying to avoid contributing to free software. I care little for their convenience. [0]: https://github.com/mcinglis/macrofun https://github.com/mcinglis/macrofun [1]: https://github.com/mcinglis/libpp https://github.com/mcinglis/libpp [2]: http://minglis.id.au/blog/2014/04/09/free-software-free-society.html http://minglis.id.au/blog/2014/04/09/free-software-free-soci...