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I think you're wrong. GPL is designed specifically for FOSS programmers who work only on FOSS projects. Legally, it's a restrictive license that limits options

I think you're wrong. GPL is designed specifically for FOSS programmers who work only on FOSS projects. Legally, it's a restrictive license that limits options for developers who develop for a day job (for a company that keeps their software proprietary). The BSD and MIT licenses are far superior for the average working dev.

vdaniuk 12y ago
Look, individually BSD and MIT licenses are superior for an "average" programmer, however all programmers and users would be much worse off without GPL.
marssaxman 12y ago
What are you talking about? If I'm going to give my code away, it's because I want people to use it and share it, and letting downstream devs take my work and close it up for private gain would suck - especially since they're not obligated to share any of their private profits with me. No, if I'm going to give my code away, it's going to be "share and share alike", and that's what the GPL does best. How would it be "superior" to give my code away in a manner that lets other people take advantage without sharing?
- maxlybbert 12y ago
  > If I'm going to give my code away, it's because I want people to use it and share it, and letting downstream devs take my work and close it up for private gain would suck - especially since they're not obligated to share any of their private profits with me. There are several reasons to give away code. It's perfectly reasonable to want people to share improvements with you, in which case the GPL is the right choice. But it's also reasonable to just not care what happens to the code after you send it off, in which case the GPL is likely to be as much a burden on you as on downstream programmers. Using Stallman's terminology, the GPL prevents people from boarding your code, but it also prevents them from using it with incompatible open source licenses (say, licenses with an advertising clause or a choice of law clause) without special permission. I just don't get all that worked up over whether somebody wants to use the Apache license version 1.1.
  - maxlybbert 12y ago
    Stallman's terminology is "hoarding your code," btw.
- geon 12y ago
  I have a few projects on github. All of them MIT. I don't care if someone profits from my work. Had O released it as GPL, they would have profited the same from something else. What difference did my chioce of GPL do, other than to prevent others from using my code? None. Then again, having GPL licensing isn't the only incentive for recieving patches. A developer of closed source, using my library will want future updates to be easily applied without their fixed bugs getting reintroduced. Not sending me a pull request would be counter productive.

vdaniuk 12y ago

Look, individually BSD and MIT licenses are superior for an "average" programmer, however all programmers and users would be much worse off without GPL.

marssaxman 12y ago

What are you talking about? If I'm going to give my code away, it's because I want people to use it and share it, and letting downstream devs take my work and close it up for private gain would suck - especially since they're not obligated to share any of their private profits with me. No, if I'm going to give my code away, it's going to be "share and share alike", and that's what the GPL does best. How would it be "superior" to give my code away in a manner that lets other people take advantage without sharing?

maxlybbert 12y ago
> If I'm going to give my code away, it's because I want people to use it and share it, and letting downstream devs take my work and close it up for private gain would suck - especially since they're not obligated to share any of their private profits with me. There are several reasons to give away code. It's perfectly reasonable to want people to share improvements with you, in which case the GPL is the right choice. But it's also reasonable to just not care what happens to the code after you send it off, in which case the GPL is likely to be as much a burden on you as on downstream programmers. Using Stallman's terminology, the GPL prevents people from boarding your code, but it also prevents them from using it with incompatible open source licenses (say, licenses with an advertising clause or a choice of law clause) without special permission. I just don't get all that worked up over whether somebody wants to use the Apache license version 1.1.
- maxlybbert 12y ago
  Stallman's terminology is "hoarding your code," btw.
geon 12y ago
I have a few projects on github. All of them MIT. I don't care if someone profits from my work. Had O released it as GPL, they would have profited the same from something else. What difference did my chioce of GPL do, other than to prevent others from using my code? None. Then again, having GPL licensing isn't the only incentive for recieving patches. A developer of closed source, using my library will want future updates to be easily applied without their fixed bugs getting reintroduced. Not sending me a pull request would be counter productive.