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> 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 ga
by 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 agoStallman's terminology is "hoarding your code," btw.