I would understand if Canonical want a new cow to milk, but why are developers even agreeing to this? Are they out of their minds?? Do they actually want companies to steal their code? Or is this some reverse-uno move I don’t see yet? I cannot fathom any FOSS project not using the AGPL anymore. It’s like they’re painting their faces with “here, take my stuff and don’t contribute anything back, that’s totally fine”
The unfortunate reality is that a significant proportion of software engineers (and other IT folks) are either laissez-faire “libertarians” who are ideologically opposed to the restrictions in the GPL, or “apolitical” tech-bros who are mostly just interested in their six figure paychecks and fancy toys.
To these folks, the MIT/BSD licenses have fewer restrictions, and are therefore more free, and are therefore more better.
“apolitical” tech-bros who are mostly just interested in their six figure paychecks and fancy toys.
This, I understand.
laissez-faire “libertarians” who are ideologically opposed to the restrictions in the GPL
This, I do not. Apologies for my tone in the next paragraph but I’m really pissed off (not directed at you):
WHAT RESTRICTIONS??? IF YOU LOT HAD EVEN A SHRED OF SYMPATHY FOR THE COMMUNITY YOU WOULD HAVE BOYCOTTED THE MIT AND APACHE LICENSE BY NOW. THIS IS EQUIVALENT TO HANDING CORPORATIONS YOUR WORK AND BEGGING THEM TO SCREW OVER YOUR WORK AND THE FOSS COMMUNITY.
I feel a bit better but not by much. This makes me vomit.
Since you seem so reasonable…
The restriction that some people object to is that the GPL restricts the freedom of the software developers (the people actually writing and contributing the code).
Most people would agree at first glance that developers should be able to license code that they write under whatever license they like. MIT is one option. Some prefer the GPL. Most see the right to choose a proprietary license for your own work as ok but some people describe this as unethical. I personally see all three as valid. I certainly think the GPL should be one of the options.
That said, if we are talking about code that already exists, the GPL restricts freedom without adding any that MIT does not also provide.
MIT licensed software is “free software” by definition. Once something has been MIT licensed, it is Open Source and cannot be taken away.
The MIT license provides all of the Free Software Foundations “4 freedoms”. It also provides freedoms that the GPL does not.
What the MIT license does not provide is guaranteed access to “future” code that has not yet been written. That is, in an MIT licensed code base, you can add new code that is not free. In a GPL code base, this is not possible.
So, the GPL removes rights from the developers in that it removes the right to license future code contributions as you want. Under the GPL, the right of users to get future code for free is greater than the right of the developer to license their future contributions. Some people do not see that as a freedom. Some even see it as quite the opposite (forced servitude). This “freedom” is not one of the “4 freedoms” touted by the FSF but it is the main feature of the GPL.
What freedom in the sense of writing code does the GPL inhibit? GPL simply says that changes to the source must be published. MIT is just a scapegoat for companies to get stuff for free without helping the developer that’s giving their time and soul for it
developers should be able to license code that they write under whatever license they like
What if they choose a license that limits the freedom from all other developers to improve that copy of the software? is allowing a developer to restrict further development actually good for the freedom of the developers? Because I would say no.
The spirit of the GPL is to give freedom to the developers and hackers (in the good sense of hacker). The chorus of the Free Software Song by Stallman is “you’ll be free hackers, you’ll be free”.
the GPL restricts freedom without adding any that MIT does not also provide
“Your freedom ends when the freedom of others begins”
The only “freedom” the GPL restricts is the freedom to limit the freedom of other developers/hackers that want to edit the software you distribute. This is in the same spirit as having laws against slavery that restrict the “freedom” of people to take slaves.
Would a society that allows oppression (that has no laws against it) be more “free” than a society that does not allow oppression (with laws to guarantee the freedom of others is respected)?
I write code for a living. I cannot, by any means, utilize a GPL library to support the needs of our customers and will either have to write my own replacement or dig to find something with less restrictions like MIT.
On many occasions, we will find bugs or usage gaps or slowdowns that can get pushed back to the MIT licensed open source cause we were able to use it in the first place. If your goal is to make sure your library gets used and gets external contributors, I don’t see how GPL helps the situation as it limits what developers can even choose your library in the first place. If your goal is spreading the ideology that all software should be free, go keep banging your drum for GPL.
I work in a company that deals with both commercial and government (military) software. The government is becoming more and more fixated on the software supply chain, or sw dependencies so to speak.
Existing dependencies are largely getting a pass for now, but with each new one I need to give a justification for. This includes the license of that software. I can’t use GPL at work.
Thank you for your work. If people like you were all around us, then I wouldn’t mind as much projects using MIT since we would still see contributions. But I doubt there’s that many people out there like you. Thank you for contributing to FOSS.
Like 80% of the top 10 most contributed libraries on github are either MIT, Apache, or BSD. I think you underestimate how many corpo folks do contribute or wholly support open source libraries.
Add to this, the constant badmouthing of GNU and FSF from the crony bootlickers and sadly this is what we get
The tech crowd is also more of a consumer kind these days than the hacky kind, so it’s much easier to push corporate shite with a little bit of polish on top
Yeah, that’s all there’s to it, along with pure ignorance. In a past not so ideologically developed life, I’ve written code under Apache 2 because it was “more free.” Understanding licenses, their implications, the ideologies behind them and their socioeconomic effects isn’t trivial. People certainly aren’t born educated in those, and often they reach for the code editor before that.
