I’m a very much pro free software person and I used to think that GPL is basically the only possible option when it comes to benefits for free software (and not commercial use), but I’ve recently realised this question is actually much more ambiguous.
I think there are two sides to this issue:
- GPL forces all contributions to stay open-source which prevents commercialisation* of FOSS projects, but also causes possible interference of corporate software design philosophy and all kinds of commercial decisions, if contributions come from companies.
- MIT-like permissive licenses, on the other hand, easily allow for making proprietary forks, which, however, separates commercial work from the rest of the project, therefore making the project more likely to stay free both of corporate influence and in general.
So it boils down to the fact, that in my opinion what makes free software free is not only the way it’s distributed but also the whole philosophy behind it: centralisation vs. decentralisation, passive consumer vs. co-developper role of the user etc. And this is where things start to be a bit controversial.
What do you think?
*UPD: wrong word. I mean close-sourcing and turning into a profitable product instead of something that fulfils your needs
Gpl doesn’t prevent monetisation/commercialisation. Many popular devs just choose not to.
You can also dual license, providing another license for companies that wish not to publish their code for a goal project.
I don’t comprehend your reasoning of MIT projects staying free from corporate influence. There are lots of MIT projects that are carried by companies.
GPL, because the code is open and stays that way.
With permissive licenses, companies can co-opt the fruit of volunteer labour to build a proprietary fork. With sufficient resources, they can bring that fork to wide adoption, leading users and potential contributors away from the free ecosystem. This is why I vastly prefer copyleft licenses, either GPL 3.0 or AGPL 3.0, and preferentially AGPL, given how many things nowadays run as web services. Always remember: The GPL is what gave us OpenWrt.
Also in contributing, I strongly prefer projects under a copyleft license. That’s because of this:
People who contribute to the development of a program released with a permissive license must be aware that the program could become proprietary at any time. For example, when a company hires the original team of developers.
https://docs.codeberg.org/getting-started/licensing/#copyleft-vs.-permissive
Wow, didn’t know OpenWrt exists because of GPL. Also I like the perpetually-free vs. temporarily-free distinction Codeberg is making, it really clears things up.
Yeah, I could totally see why copyleft exists and how much we gain from using it. In fact, I use exclusively GPL for my personal projects. However, I still find it a trade-off, because having contributions from corporate-minded developpers is something I think is often bad for FOSS projects. Take all those dubious software design decisions Red Hat has made for example.
GPL because abstract freedoms are meaningless. The goal should be to ensure that the code stays open and that corps aren’t freeloading of it.
Well, for me personally the way the software is developped and designed is not something abstract. Centralisation and bloating, for example, makes understanding and developping software a significant amount more difficult which puts you in a more passive role and so making you much less free
Centralization, bloating, and GPL are all orthogonal concepts that bear no direct relation to each other. A centralized project does not necessarily become bloated, nor does GPL play any role in whether a project is centralized or not.
There’s no direct relation, yes, but centralisation and bloating are both things commercial software development tends to because of the nature of developper-consumer relations. And GPL forces companies to contribute their code which is often based on those principles back to the original project. So I think there is indirect relation.
No, GPL does not force companies to do that. It forces companies to make their source code available. There is zero requirement that it has to be contributed to the original project, nor do the maintainers of the project have to accept changes they don’t want. You’re completely misrepresenting the how GPL works here.
Actual copyleft licenses like the GPL are analogous to leftists (the name might be a clue); they actually care about protecting the rights of the little guy.
“Permissive” licenses are analogous to liberals and/or ancaps. Arguably better than the corps/fascists, but willing to compromise with them to the point that most of their moral high ground erodes.
but also causes possible interference of corporate software design philosophy and all kinds of commercial decisions, if contributions come from companies.
But companies almost never do contribute? They just want stuff for free. At least that’s my experience in industrial automation / real-time systems.
Also, if your theory were true, BSD Unices would have much more contributions, better file systems, better real-time support, and much wider hardware support than Linux. But in reality, it is the opposite.
