[tehologist]

From my understanding GPL originated because Stallman was upset about a version of Emacs he was working on at school (MIT Licensed). The person he was working on it with took the source code and started a commercial company, but had no interest in working with Stallman professionally. So Stallman started his free software crusade with his own version of Emacs and replicating every tool needed to build it with his own "FREE" license. This has always bothered me as GPL is far more strict of a license than either BSD or MIT.

[bheadmaster]

> This has always bothered me as GPL is far more strict of a license than either BSD or MIT.

In a similar manner, democracy is far more strict than anarchy because you can't kill and loot whatever you want.

Yes, I'm comparing murder and theft with taking away users' freedom. Yes, murder and theft are probably considered worse than proprietary software in the eyes of many. My point is that just because something is more restrictive, doesn't in itself make it worse.

[tehologist]

I avoid GPL projects because I am a software developer and the idea of the project dictating how I can release my own source is a big FU to me. If I can find software that is licensed with a non restrictive license I will always support it over anything that is GPL. I have had a few projects I was very interested in and considered helping out on, but the GPL license is a non starter for me.

If you have to redefine the word "FREE" to mean freedom and your license is several pages of lawyer speak, then that is a problem.

I will take anarchy over crazy ideology any day of the week.

[bheadmaster]

> I avoid GPL projects because I am a software developer and the idea of the project dictating how I can release my own source is a big FU to me.

GPL doesn't restrict how you can release your own source code - even if you release your project as GPL, you can still release it under MIT, or a commercial license - it's your code, and you're the copyright holder. The restrictions only apply to code derived from other GPL projects, but that isn't really "your code".

Your reason for avoiding GPL seems to be that you cannot take GPL code and release it under a non-free license. That's exactly the behavior that GPL is designed to prevent - the bottom line is users' freedom, not developers' convenience.

[ghaff]

I generally favor permissive licenses myself for various reasons.

However, the relevant perspective on the GPL is that it's not really about freedom for developers. It's about freedom for users. If I as a developer/company want to ship modified FOSS to end-users. I can't hold the modifications back as secret sauce.

[npteljes]

Yes, and the specific strictness is the point! The point is that there isn't really such a things as "no laws". Dynamics between people don't stop to function just because there are no laws applied. The most basic thing is that if you don't restrict the use of force effectively, then the use of force will most certainly determine the order of things - you end up with tyrants, or warlords, essentially.

Translating this to the world of software licenses, similar things happen. With MIT, and BSD, an entity can take the project and just run with it. Neither the original owner, nor the ecosystem benefits. This is cool with some people, in theory, but from time to time, significant regret is demonstrated, of which my favorite is Tanenbaum learning from the media that Intel uses his system in all of the CPUs.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/minix-creator-letter-intel...

I also recommend contemplating the "Paradox of tolerance" - a similar situation. It posits that in order to have a sustainable tolerant society, one must not tolerate intolerance - for if we do, it will take over, ending the tolerant society.

[tcmart14]

I agree it is far more strict, but I am glad it exists. I do throw the MIT license on most of my projects, so its rare that I license things with GPL. But at the end of the day, having the BSD and MIT license and the GPL licenses gives us all the options we want. Want to produce something and don't care how it gets used? MIT or BSD license. Want to create something, offer it for free, and know that nobody will modify your code and start selling it? GPL.

[bdw5204]

> Want to create something, offer it for free, and know that nobody will modify your code and start selling it? GPL.

You can modify somebody's GPLed code and start selling it. The only restriction is that you must offer to share your source code with your customers and give them all of the same rights you have under GPL.

There is also a loophole that lets you sell modified GPLed code without sharing the source or giving them your GPL rights: run it on a server. AGPL closes this loophole which is why it is unpopular with large tech companies.

Any license that prohibits selling modified versions of somebody else's code would, if it became popular or was adopted by a popular project, be denounced by both FSF and OSI for violating the principles of the FOSS movement because the right to sell other people's FOSS software is considered an important user freedom. Writing such a license involves making fairly trivial changes to MIT or BSD but does make it impossible to combine any code licensed under it with GPLed code.

[ghaff]

>Want to create something, offer it for free, and know that nobody will modify your code and start selling it? GPL.

Someone can absolutely do that. They just need to share the modified source code.