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by bheadmaster 1233 days ago
> 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.
1 comments
tehologist 1233 days ago
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.

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bheadmaster 1233 days ago
> 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.

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ghaff 1233 days ago
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.

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