[matheusmoreira]

Yeah. Free software used to have so much more leverage back then. Now even GCC isn't sacred anymore. Linux is the only project that's still somewhat capable of leveraging corporations into upstreaming GPL drivers.

Just extremely low morale right now. Not sure if there's even a point to any of this anymore. Even proprietary software isn't safe: now that I've got AI, decompilation has gone from a time consuming grind to trivial.

[jcranmer]

The fundamental problem that most people want free software to solve isn't the user-level problem of "I want to tinker with all of the software I run," but the community-level problem of "I want to use the results of other people in getting software to run on my setup." In the context of a compiler, that's support for more esoteric architecture; in the context of a kernel, that's support for drivers for hardware.

The GPL doesn't actually solve the community-level problem very well (which is the basis of Linus's complaints about GPLv3--it positions the license much more directly in the direction of the user-level freedom rather than the community-level freedom). But the solution for the community-level problem involves a lot of social pressure, and it turns out that for a large open-source project, commit velocity means that most proprietary companies find the easiest way to deal with the open-source upstream is to contribute their code to the community to make it everybody else's problem to maintain.

You can see this in the development of LLVM, e.g.: almost all of the proprietary compilers are LLVM-based (especially as EDG has finally thrown in the towel, everyone using EDG is going to look to rebasing onto clang instead). And yet the companies with their proprietary forks of LLVM are still major upstream contributors.

[2lup382_]

> used to have so much more leverage back then

And maybe that was required back then, and/or maybe it ended up being bad strategy in the long term. Leverage only gets you so far, especially in community and relationships.

> Just extremely low morale right now. Not sure if there's even a point to any of this anymore.

See I feel the exact opposite. As FOSS license choice matters less, now we can just focus on hacking. FreeBSD doing this is a great example of it.

[matheusmoreira]

> now we can just focus on hacking

Well, I can't do that. Releasing software under permissive licenses is just wealth transfer from well meaning hackers straight into the pockets of corporations. It just gives it all away, no questions asked.

For me it's either AGPLv3 or all rights reserved. I'm trending towards the latter now. I'm starting to question whether I should even publish my work.

[2lup382_]

> For me it's either AGPLv3 or all rights reserved. I'm trending towards the latter now.

Then for you it was never about freedom and community, which were the two major goals the Free Software movement were founded on, it was about leveraging copyleft for income generation. Everyone needs to make a living, and that is totally fine, but when you say "Pretty sad from the free software movement's perspectice [sic]." what you really meant was "pretty sad from the perspective of using this license to generate income". Which, again, no judgement, it just changes the meaning of your post.

[matheusmoreira]

It is about freedom, but also about not being exploited.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120620103603/http://zedshaw.co...

> Why I (A/L)GPL

> Open source to open source, corporation to corporation.

> If you do open source, you’re my hero and I support you.

> If you’re a corporation, let’s talk business.

> I want people to appreciate the work I’ve done and the value of what I’ve made.

> Not pass on by waving “sucker” as they drive their fancy cars.

https://zedshaw.com/blog/2022-02-05-the-beggar-barons/

> To the Beggar Baron, open source's value is its free donation.

> You would never stand on the street and offer to buy the wallets off people who are about to donate a few dollars to you. That'd be stupid.

> They're giving you their money for free. Take it and run.

It's all about the community, about helping our fellow hackers out there, empowering them to take ownership of their computers and use them to the fullest extent.

It's not about helping corporations make billions without cutting us in.

The practice of selling permission to violate the GPL is literally blessed by Stallman, by the way. I even emailed him to confirm.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html

So the notion that this goes against the principles of the movement holds absolutely no water.

AGPLv3 gave corporations a choice: either comply and uphold the moral principles of software freedom, or fund development in exchange for permission to violate it. While permissive licenses just give it all away free of charge, AGPLv3 leverages: either we get freedom, or we get paid.

[bigstrat2003]

> Releasing software under permissive licenses is just wealth transfer from well meaning hackers straight into the pockets of corporations.

That is nonsense. A permissively licensed piece of software is every bit as free and a gift to the commons as a copyleft licensed piece of software. Yes, corporations get to use it, but so does everyone else. Free software was never about "fuck them corporations", it was about giving your work to others in order that all might benefit. Permissive licensing does that just fine.