[law]

> FeedSnap's goal is simple: to provide a reliable, capable, and actively maintained FeedBurner replacement for your beloved RSS feed.

In keeping with that goal, is there any chance that you will open source the work you've done under a GPLv3 license? Perhaps the largest problem is that every service claims to be "reliable, capable, and actively maintained" until it isn't.

[ComputerGuru]

We'd definitely release the source if we were to scuttle it. But not GPL (especially not v3), more like MIT or BSD :)

[law]

Would you mind expanding upon why you presumably prefer GPLv2 over v3? Additionally, if you prefer the MIT/BSD licensing model, why not choose Apache v2?

[ComputerGuru]

Apache is fine, too (though there aren't any patents involved so it has no real advantage). Apache v2, BSD, MIT, are all in the same open spirit - Apache is just more explicit about what it gives away.

It's important to understand that when FSF talks about "freedom" they explicitly mean keeping the users free - not the developers. As a developer, I'm personally biased towards being free to other developers, and I think GPL (v2 and esp. v3) are very much pro-user at the cost of being anti-developer.

[law]

> It's important to understand that when FSF talks about "freedom" they explicitly mean keeping the users free - not the developers. As a developer, I'm personally biased towards being free to other developers, and I think GPL (v2 and esp. v3) are very much pro-user at the cost of being anti-developer.

I don't think that's what the FSF means when they talk about freedom. Freedom is about keeping everyone free--developers and users alike. Copyleft licenses ensure that all derivative works be subject to the same licensing terms as the original work. It's a way to protect the self-perpetuating nature of free software that more permissive licenses fail to achieve.