I generally prefer the MIT license for my personal projects. But I do stupid retro shit with no commercial value or any real tangible way to fundamentally alter how people work or communicate or do business.
I just want to put code out into the world without restriction - but that is a luxury I don't feel very conflicted about since the commercial applications of putting cat photos on floppy disks is quantifiably zero.
To be fair I've seen the opposite happen as well, where people will take code released into the public domain and write Rust bindings for it and release those as GPL or some other more restrictive license, and I think that sucks too.
How hard is it to just - keep the same license? Just preserve the author's intent. They had a vision in mind and made a choice when they put their creative energies out into the world. Pass that forward.
The idea that you can cleanroom a codebase with an LLM to safely pivot licensing is really not anything I need to waste words arguing is the thought process of the worst sort of dipshit tech bro.
If you're on the fediverse you know this already.
At least this latest indignity to human creativity doesn't seem to involve Rust, a language I deeply love but one that also has a serious Bro problem and is being wielded in similar sorts of license-washing.
My worry is that the MIT license itself will become something like a scarlet letter. I am really not a proponent of GPL-by-default.
If someone wants to take my code and use it in an indie game or something I want them to be able to do that and not feel like they need to release their source code or pay me or do anything other than have my name in a readme somewhere.
It just makes me happy every time I get even the slightest hint that something I put effort in could be used in some way by someone else.
These are different kinds of liberties. I respect that the GPL prevented wholesale looting of volunteer efforts by corporations and the world would be a worse place without it.
But there is a space I think for unencumbered code, just ideas that float freely in the intellectual aether anyone is free to pluck down and use as they please.
@gloriouscow I am quite sick of holier than thou Linux nerds who insist the GPL is the only true way and is 'free software'. MIT and other BSD adjacent languages are true freedom - take the code, do what you want!
The GPL does not really prevent wholesale looting. It tries to enforce contribution, whereas MIT just implies it to anyone with a brain cell.
Have to say I tend to be quite binary about this. Whilst I understand the GPL viewpoint, and you're not wrong that the original author's intent should be preserved, in an ideal world it's in reality a choice between :
release code open source, knowing it will be taken from you
keep the source closed. Defend it legally.
If you want to make money from your own entirely open source system, you're going to have to make some non ideal compromises.
gloriouscow
Pete / Syllopsium