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timschmidtHNSource author
Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

I don't have any problem with your choices about how you license your code

… I don't have any problem with your choices about how you license your code. Everyone gets to do what they want. I can only say that the folks I've worked with don't bat an eye at MIT or BSD or Apache licensed dependencies, but know to ask about the GPL and avoid. That's about the extent of it. In my experience they do not even consider licensing under different terms - probably because it's only possible with carefully curated code in which there's only ever been one contributor, or every contributor has signed a CLA allowing the lead developer to relicense. > Looking back over history I think one has to be careful about grand narratives. They often leave out crucial details while painting a version of things as we want them to have happened, as opposed to the messy haphazard way things tend to happen. Hindsight is 20:20, but rose colored glasses can still throw it off.

Original discussionSwapping GNU coreutils for uutils coreutils on Gentoo Linux128 source comments · at import
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LE
lelanthranHN

The thing is, I don't really want to do a clause-by-clause, point/counterpoint "Chapter And Verse Citations" argument.[1] It's why I focus on the goals - they're clear and well-understood. And, to be clear, I was mostly on the fence about this (my open-source projects tend to be a mix of BSD/MIT and GPL) since around 1995. For my FLOSS experiments/projects, I'd pick a license based on the goal of the project: Popularity? Maybe BSD. Community? Definitely GPL. I changed my mind recently (started about a year ago, completely changed about 2 months ago). It's become clear that corporations (not all, just enough ) are simply scavenging of the effort of others. Looking back over history, the BSDs were mined extensively by corporations, who then never gave back. Compare with Linux, which was adopted extensively by corporations, and forced to give back. The latter had more valuable progress, fas…

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globular-toastHN

Linus himself has said licensing Linux under the GPL was one of the best things he did. He's great, but to achieve what Linux is today he'd need to have made himself a couple orders of magnitude bigger. Linus also acknowledges the "genius is one percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration" thing. And this coming from someone not renowned for being particularly humble. The folks you've worked with are looking for something they can take without giving back. It's as simple as that really. Either that or they just don't like the GPL for entirely irrational reasons, which is all too common. GPL is like "you can do whatever you like, except preventing others from doing what they like". Permissive zealots are like "boo! That's restrictive! I should be allowed to do anything I like!" Beats me why any thinking person would want a world like that.

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LE
lelanthranHN

> If anything, corporations seem to use Linux despite the GPL, because it has collected the best hardware support of any of the Free / Libre OS options. Well, yes, that's my point: It didn't get the best hardware support by allowing vendors to close of every single driver.[1] It's collected the best hardware support because those hardware manufacturers who write drivers contributed those drivers back to mainline, hence the reason for Linux's dominance over the competing FLOSS OSes. Compare to the BSDs, who collected NO hardware support from Apple. > I can only say that the folks I've worked with don't bat an eye at MIT or BSD or Apache licensed dependencies, but know to ask about the GPL and avoid. Maybe they ask, and maybe they avoid. My experience with those (very rare) clients who avoid is that they want to take a 99.99% complete solution, add their 0.01% contribution, and lock the re…

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