I’m a very much pro free software person and I used to think that GPL is basically the only possible option when it comes to benefits for free software (and not commercial use), but I’ve recently realised this question is actually much more ambiguous.

I think there are two sides to this issue:

  • GPL forces all contributions to stay open-source which prevents commercialisation* of FOSS projects, but also causes possible interference of corporate software design philosophy and all kinds of commercial decisions, if contributions come from companies.
  • MIT-like permissive licenses, on the other hand, easily allow for making proprietary forks, which, however, separates commercial work from the rest of the project, therefore making the project more likely to stay free both of corporate influence and in general.

So it boils down to the fact, that in my opinion what makes free software free is not only the way it’s distributed but also the whole philosophy behind it: centralisation vs. decentralisation, passive consumer vs. co-developper role of the user etc. And this is where things start to be a bit controversial.

What do you think?

*UPD: wrong word. I mean close-sourcing and turning into a profitable product instead of something that fulfils your needs

  • illusionist@lemmy.zip
    2·
    20 days ago

    Gpl doesn’t prevent monetisation/commercialisation. Many popular devs just choose not to.

    You can also dual license, providing another license for companies that wish not to publish their code for a goal project.

    I don’t comprehend your reasoning of MIT projects staying free from corporate influence. There are lots of MIT projects that are carried by companies.

  • رضا@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    16 days ago

    I have the opposite opinion about this issue.

    MIT-like licenses allow corpos to take over a project and make it private step by step (kinda like boiling a frog), first create a “open source” fork and fund it to the max. then step by step make it not open source. after a while (could be years) there is no open source influence and most of the project is under the command of the corpo.

    the most recent one being android.

    I have come to the conclusion that people that use MIT-like licenses don’t care at all about software freedom (which is kinda obvious if you read MIT license itself).

    so I try to contribute to projects that are immune to that by using copy-left licenses ,so called viral licenses that “limit” the ability of corpos to take over a project with the intention of making private or even create a private fork of it.

    you are corporation and want to contribute to a project to make it better? cool, so it would not matter to you if the license is MIT or GPL? right??? you don’t want to do a sneaky fork and make it private, right? so you would have no issue with GPL.

    when free software devs recommend using MIT-like licenses I am reminded of the meme cartoon about sheep recommending befriending the wolf.

    It is almost like they learned nothing from software development trends of rent seeking private sector.

    the beauty of GPL-like is that I can be sure when I help it make better I am not helping a private entity later take it over and privatize it. I want to help humanity not help private sector make money with propriety software.

    when you make your license MIT-like you are not saying I am maximizing software freedom. you are saying I don’t care what happens to this software.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
    0·
    20 days ago

    GPL because abstract freedoms are meaningless. The goal should be to ensure that the code stays open and that corps aren’t freeloading of it.

    • myszka@lemmy.mlOP
      0·
      20 days ago

      Well, for me personally the way the software is developped and designed is not something abstract. Centralisation and bloating, for example, makes understanding and developping software a significant amount more difficult which puts you in a more passive role and so making you much less free

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
        0·
        20 days ago

        Centralization, bloating, and GPL are all orthogonal concepts that bear no direct relation to each other. A centralized project does not necessarily become bloated, nor does GPL play any role in whether a project is centralized or not.

        • myszka@lemmy.mlOP
          0·
          20 days ago

          There’s no direct relation, yes, but centralisation and bloating are both things commercial software development tends to because of the nature of developper-consumer relations. And GPL forces companies to contribute their code which is often based on those principles back to the original project. So I think there is indirect relation.

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
            0·
            20 days ago

            No, GPL does not force companies to do that. It forces companies to make their source code available. There is zero requirement that it has to be contributed to the original project, nor do the maintainers of the project have to accept changes they don’t want. You’re completely misrepresenting the how GPL works here.

            • myszka@lemmy.mlOP
              0·
              20 days ago

              Okay maintainers don’t have to, but they usually end up doing so as those contributions are still valuable. The key point is that even though free software is called “free”, a huge chunk of it is going through the same process of “enshitification” as proprietary software, because of being developped by companies and being a part of this corporate, non-free world. So separating that from FOSS by letting companies keep their work by themselves seems to help a little bit.

              • pineapple@lemmy.mlEnglish
                0·
                19 days ago

                I don’t think your argument makes sense logically. Are you saying that copyleft software is enshitififying because big companies are pushing too many (optional) contributions? Are you aware that software maintainers don’t have to merge the contributions these people are pushing? With MIT like software contributers don’t even have the option to merge or not to merge because these companies just make a proprietary fork.

                • myszka@lemmy.mlOP
                  0·
                  19 days ago

                  Are you aware that software maintainers don’t have to merge the contributions these people are pushing?

                  Yes, I literally said that in the first line of the comment you’re replying to.

                  Are you saying that copyleft software is enshitififying because big companies are pushing too many (optional) contributions?

                  Yes. I’m not saying that always happens, but I do believe many projects enshitified a good amount because a lot of their contributors have become big companies. Or sometimes companies make an entirely new project that is enshitified from the very beginning but still gets included in other FOSS projects. Both merging a contribution or including a project are optional, but since FOSS projects get involved in this whole producer-customer relations model, where everything is done centrally by the developer and served ready-to-use to passive consumers, merging those contributions kinda becomes an actual need of users. So yeah, if you dig deeper, it’s ultimately the very involvement in this commercial centralised production model and not just companies, that causes enshitification, but I still think that letting companies just fuck off and do their own centralised thing separately from decentralised DIY-like development which, to my mind, is actual freedom, might help.