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Expurplelast Friday at 4:12 PM3 repliesview on HN

From a developer/business point of view, there's no reason to use a more restrictive GPL dependency if it's not clearly "superior" to a permissively-licensed one.

The article makes a case that this will eventually push GPL out of the mainstream. No one will use GPL because they "have to" (which is the whole premise of copyleft!). It will only be used by enthusiasts


Replies

singpolyma3last Friday at 4:47 PM

If the business wants to develop non open source software, then having them not use the GPLd project and thus profit off the free labour of others is a wonderful outcome.

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phkahlerlast Friday at 4:43 PM

But software developed by enthusiasts might be better than software designed by managers and hoards of beginners using AI.

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ranger_dangerlast Friday at 4:15 PM

I think those same people I mentioned would argue that being mainstream is also not a project goal, nor is utilization by corporations at all.

I have to admit I think a lot of people with this sort of "death to capitalism" mindset simply won't get anywhere, because they literally don't want to. I guess that means they may eventually fade into obscurity.

But the majority of project leaders I have talked to all seem to follow this mindset... they're not interested in making money, and "this is not a popularity contest."

Yet when a fork inevitably emerges, they go nuclear. Reminds me of a quote I saw one time... "they don't want open source, they want to be the ONLY source."