alt Hacker NewsMIT licensed code is a gift. A gift indeed doesn't require the recipient to give back anything related to the gift.
A "gift" requiring GPL-like conditions isn't really a gift in the common sense. It's more like a contractual agreement with something provided and specific, non-negotiable obligations. They're giving while also asserting control over others' lives, hoping for a specific outcome. That's not just a gift.
People doing MIT license are often generous enough where the code is a gift to everyone. They don't try to control their lives or societal outcomes with extra obligations. They're just giving. So, I'm grateful to them for both OSS and business adaptations of their gifts.
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I agree, and even if a company doesn't give back, they further the popularity and sustainability of the project. Isn't Python an MIT-like license (PSFL)? As well as React and Godot? And Tensorflow is also permissive with Apache 2.0, corrrect?
MIT is throwing a free party where food and drinks are paid for, and copyleft is where food is paid for but you BYOB. Both are fine, so what's the problem?
> It's more like a contractual agreement with something provided and specific, non-negotiable obligations.
The obligation is not to the author of the code, it is to the public. MIT-style licenses are gifts to people and companies who produce code and software, copyleft licenses are gifts to the public.
I don't give a shit about the happiness of programmers any more than the happiness of garbage collectors, sorry. I don't care more that you have access to the library you want to use at your job writing software for phones than I care that somebody has access to the code on their own phone. You're free to care about what you want, but the pretense at moral superiority is incoherent.
It is non-negotiable. GPL is basically proprietary software. It's owned by the public, and all of the work that you do using it belongs to the public. If you steal it, you should be sued into the ground.
A gift where the recipient can remove the freedoms that they've been enjoying themselves is a bad deal for ensuring those freedoms are available to everyone. A permissive license is a terrible idea for a F/LOSS kernel.
This is the paradox of tolerance, essentially.
Also, seeing F/LOSS as a "gift" is an awful way of looking at it.
While the FSF's vision for the GPL is clear, the GPL itself is not so powerful that it is more than a "gift" that has some terms if you want to do certain things you are not obligated to do. It is like a grant that enforces some reasonable conditions so the money isn't just misappropriated. I wouldn't give that to a friend for their birthday, but I think it's reasonable that powerful organizations should not be free to do whatever they want. Not that the GPL is perfect for that use, but it's good.