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Comment by Radim | Hacker News Reader

The funny thing is, open source projects scramble to offer the most permissive license possible. It's either BSD/MIT or go home. I've seen people shit on projects that use copyleft (GPL, even LGPL, etc).

Sounds a little schizophrenic to complain about the (lack of) money at the same time?

I personally think this may be connected to the "academic" origins and mindset of much OSS. Everything's "free" in that world, which can make a software's transition into the world with real economic constraints and sustainability challenges somewhat painful.

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I would think that's because most open source projects don't start with money in mind, so their first goal is users. And as a user I can tell you GPL or even dual-licensing frustrates me, because it limits my options.

Consider: today I might be working on FOSS. But maybe tomorrow a friend asks me to help him with his (small) business, by e.g. adding a little bit of automation. Suddenly, all my knowledge and experience of GPL-ed libraries goes to waste, as I won't be able to use any of that to help my friend.

Given two equivalent libraries, one on GPL and one on MIT, I'll always go for the one on MIT. MIT, BSD, etc. seem to be the libraries that give you most options (I'd say freedom, but that's not how GPL sees freedom) while still maintaining the integrity of the library itself. Those are the licenses that best and at the same time satisfy the needs of developers who are not in it for money, and users who don't want to waste their brain cycles on going through possible legal scenarios around all their actual and imagined use cases.

> Suddenly, all my knowledge and experience of GPL-ed libraries goes to waste, as I won't be able to use any of that to help my friend.

Help me understand this please. In what legal way is GPL obstructing you as opposed to say an MIT or a BSD license.

GPL license has noting against use in a proprietary setting, its only if GPL'ed software is being sold/distributed, that it is required that the source and the changes be made available as GPL. Google uses GPL'ed software all the time and is far from the only one.

Last time I checked, the GPL, as opposed to LGPL or GPL with Classpath Extension, basically forced your product to become open source.

Only if you are distributing/selling the software to others. If you and your friend are using it as a company internal tool, GPL has no issues with that.

> In what legal way is GPL obstructing you as opposed to say an MIT or a BSD license.

Which one? 2 or 3?

I can totally understand why an entity (individual or business) would want the most options for themselves. It's completely natural, if a little selfish.

But the discussion here is about FOSS sustainability from the dev perspective, not yours as a user. Dual licensing was one option, proposed by the OP.

Or do you think it's OK that critical libraries like NumPy, Django, etc end up with scraps (if lucky), and then we read odes to that on HackerNews? Long-term planning needs a certain reliable continuum (no pun intended) of people and resources.

You know, experts able to meaningfully contribute at this level (core NumPy, core Scikit-learn, core Django, whatever) have very real trade-offs to make, regarding the cost of their labour, free time, family time etc, once out of academia. The "I HAZ BUG PLS FIX NOW, GIMME GIMME FREE" users are only one piece of the open source puzzle.

I'm sure your friend that runs a business understands this very well (or he'll be out of business quickly).

I agree what I presented is quite a selfish POV. What I was aiming at is an explanation why those very liberal licenses are attractive to developers at the initial stage of an open source project. Initially, the userbase is much more valuable than monetary contributions - I doubt that e.g. NumPy developers at the beginning of their work were confident that their project will end up being widely used by the financial sector.

The presented reasoning may indeed be a big part of the problem here. I'm just describing it, not encouraging it. I am definitely not happy to see so much open source being used as critical components of worldwide infrastructure and businesses, and yet receiving little support both in terms of money and professional effort. FWIW, I do donate the little spare money I have to open source projects.

Absolutely. Sustainability only becomes an issue when there's something to sustain :-)

Beginnings are a creative effort, undertaken by passionate pioneers (rarely in it for the money), with outcomes that are notoriously hard to predict in advance. The hallmark of academia.

That's why I said the later transition hurts -- it's a conceptual and cultural shift, not merely financial.

Don't they do that do get market share? I know it sounds crazy but it kinda makes sense. Get people using it and then figure out how to get monetary support from the users later. Although this second step often proves hard if you've already given away the goods.

I understand the GPL, but I personally prefer BSD/MIT and I am disappointed when I come across things I like in the GPL. IMO the GPL is not really 'free'.

On the other hand, the GPL wouldn't make a difference here unless they are actually distributing it and my understanding of LGPL means that they could do whatever they wanted to as long as they use NumPy and don't change it.

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