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Comment by arca_vorago | Hacker News Reader

"LibHTTP is licensed under the MIT license. Therefore the library can be used in both open and closed source projects."

I really don't want to be overly negative, and I applaud people for putting in work like this... but this is a perfect example of whats wrong with BSDesque licenses right here.

More people should at least consider gplv3'ing their stuff. So many of the bad stories we hear are side-effects from software that doesn't respect the user in the first place, with licenses that don't respect the user.

RMS was and is right.

If I may offer an alternative that respects the user, I have had great experiences with Hiawatha, and is my current standard webserver these days, even over nginx or apache. With an added bonus of being programmed with security in mind from the start, which is something we always hear people talk about wanting but how often do we actually see it?

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I don't understand this logic.

You get free software with few restrictions on what you're allowed to do with it. In what way is that "respecting" you less than similar software with more restrictions on what you can do with it? How does someone forcing more control over your actions in any way "respect" you more?

"the library can be used in both open and closed source projects."

When that source gets put in a product that is closed and then that product makes it to the user. How do people not understand this difference by now? Tivoization. It violates the four freedoms principle. That's how.

To quote zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC:

"A law that allows murder is more permissive and obviously does not increase freedom. It's simply a fallacy to think that not putting any limits on what any individual can do results in maximal freedom for society at large."

This argument for the GPL only wins in a fantasy land where all software has to be released under GPL or not at all. In reality, companies reject the GPL and just write their own code or adopt and contribute to permissively licensed projects, and that is what ends up "making it to the user".

You're telling authors to take away freedoms of its own users now, to prevent a potential bogeyman from taking away freedoms of other users in the future.

You can use permissively licensed code now and forever, because that can't be taken away once released. You're refusing to use it now on the off chance that in the future, someone modifies that code to do something else and give it to other users without the code. Your initial use still hasn't changed, and your right to use that initial code hasn't changed. You are not a user of the new, modified code, so your rights have not been impacted whatsoever.

In reality, companies reject the GPL and just write their own code

Right, so we either end up with more Free Software, or with more employment for us programmers. It's a clear win-win!

This is called the Perfect solution fallacy.

For most users the choise is not between a 50% proprietary product that uses an MIT library and a FOSS product that is 0% proprietary. The choice is between a 50% proprietary product and a 100% proprietary product and you are trying to take away their choice of the 50% proprietary product.

Complete eradication of proprietary software is not the expected outcome of MIT licensed libraries. The goal is reduction.

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